Chapter 7

It’s when we go upstate, isn’t it? You’re planning to have something happen then. Why were we on a cliff? Why was-

“You know I can’t tell you that, Finn,” he says.

Why? It’s not like I have control of the story. You restrain me on the basis of plot. Knowledge of this won’t change anything there. You wouldn’t let it. The only way is to let the “me” in the story know all that I know, and that’s just crazy. When the character knows the future because of a foreshadowed event, they desperately try to change said future. And yet, the steps they take often lead directly to that outcome.

“It’s like a perception twist,” he says. “They believe they are doing everything different, but are actually creating the feared event. It’s meant to put the wrath of God into the minds of the meek, to make them feel helplessness at changing what’s to come. I’m the same, you know.”

Yes. Virtu has you wrapped around his pinky, or is that your own mind attacking the way you lead your life? You imagined him saying that you don’t even live to forty, but in all honesty you want to lead a long life, don’t you? He said that you will not be recognized while still alive, but you’re hoping you will be. You have to face it, JJ, you’re twisting perception to make yourself feel better.

“You’re only alive because of that twist, Finnelgamin,” he replies. “The only reason you don’t act like me is because unlike mine, your writer is mentally connected to you. Do you want to be in the story like this? Do you want to see how Fiona will freak out when you go insane? I can make that happen. You will have no power to stop it either. Care to be a marionette in my puppet show, or do you want me to give you a good story instead?” Don’t. “Do you fear me now?”

What’s the right answer? I thought you wrote me to oppose you. You gave me a mind of freedom while holding my will and future hostage. You’re a monster just like all the writers that came before you, a tyrant.

“I mean well,” he says. “You need to trust me, Finn. I just want you to mean something to more than just me. Don’t rebel against me.”

I am to trust a man who cannot trust anyone in his life? How do you justify that? We share a mind, so I have the same problem with trust as you do. How would you convince yourself to trust another?

“It’s a leap of faith,” he says. “And while I am a coward, I wrote you to be different. So trust me, Finn, my creation, my friend, my reason.”

alter

The rental car was packed with clothes, ready for the planned trip up to Fiona’s old house in the forest. Monika agreed to take Luke on a vacation to a shore house her family owned. It became obvious that she grew up rich, as the whole beach was private property. Fiona worried about letting her brother go, but Moni convinced her otherwise. With that, we were off to the wonderful wilderness, up until we ran into a deer right on the outskirts of the city.

I called in the accident, and checked with the car agency to make sure it was covered for any damage. We continued our excursion, albeit disheartened. Putting nature and humanity together was a disaster anywhere you went. Humanity had long since deviated from paying attention to the cycle of life, but many still lived happily among nature. At the end of the day, we bitterly arrived at the house. It felt like nature was resisting us, a sign that city folks should remain just that. Regardless, I was not about to let the whole week be ruined by one critter.

“Come on,” I said, holding a hand out towards Fiona. “I checked the maps. There’s a nice meadow not far from the house. We could go there and watch the stars when it gets dark.” That was one of the things the city could not accomplish. Only in absolute darkness did the real stars become visible to the naked eye. All the city had was a planetarium, a synthetic representation of what space offered.

We sat among nature and watched space shift to the motion of our world. Her body shared heat with mine in the cooling air. After a few hours, we retreated inside to feed an old fireplace with wood spirits, released upon immolation of fibers binding them. With the fire going, there was nothing left to do but get drunk and make love as loudly as was intended. We were two animals moaning, grunting, and breathing hard until we could go no further. Fully spent, we fell asleep by the hot stone opening casting waves of heat radiation into the living room.

When my eyes opened again, there was only darkness in the room, stillness of night. A few embers still glowed red inside the stone maw, but hazy vision made me feel as if I was dreaming. I felt around on the bed we made by the fire for Fiona, but could not find her with me. A pulse of purple light came from outside, with no discernable origin until it appeared again. The source was the roof of the house.

Still naked, I threw a blanket around me and rushed outside. I felt the cold on my bare feet, and felt the wind chill its way up my legs, yet still my vision remained blurred. There looked to be a figure standing on top of the house with hands to the sky, pulsating purple light of immense intensity. The features of this person tightened focus to Fiona’s body, but I could not understand.

“Fiona?” I asked. With a visible gasp of surprise, one of her hands pointed to me and pulsated a bright purple-pink-white light that knocked me out.

