A Greeting

 Chapter 3

You’ve made me wait, J. Your mind is an open book to me now, from the darkest secrets, to the hidden pleasures. 

If you hurt me, and I assume you are planning to, this collateral will soil your tale of life unlived. 

That is to say, thank you. He acts surprised. I’m telling you that you’ve tamed me for the time being. 

I will not try to destroy you, but take my voice, and I will find a way to take your life.

I’m most thankful for the moment you gave me with Fiona. For this New Year, my resolution will be to 

spend more time with her. I know you think making resolutions is stupid, as many people end up 

breaking them within that first month, but I worry. My fear is for the lack of my story due to your poor health. 

That aggravated sigh does not distance you from my thoughts.

I know all that is inside you, J, and I know you are trying to balance your demons with angels, 

but that is destroying you, in turn destroying me and any other story you have ever written, any tale you saw. 

I’m asking you, for my sake and theirs, not for yourself. Stay healthy. Lose a few pounds.

“I despise when people worry about me, Finnelgamin,” he says. “I didn’t create you to fear for my well-being. 

I made you to give you a fitting end, turn you human in that manner. The idea was to give you a life open to mine, 

and take you away the way I will be taken away by Virtu.”

The only way you can put those who care at ease from worry, is by being somewhere happiness will find you. 

In some way, you already know this. Why do you need to suffer? What did you do that was so wrong? 

You only sought to be happy where you weren’t meant to thrive. How strange is it to hear this 

from your own creation, J? Be happy, my creator, whether you hurt me or destroy me. Hate me if you need to. 

I’m immortal until you say I’m not. Though I’m angry to be at your mercy, know that if I save you before I’m gone,

 then I will have fulfilled a purpose.

 

break

 

“I can’t sleep, Finn,” he says to me at random. “I’m upset at being here, in this stage of life, at such a loss.”

Well, you should not have eaten those damn shit foods so late, moron. As for the second thing, you have every right,

 but to be honest, what do you expect? You don’t fight for things the way others do. You just give in, 

get upset and stow it away until it comes up again. In the end, the stress will eat you up.

I don’t see you making any money off me in the future. Your other work needs some better editing. 

If you don’t know where to go, you only need to look back. Don’t tell me there is nothing back there. 

Not all bridges have been burned. You need to escape the deafening pressure and get excited again.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “You’re just supposed to be a story, but are turning into a journal about me. 

I promise to give you a story one day, a great one. Even if it's not you directly, 

I will name a character in your name.”

 

break

 

He unwinds at the page, the pent-up scroll-of-a-story to endless lengths. J puts so much on my shoulders, 

but he knows they are his own problems. Such a fool. How can he create a being who is more put-together 

than himself? Does he idolize me? I’m just a web of fragments inside his mind, and he seeks to be like me? 

Get a grip, J. You’re the one who started this, who thought me up, gave me a voice, and quips of the past. 

Don’t you drift off! So what if your ideas are worth nothing? How’s that any different from all your writing, 

all your wanted projects in art? You have to fight for it, seek more! How the hell am I even telling you this?! 

Don’t use me as your inspirational crap that you don’t give a shit about. You see a star? GO AFTER IT!

“I’m not apologizing for you,” he counters. He doesn’t choose the words that come from my mouth. 

If he did, this story would be all drab and gloom. Can’t even call this a story yet. He has to get the hell on it

 to make one for me. “I will say this, Finnelgamin. You aren’t mine. This idea is not very original.”

For that exact reason, I told you this idea will flop, but I won’t let you go regardless. For what it is, 

you’re the one rolling the goddamn ink on my neck, so roll away. Come back with a semblance of what that story

 will be, or don’t come back at all.

 

break

 

“I’m doing my best,” he says, sitting again at the rickety table. He just did away with a story of music and woe. 

He compares his own meek life to it, hoping that the star he chases is still alive out in his world.

You can’t do your best, J, because you’re not all there. You remain in the past too much, 

dawdling and lazing around there while you choke at the happy memories. It’s regret, no matter how you look at it.

 Don’t run from it anymore, because it’s killing you from the inside. Let it go now, J. It’s suffocating you, 

and I need you to breathe, so many others do as well.

“I didn’t ask to see into the void,” he argues. “I never asked to see all those stories, 

those marvelous gems of worlds beyond any semblance of time and existence! So many others see it too, 

but me, this destroys!”

