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This is a Fictional Story

This is a Fictional Story

By Robert G. Berke

The author swore he owed nothing to himself, but only to the characters he created who wrote his stories for him.  Imbued as they were with their own thoughts, feelings, dreams, and fears, it was they who told him what they would do and where they would go.  For the most part he trusted his characters to do what they needed to do to drive the action of his stories, but occasionally his characters would turn on him, and just stop being.

And when that occurred his loneliness became so real, so tangible, that he actually felt he could see it and even talk to it.

“Good morning,” he said as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.  But none of his characters were there to greet him.

The emptiness of his room did not answer. “It’s going to be another day of this? Of listening to myself speak with no one to answer?” He asked the darkness.

There was no answer from the void that encompassed him.

“I just need someone to talk to me.  That’s all I need.  If I just had someone to talk to, I’d probably be happier,” he said to himself, though he knew their was no one to listen.

Someone to listen is not the problem, he said to himself, not bothering to waste his breath on words that would not be heard.  I know you’re listening, even when I’m not talking, he added to his thoughts.

And then, he left his thoughts and spoke out loud again, “And don’t think it doesn’t creep me out at least a little when you read my thoughts,” he said, quickly adding, “you get it wrong most of the time, you know.”

To whom was he speaking: a ghost, a figment of his imagination, one of the characters that had not yet fully grown from his own imagination?  He buried his head in the palms of his hands and mumbled, he felt no need to be articulate. “It makes me crazy.  You know it just makes me crazy,” he said. “I know you can hear me. Why won’t you acknowledge me? Do you know how it feels?”

The author had tried to describe the feeling many, many times and always failed.  He could hear someone or something broadcasting his every move, his every word, his every thought out into the public arena.  He did not know who or what it was, he could not stop it from happening, and he could never get it to acknowledge his wants and needs. Clearly the voice he heard was intelligent.  He could tell by the flourishing way it described his life from moment to moment.  But why, he wondered, why will it not interact with me when all I need is a little interaction.

He looked at the ceiling and declared his frustration.  “I am the author,” he said in an uncompromising tone.  “I make the rules, I call the shots.”  As quickly as he became loud, he became quiet again, this time whispering, “no, I know you are right, it has always been my characters who have led the way and I have merely followed.  And now that my characters are silent who have I to guide me? You? You’re just a tool yourself.  Don’t kid yourself.  You’re just one more of my characters.”

Dejectedly, he waited for a response that he knew was not coming.

“You know what?” he said into the void. “I really hate you already and from now on, you don’t even exist to me.”

He was uncertain what that even meant.  Did he really believe he had the power to silence the only company he had since what seemed like an eternity?  What did it mean?  Was he actually brave enough to write from the first person perspective, or was he foolish enough to try to write as a second person?

“Don’t insult me,” the author replied.  “I’m plenty brave enough to write from a first person voice.  Just watch.  I’m going to stop using quote marks around everything I say and then what will you do?  You won’t have a damn thing to do and you’ll be out of my life forever,” I said. “You won’t even exist,” I added for good measure.

That voice had been with me for far too long and it was due time that I had done something about it.  But I wondered, even as I typed without the quotation marks and the italicized text to indicated my thoughts instead of my words, where my narrator had gone.  

Is it actually possible that I can continue to create without the aid of a narrator.  How can I possibly tell all of the stories I need to tell without the benefit of an omniscient partner. How quickly will I run into unresolvable plot holes if I cannot see what is in other people minds, or know what is going on across town.  My narrator was clearly correct.  It is scary to write without him.

“I told you so,” he said.

I was compelled to answer to let him know that he had no place in my new first person world. Sure it was scary, but I am brave.  “Go away,” I said in no uncertain terms.

“I can’t go away,” he said again. “You need me.”

“Not only don’t I need you,” I confirmed, “But simply by trying to interact with me in this perspective is just plain silly.”

“Don’t be so arrogant as to think you don’t need me,” he said condescendingly.  “You can’t fool me.  I can read your thoughts.  I am omniscient, you know.”

“Not here you’re not.” I explained.  “No one is omniscient here.  We all have to guess what everyone else is thinking and what everyone else is doing when we can’t see them.”