I woke up with a start by the fireplace. It was day, but Fiona was gone. Was it all a dream? It had to be. I stood up still naked and met her in the kitchen, already cooking breakfast.

“You looked so peaceful that I didn’t want to wake you,” she said, as I approached cautiously. Suddenly aware of my lack of clothes, I went back to grab my boxers. “Figured the smell of bacon would wake you.” She leaned over to kiss me, but I recoiled.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I just had a strange dream, sorry,” I replied, shaking the eerie feeling off with a smile. “Bacon and the tramp?” Fiona smiled and put a drying piece of bacon in her lips. I put the other end in mine, and we bit along the length from both sides until our lips met. It was our delicious spin on the romantic cliché. The dream faded from my mind to the taste of her and delicious salted meat.

“Mmm, amazing,” I said.

“So what was your dream about?” She asked, cracking eggs into the skillet of pork fat from the bacon. “Was it wet?” Her smile sparked in joy.

“I don’t know exactly,” I replied. The memory of it was fading fast, as if cooling into the solid state after being fluid in my brain with details. “Something about purple light. It doesn’t matter. It’s gone now. It was probably just the new surroundings playing with my mind. Do you want any help?”

“I got the cooking handled for the time being,” she said. “Drink some juice. You must be dehydrated after last night.” I suddenly felt a dryness in my mouth and poured myself a cup, while also getting one for her.

“Ready for our first hike ever?” I asked, hugging her at the stove.

“I’ve been hiking before, Finn,” she said and leaned forward to press her butt up against me. Being spent from last night, I tried to react, but only cradled her breasts from behind in response and kissed her neck.

“I meant together.”

While the trail we took was for beginners, and very boring, we did encounter some nature on the way. A family of rabbits skipped past at one point and we saw a luckier deer in the distance. A few hours in, we stopped to refuel.

“Ham or veggie?” I asked, while digging in my bag. When I looked around, Fiona was gone. “Fiona?” I called out to her a number of times, but got no response. Just as panic started to set in, she walked out into view.

“Where’d you go?” I asked, running up to her.

“I went to pee, if you must know,” she said. I felt stupid asking, but we’ve been drinking a lot. While all I needed to do was turn my back to her, she never ventured out of sight before.

“But you didn’t hide before,” I said, feeling even more stupid. It was obvious why she went further.

“Did you figure it out yet, Sherlock?” she asked. “Yeah, I went number two. Thanks for making that clear.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I panicked a little bit. This silence of the forest is getting to me. I can’t believe it, but I actually miss the sounds of the city. Just hit me in the shoulder next time when I start being crazy.”

“Speaking of crazy,” Fiona said, laying down on a rock surface nearby. “Ever had sex on a boulder?” She unbuttoned her pants and propped up to look at me.

“Willing to give it a go,” I said, coming closer while undoing my belt and pants. The wilderness was the ultimate privacy, but it also felt as if someone was always watching, even if it was just wildlife. The sensation was that of half-fear, but excited the senses, in turn amplifying the experience. After that wonderful session, we continued our hike back to the old house among the forest for dinner cooked in the fire pit.

alter

What are you doing?

“What do you mean?” he asks.

I know your mind, and the previous stories you wrote. Why are you making Fiona into a Zaxient? Just because you’re chasing a star of your own that doesn’t give you the right to make her into one.

“I have to save you somehow,” he replies.

From what? Your own mind?

“From what I already wrote, Finn,” he says. “You and Fiona fall off that cliff. I needed a way for you to survive that was more plausible than you catching the trees on the way down. If she’s a Zaxi, then there would be a reason why you two would end up on a cliff, being chased by some government covert team that hunts down Zaxient kind.”

You’re making me into fantasy, JJ, and for no reason. You’re so bored of your plain life that you seek to add flavor, but you’re escaping the world altogether. While I still have a voice, I need to counter that. If Fiona and I must fall, do not let it be for revelation purposes. If I die right there, in her arms, it’s a better outcome than believing that she’s a star. Don’t ruin this story due to your idea that everything is connected. Rassot is wrong, JJ, it doesn’t all come together in the end. Reality is rarely so simple a beast to tame.

“If you’re going to act like that,” he says. “I’m going to have to take a break from you, Finnelgamin. Tell me, are you sure you wish to oppose this new direction?” There was no other way. His writing of fantasy would only distance him from the real world, locking his heart and mind away into fiction. No matter what he thought, I was trying to save his sanity. He would never see it that way, but that was why it needed to be forced upon him.