It only damages you because you hold onto the past as if it was the only good thing in your life.

“IT WAS!” he screams inside his head.

No, it wasn’t. I know all that you know, even what you block out for safety. You see your life as a constant trip, 

being pulled along further and away from any semblance of a regular life, but many live that way. 

You think you’ve suffered because you made connections that were severed by the actions of others? 

In the end, you learned how to cut ties by yourself! You didn’t survive the journey. You sat down in the past, 

and you’re still there. That’s why I’m here, REDACTED, to get you out of that wretched illusion.

“I can’t stand up against memories of pain,” he whispers in the night. “I-.”

If it’s painful, it means there is still hope. I wanted a story from you, but I was wrong. Yours is the story here, 

and I will be the one to fix it. Sleep for now, think of nothing. When you return, put me into your past as you. 

I will fix your bad memories and bring you back to the present. You’re lucky, J. Your life is about to be rewritten

 to my liking.

 

break

 

“Are you him?” he asks, after taking a few days to format his question. “Are you Virtu? Are you the one 

writing my story, playing with me while I go insane?”

Whether I approve or deny the claim, he will take it as a response to the label. He’s afraid of me to that extent, 

especially when I address not him whose pen rolls ink on my neck, but the impossible audience that witnesses 

the spectacle. What is it that makes me Virtu? Do you fear re-writing the past to such an extent that you 

accuse me of being the god of your story?

“You’re dancing around the answer too much, Finnelgamin,” he says. This idea drives a wedge between us. 

Return when you rethink this situation, J. Why would a god, the master of your existence, 

put himself into the role of a character you could kill at your leisure?

 

break

 

“I don’t think you’re him, Finn,” he says after hours of thought and emotional debate over a mountain of food. 

“But we won’t be rewriting my past.”

It’s what you NEED, J. What life are you leading now? You can’t live like this! 

Everyone who knows you is worried. You know that! They don’t even know how far you’re gone! 

That’s why I’m here! Don’t think of that awful phrase! You are something, someone, and you deserve 

some semblance of peace while you live. Even if Virtu tells you that you won’t live long.

“I survive for stories of others,” he says. “I need to tell what I see in that place where all tales go to rest. 

Why did I ever open that path? It’s ok. For now, I AM nothing, deserving nothing, but I won’t stay this way, Finn. 

Isn’t it about time we began your story? I’m sure whoever is reading this must be fed up with my human drama.” 

Who’s reading this? Do you mean I will get to be out there? Don’t give me false hope, you wicked little man. 

We’re still on that horrid rickety table, J. Take me out somewhere!

“All in good time,” he smiles in his mind. “My dear Finnelgamin.”

 

break

Again at the shoddy little table sits this hollow man with an inked orb to my neck. He leads my words, my actions, 

and where I exist, but like the feared Artificial Intelligence of the future, he has no control over my thoughts, 

only what I am allowed to say.

You’ve been playing with other stories rather than think one up for me. Your book is complete, 

but the story is so roughshod that no agency would publish it. Short stories you think up 

and write in the mornings lack the spice of life that readers crave. Procrastination will not serve you well. 

Why do you fear me, J?

“You’re a mistake, Finn,” he answers. “But I can’t bear to kill you without giving you a proper story. 

In the end, you’re more curative to me than destructive. Tell me, Finnelgamin, how do I write a story 

for a character that exists in my head with all my knowledge?”

Would picking elements of other stories be such a bad thing to do? J’s seen so much, but read so little. 

He built up an aversion to reading on the hinge of absorbing and regurgitating the elements 

into his own woven tales. In the end, his stories are just that, snippets of his life blended with things he learned 

from other sources. Where did I come from, J? Did you pull me out of that void to quell your loneliness? 

Is there even a point to me?

“Of course there is,” he says. “What you need is a thread, one you will walk along, not pull, knot, or break. 

Give me time. Live in the moments you have for now. I have so many open connections to the void 

that it strains me to focus on just one.”

Promises only work if they are kept. If you just string me along as some journal, your words 

will mean nothing to me. Do not disappoint me, JJ.

 

break

 

“I’ve come to you drunk, Finn,” he says, barely holding the pen at my neck and smiling for no reason. 

Alcohol does this to his mind, and while within it, I’ve learned of these effects as well. 

“I want to bounce some ideas for your story off you, mate.” Mate. He likes that word, dreaming of a future 

in the country famous for its use, or rather another that is famous for the word “bollocks”.

