This story, oddly, frustrated me. It wasn't that I couldn't follow it; after a while, I just didn't care. I found the narrative style too disjointed to develop any real empathy with the characters. Everything was strange but the setting had enough in common with the real world that each unusual note ended up conflicting with the setting rather than contributing to it. While the reader is expecting a strange storyscape right from the beginning -when the damsel in distress falls apart into a pile of gum balls- we are never offered any insight into the mechanisms or methods of this madness. It is the opposite of "show don't tell": we aren't told enough. At the same time, as I'll note in a second, we are told, rather than shown, some very key elements.
A surreal story can be excellent but the fundamental need of the reader to connect with someone -anyone- is still there.
I'm afraid I have already forgotten the main character's name in the tale. The only names I really recall are the very unique "Corpse" and "Vampire" along with the relatively grounded character "Monique".
Perhaps I also balked at what I saw to be an unhappy ending. True, the protagonist still has -as we see- the things that truly make him happy but those items -numbers and corporate America- aren't things I can identify with loving.
At all.
I more identified with his professed love for the damsel-in-distress.
And here's the odd thing: about his motivations, we are told, not shown. The only thing we have shown to us about what drives him is his quest to save his girlfriend ... the one thing for which he fails to reap any reward or validation. Everything else about what drives him is told to the reader.
This contrasts with the shown-not-told, surreal world elements which are maddeningly dropped into the narrative without elaboration.
Sure, this means I can construct my own interpretation and get a feel for the story on my own terms, but in much the same way that I don't go to the "modern" wing of an art museum very often, I find it lacking. It is as if the creator of the piece wanted to let the audience decide what it means without realizing that -for any piece of artwork- the audience already does just that. Adding purposefully vague and surreal elements, without giving justification or grounding for their presence, smacks of pretension or merely adding things for the sake of adding them.
In any event, I did not care for this story despite it's uniqueness. There just wasn't anything I could latch onto or identify with in any meaningful way.
I look forward to future stories on this podcast, even those that are somewhat experimental or strange.
Yours,
Sylvan (Dave)