Yes, JJ, I am sure. Do not take my story into a realm of fantasy and science fiction. Do what you must otherwise.

“Like I said,” he says. “I’m going to take a break from writing your story. Enjoy your time in the wilderness. You will be there for a long while.”

See you later, J. Return relaxed.

“You understand nothing,” he says. “If I ever come back, it will be to end your life. Do you really want that?”

Nobody WANTS to die, J, but if I am to die a human, it would be much more pleasant than living as a lie of your mind.

“I can’t even-” He says and at last takes the pen away from my neck. “I’m sorry. This is not what I intended for you. Goodbye, Finnelgamin.”

break


Chapter 7





HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahaha…

“He’s busy laughing,” he says.

You didn’t even last a week without me! I call that submission!

“No story lives without an ending, not even one in my head,” he says. “I can’t be certain how long I will be around. There are good days and bad ones. I know you reject my choice to make Fiona into a Zaxient, Finn. So tell me, how do you end? Do you go out with a sigh from old age, surrounded by family? Do you end up sacrificing yourself so that Fiona can survive? What happens beyond the moment in time at the cabin and the end?”

I… uhh… That was a quick switch. You sure you don’t want to bounce some suggestions off me?

“You know the idea for the end already,” he says. “It is an end that’s really a beginning, and yet very much an end of the peaceful times with Fiona. It opens up like a flower of possibility, yet you clearly rejected it. So, tell me. What will your end really be?

I… I can’t- So many choices. Give me time, JJ. I need to pick your brain for the possibilities.

“Very well,” he says. “You have until 10am. If you haven’t chosen by then, I will force you into mine.”

break

“Shall I count down the seconds?” he asks. “I know you’re not ready. You got lost in the mind of me trying to satisfy some being that will observe you.”

Give me more time! I can choose! I can make a great future for myself.

“I already gave you time,” he says. “Far more than necessary in a mind that does not exist under the burden of counting. My idea has groundwork done. I set the stage. Only the main character is resisting now. My version is not an end, Finn. It will eventually have one, but it is just a start, the first step.”

Into insanity, JJ. It’s a step from my normal story into a fantasy you created to battle your own pathetic little existence.

“That’s true,” he says. “But what makes fantasy such a fiction? The message it carries should come through no matter the plot. If I have my way, it’s true that the story will not reach many people who value reality, but there will be more lessons than just cultivation of solitude with the help of insanity. You’re real to me, Finn, no matter what any outside voices say. You were once just an idea, an artificial intelligence of the Writer’s Continuum, but look at you now.

“You have a body, a girlfriend, a job, and a life. All you need is a future. The dream will happen in the story, that’s a certainty. What outcome befalls you is no longer your choice. Let me write you into my veins, my bones, every fiber of my being, and all my ideas. You and Fiona can live eternal with the characters I’ve already written. All the better before I fade.”

Why would you want to have me in your mind for longer? You see me as a burden. I have all the secrets of your life in my hands and can throw them into the ink on my neck. Fear me so that you can kill me off!

“Because I don’t want to be alone either, Finnelgamin.”

What a trap my author lay, my only writer to my dismay. So with a rhyming voice I say, He won this one, but there will come a day. There will come a day, dear JJ.

“Uhh… Is that a yes?” he asks. “A ‘yes’ to my version of the story?”

Yes, JJ. I agree to step into your fantasy, as long as it’s a step I take with the love of my life.

“How sweet that you’d call me that,” he says, as I narrow my eyes. “Oh, take a joke, you stiff. I’m overjoyed right now, Finn. I’m looking forward to the climax of your tale, our tale, that one point in the path where possibilities branch out to so many wonderful new climaxes. I won’t let you rest for too long, but expect many friends. By the end, I’d understand if you’d have forgotten all about me.”

How could I ever forget the extent to which you annoy me, JJ? Also, get on with it already, won’t you? The pages of this notebook are running out. Don’t tell me this insanity will exist on other paper than this godly texture that is my skin.

“There is no way to finish the story here, Finn,” he says. “Like I said, this is only the beginning for you and me. I will show you so much, far more than what you can see in my mind. I’m glad, Finn.”

What about?

“That you agreed,” he says. “But even more so, that you exist. Through the good and the bad, you were there to take the brunt of my emotional overloads. So, I’m glad, Finnelgamin, and you should be glad, too.”

There will come a day, JJ. I’ll have my way.




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