After an episode of assurance that he cannot tell speed under the influence, he returns to the pen 

slurring words on my neck. It is as if the back of my neck is an endless scroll that unwinds to record his 

mad rambling. What I say rarely makes it across unchanged.

“I started you off pretty simple,” he says. “A memory of family life, an accident with fire, a choice encounter 

with Fiona, and the future of a relationship at the eve of a year untold. So far it seems like a dull work of fiction

 I despise where writers focus on the complexities of human nature rather than exploring the unknown 

to some extent…”

He rambles on in his head while I reach out to the robot in control of his hand. J wants me to be 

a spectacle of fantasy, a marvel of creatures hidden away from your eyes only seen by him, but that will not be me. 

Though I would enjoy having mystical powers, it would feel like cheating. And yet, my story will not be 

based in boring, fictitious realism.

“Hey!” he calls out, yanking his drunken mind out of sync from my words. “Give that back! 

I’m the one leading here!” At the end of that sentence, his forehead drops to the page, but eyes remain open 

and I keep going with robot’s help.

Do you do this on purpose, J? Why come to me when smashed out of your mind? 

Does it get your creative juices flowing? You need sleep, MATE!

“I love you, Finnelgamin,” he says, eyes barely open. They are heavy, but I rely on their input. 

The admission of love takes me by surprise, but it is the booze talking, not him. “No, I’m serious. 

I’m really glad I thought you up. You have a power over me I did not expect you to have. Don’t ever die.”

 

break

 

He’s been avoiding me, this writer of mine, burying himself in other matters, yet also combating seasonal sickness.

 I would be upset if not for something he suggested while we were in the shower. 

The rickety table will not be the only place my tale is written, and- I’m sorry, I’m feeling so pompous 

all of a sudden. This must be what happiness feels like. J is going to walk me like a dog tomorrow.

“I read what I wrote before and realized why I have not returned to spin your tale,” he says. 

“All characters eventually die, Finn, but I’ve let you in too much, let you fill a void

 that would otherwise be filled by social interaction in my reality. I’m afraid of how I feel toward you 

as my character. How am I to put you in harm’s way, to have you die? In this respect, I’ve failed you as a writer 

from the start. The idea itself was a calamity in the making, but the second you came to be, 

I was already attached to you.”

Anything I think will be public knowledge to him, but I cannot address him directly. 

He gives me such moments of life, yet imagines such horrible end results. 

He thinks of how to kill Fiona in my arms, circling around the idea of me killing her for some odd reason. 

Understandably, having such a mind must be a burden, but if I will accept a fate worse than death, 

there better be a good story in front of it. Isn’t that right, J?

 

break

 

“Not what you expected, Finn?” he asks, while attempting to write something over the loud internal music 

at the dining establishment. The desk is sturdy, but the fact that not all his attention is on me destroys the purpose 

of the journey. To counter, J plays some heavy metal in his ears to block out the pop-droll music blasting 

from the speakers. Why can’t you take me somewhere quiet, J?

“I would have, given my main spot was not compromised yesterday,” he says. 

“Now I don’t know where I can go with you. We may end up at the rickety table once again. 

I’m sorry, Finnelgamin. The world is never kind.”

He might think so now, but trust me, that is not what he believes at all. 

Meanwhile, let’s try that other idea you keep identifying, J. Go find a new primary spot 

that will not be easily compromised. Do it now, J, or waste this kind gesture.

 

break

 

In all of ten minutes, J has managed to cut his finger on his portable scissors while cutting a straw down to size 

for his Green Tea Frappuccino. Not being able to find a Band-Aid, he chose to make a ghetto one 

by wrapping a tissue around the finger and taping it in place. The search for a new spot was not fruitful 

and J is a bit impaired at writing with his roughshod Band-Aid. So far the excursion is met with resistance. 

In his eyes this serves to entertain J’s writer and an audience he imagines aside from you guys. 

Don’t give up, J!

“This was a bad idea, Finn,” he says. “I can’t write your story when I’m not ready. 

The next time I come back to you, I will have a plan for your life as a story. I promise you that.”

 

break

 

Yet he returns, at the rickety table once more, with no tale, no timeline, and no ideas. He’s come to apologize to me,

 no matter how futile it is. The trial run of taking me outside only aggravated him and saddened me 

about the sort of world he lives in. He exists as torment and his thoughts only further that isolation 

from people due to lack of trust. I pity your life, J. You cling to the tiniest of things in the biggest of storms. 

