[Rushmore]

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I'll be responding again tomorr with what turns out to be the final submission copy.

I don't think the ambiguity of setting matters to the theme of the story. That said, writername is correct in what I was personally thinking writing it.

Rushmore,

I don't think I was trying to be overly clever. I wasn't trying to pull a huge veil over their heads to mislead them entirely. I just simply said that the room would hear it, so naturally, the reader assumes Jackson did too. Then I hint at the contrary two sentences later. It isn't like I set the reader up and then 200 pages later say "it was all a dream" or something too crazy.

I just wanted a small bit of something to add substance to it (which I really think it does add). But obviously a piece of literature likely won't please everyone, and certainly not something constrained to 200 words.

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In retrospect, what I think I probably meant to say was that the most effective and artistic writing (particularly short story writing) that I have read doesn't use any sort of device whatsoever.

Again, i'll bring up Carver, because he is such a fine example of what I'm saying. His craft is so finely honed that aside from flat-out brilliance with the language, there is a poingnancy to the tales he tells as well.

That said, I guess it's funny that I mentioned Fight Club here, which has one of the most definitive "clever devices" I can think of.

Excuse me..."of which I can think."