I see you've tried to regulate the first 2 paras. There was a confusion with tenses in the first version. I feel, though, that you've gone in the wrong direction. Using present tense seemed more affecting, to me. Of course you'd have to staighten the second line of the second para.

eg...I try to enlist friendly strangers to help me. They sense my panic. They want to help. But before I can even ....etc. Of course you'd have to work in the imagery of the missing purse, which adds to the general sense of confused loss.

Just a thought.

I felt a kind of monotony to the sentence structure. Every sentence appears to begin with I, he, they, it, as, in, with, then.

Reading, at least for me, remained flat and without lightness.

Part of the job of the writer, especially when using a first person narrator, is to give a sense of life to the character. If she is boring, why should I read about her? If she sounds more like a new writer than an old character, what do I have to look forward to?

When using first person, you are allowed to slice and dice thoughts to make them more like dialogue. A third person narrator is confined but at the same time, free to use the level of narration that pleases him or her. A good narrator can write about a moron and use high level narration though low level dialogue! If the first person narration isn't an interesting character and creates reason for the reader to continue ... you get the point?

So, her thinking might be more shortcut as a first person: "Left behind again. How ... futile the feeling and how often it has recurred in my life. Check my back. Am I wearing a 'kick me!' sign?"

When you use first person narration, you need to bring her to life. If you make it sound like a reading of the first codicil of Herbie Abernathy's will, then you have an obligation to make it ... the codicil to Herby's will!

There was also a disturbing image caused by a small word IN. If you slept IN a fold-up sofa, think about where that would leave you!

Keep working on it. You have a story. Now you have to show it instead of telling it.

Aha! Alrighty then. The makeover needs more making over, I see. Thank you.

W,

Somehow the revision seems lacking in that mysterious, evocative ghostly quality that infused the first draft.

Knowing your sure hand with verse I might suggest you try this as a poem.

Just a thought...

Ah! possibly not. What a thought though.

I loved nebrads first person stream of cousiousness thing. So effortless and funny. (So not like Herbert Abernathy's will.) I'm keeping on with it. There's something of a story there I need to tell.

I agree. I actually liked the first one, thought that the fuzziness fit the theme quite well. I just thought the tenses needed straightened out and that the one sentence in the first paragraph needed to be split.

Also, the first one was more personal, more mournful. It is true that one can mourn the living - especially those with problems that leave the shell breathing but the spirit flown.

Westerly, I also liked the first one better, because the vagueness epitomized the dream state. There was an ethereal quality to it, as well.

This version is much more prosaic, like you're recounting a dream to a friend at lunch. The first version felt like the dream itself.