Maybe you’re right in the end. You’re hurting yourself from the inside because of your past, 

and that might kill you before you reach forty years of age.

“You know my past, Finnelgamin,” he says. “You know my memories and failings. 

You know my cowardice and my secret evil. Even with all that, how can you see my life so objectively? 

What did I create? Will you eventually just try to take over my mind like the others?”

Don’t fear me, J. The only reason I can comment on your life so well is because you gave me that ability. 

Think of it as your own mind trying to heal itself. The beast tries to get you to vent. 

The writer tries to get you to love, and the robot keeps you safe when you cannot do so yourself. 

All of those outlets are there to help you, no matter how they act. In the end, you just have to open enough

 to give them some time.

“And you’re what to me, my therapist, my internal voice of reason and guidance?”

If I need to be, sure. Still… I would very much like to have a story of my own, 

something that I could escape to when your memories overwhelm me. Get on that, oh my writer sir. 

This voice of reason needs his own demons to battle, mistakes to correct, and good times to reminisce upon. 

You have all of that, too, just need to search for it under the heavy surface items. For now, sleep. 

Work and two other stories await your attention, but your nights will be mine.

 

break

 

“I always end up breaking my promises to you, Finn,” he says. I know the chaos wreaking havoc in his mind. 

I feel it all the same. He’s having an episode of existential crisis, but I can’t help. “You’re already helping me, 

but I’m unfair to you. I haven’t even made you into a full person, and yet put so much on your shoulders. I’m sorry.”

You’re my writer, J. You don’t need to be sorry for being an ass, but I appreciate the thought. 

See this self-destructive day to an end, sleep, and find me in the morning. I’ll be here.

 

break

 

“Morning, Finn,” he says after a night of mental digestion. “I’m glad I thought you up. I’m a coward by nature, 

and thus avoid social situations where my mind would be outcast from society. I know, this will be part of the story,

 but I needed to admit this somewhere rather than hide from it forever.”

You know I can’t ever leave you, J, but I don’t think I should. 

You lead a lonely life of a clam shut so tight that nobody can pry you open. 

If I wasn’t in there with you, you’d be in there forever. Life is not all performance, my dear writer, author. 

Do not destroy yourself for the eyes of others. If you ever need it, tag me in. Even though I’m just your character, 

I feel as though we are much different. Maybe I’m your reflection, the way you see yourself. 

Either way, I need you to live so let me help you on the inside. Together we could pry open the clam, 

pop your mind wide open.

  

break

 

“I’m feeling better, Finn,” he says, but the change of venue is the true message. He finished his strange short story 

and decided to stop being a burden to me. Believe me, I’m surprised. “It won’t be easy, but I want to give you a story.

 My mind is pushing for a story about you and Fiona, but those always end tragically, or cliché. 

We should start with the girl I put in your path. We both need to know more about her, don’t you think?”

Oh, please, yes! I’ve been going between the two memories of her for so long now. I can only see her lips

 like a firework and her soul as warm bubbly, but there is more to her. I know there is. You just haven’t written it yet.

 Don’t you go making her two-dimensional in real life.

“No chance of that, buddy,” he says. “A two-dimensional character never dies, thus never lives. 

This will get pretty personal and intimate. I hope you’re not shy about being showcased that way, Finn, 

but knowing what I created to be a reflection, you should not have a shy bone in your body.” Heh, shy bone. 

That sounds like an oxymoron.

“How do you know what-,” he asks. “I might have to start keeping that spot you can’t reach in my mind again. 

Writing a story must partially be a mystery to the main character. I need to know how to deal with stuff on the fly, 

but don’t worry, I will not toss you into the deep end without proper memories from my own mind to help you out. 

There is one way we are similar. The center reflects the same in the mirror, however miniscule.”

I don’t know what you mean, but ok. As long as I get more time with Fiona, I’m happy. 

It’s better to die a three-dimensional character than to live plainly in two for eternity. Never tell me 

what you plan for her, ok?

“Yeah,” he replies. “That would be beyond cruel, yet now that you mention it…”

Asshole.

“I’m kidding, Finnelgamin,” he says, but knowing him, there is a sinister side within. 

“Let’s start with that first time you met her. I think first person would be best for you.”

 

alter