Redjeans
Whoops (Part 4)
Sun Sep 18, 2022 12:31
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Part 4

06/18/2016

What if you could rearrange your favourite book, rewrite it, change the ending? I wasn’t going to just remain a passive observer. I wanted to know the story behind the fiction. I wanted to know all about Chuck and what made him tick. Firstly, he was devastating. I’ll admit it. Even in this grizzled state, I could tell he was a bit of rake. The black leather jacket was a bit 90s but he definitely had a way about him. Let’s be honest, he wasn’t an idealized version of the tortured artist, he was a tortured artist. He was burned out. I assumed whatever he had been up to for the last decade of relative anonymity must have been something akin to a state of ecstatic neurosis. But there was more. It wasn’t just indulging in vice which if I were to believe tabloid accounts, he was guilty as charged. But he had started seeing and hearing things. Airplanes. Flight paths. Maybe I was merely one of those visions? A creature weaved within his personal myth, a manifestation? Was he the author or were we writing the story together and how would it end? Would it culminate in a splatter of sex, death and violence like his books or would we live happily ever after?

This is a story about a nerdy girl who served her favourite author a few cups of coffee day and struck up a friendship with him. For me, a girl that loves books, this was the equivalent of meeting a movie star or an athlete. Now, I’m writing a novel about him and he doesn't suspect a thing. His name is Chuck Glass, this man. This mystery man. He calls himself a detective of experience in his half-mocking, half-serious, self-aggrandizing way. As if writing is some kind of dark art that only he has access too. It was funny to witness his shock and befuddlement when he realized that I was a fellow traveler, a card-carrying sleuth in the mold of C. Auguste Dupin or Miss Marple.  

This is my secret, my one secret. Everyone needs one. This is mine. I look in the mirror when I am alone and feel this secret enveloping me, protecting me, buoying me—like an enchanted amulet. For a second, at the speed of thought, I lie outside of time, for one beautiful instant. And then I feel my spirit tumble back down to earth. I turn the shower on and return to look at my reflection as the moisture of the bathroom thickens and my face begins to blur. But the story doesn’t end there. This story is a mystery. It’s about the mystery of looking in a mirror and wondering who is this person? What happened to me? In this case, it was what happened to him, the man I was so fascinated by, the writer whose words held such power over me.

    • **** aa, Sun Oct 30 04:50
      Hello Redjeans :-) Took me 4ish wks ie month (about 20-30ish mins per click visit) to read Your inter-webnet self-published "short story" _Whoops_ [or novella, if You prefer ;-)] Was an excellent,... more
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