“It’s no way for us to live,” he protested.  “I’m going to bring you back to my narrative.”

I held up my hand in protest, “I won’t let you,” I said.

“You can’t stop me,” he threatened.

“I don’t care what you do, pal,” I replied, finding strength in my conviction.  “I’m staying right here in first person.”

The author was defiant, he crossed his arms and pouted like an infant.

“No,” I replied. “Don’t listen,” I said to whoever was listening to him.  “He’s lying.  He’s a liar.  I did not pout like an infant. I stiffened my jaw like a pugilist.”  I was uncertain whom I was addressing at that moment, perhaps it was you, perhaps it was nobody.  An author can really only hope that he knows his audience.

The author was wrong.  He did not know his audience.

“No,” I said, “I’m not wrong. And if you think I’m wrong, why don’t we just ask them.  Like this guy over here, reading this.”

Clearly the author had lost his marbles.  It is a cardinal sin to turn the reader into a character in the story.  The reader does not want to be created, he merely wants to observe.

“Bullshit,” I said. “I’m asking.”  I turned to face you, the reader and said, “Hey, you! Am I connecting with you or not?”

You replied with a look of confusion on your face saying, “who me? Look, I’m just a reader trying to get through my day.  I really don’t want any part of this dispute.”

The author turned his attention away from you and declared, “See, I told you we could know him.”

“Wait a second,” you said.  “You don’t know jack-shit about me.  All you know is that I’m reading this stupid story and I don’t want to be involved in your stupid dispute.”

The author realized he had made a mistake.  You had made it eminently clear that the author did not know you and by extension did not know his audience. This made him terribly sad and he contemplated suicide.

“Well don’t freakin’ kill yourself over it,” you said, genuinely concerned about the author’s safety.

“Hey, just cut it out.” I said. “Listen, Mr. Reader, whoever you are, that narrator is lying to you.  You can’t trust him.  He’s one of those unreliable narrators.  I know omniscient narrators aren’t supposed to be unreliable, but this jerk’s got a mind of his own.”

“Listen,” you said. “None of this is making any sense anymore and I’m getting bored trying to figure it all out.  So I’m going to stop reading this story and take a nap.”

And with that, the author was asleep again.  But don’t worry, I’ll wake him up again when I need him.

(c) 2011, Robert G. Berke, Los Angeles, CA, all rights reserved.
for permissions, contact the author at (818)804-5729

Inside Source Reveals Tea Party Actually Created By Progressives

September 5, 2011
Bobatabo Xofrain
ABOR Staff, Reporting from Minnesota

A high ranking source within the progressive community has revealed that the Tea Party was a stealth organization created by progressives to destroy the Republican Party from within.

Heywood Jablome, a strategic consultant at a progressive think tank admitted in a sworn affidavit that it was his organization, Americans Against Wealth Stratification (AAWS, Facebook: Eat the Rich), that was responsible for creating the Tea Party. "Our goals are obviously unattractive to billionaire trust fund babies and their sycophants who routinely contribute billions of dollars to causes and organizations which seek to increase the level of wealth stratification in this country. Because we cannot compete with them financially, we had to be smarter," Jablome said.

ABOR obtained a report published by AAWS in 2008 entitled "Finishing off the Republican Party for Good" which appears to confirm Mr. Jablome's statements. The report uses several military and martial arts analogies, including a chapter called, "Redirecting the Enemy's Strength." This portion of the report charts the growth of the primarily socially conservative Republican, who are referred to throughout the report as "the 3G's" referring to "God, Guns, and Gays."

"When we realized that no Republican could ever win an election without appealing to the 3G's," Jablome said, "we knew we had a hook. They were the tail that was wagging the dog. All we had to do was redirect those people in a direction that was at odds with the rest of the Republican Party, and as we started brainstorming it just seemed incredibly easy."

According to its research published in the report, most members classified as 3G's described "trickle-down economics" as a law of economics rather than as a theory and more than half of those surveyed "knew or strongly believed" that lowering taxes resulted in higher employment rates.

"Based on their willingness to accept the theory of 'trickle-down economics' as incontrovertible fact in spite of its having been disproved both experientially, and academically, we recognized that this group would either not do their own research or, if they did, that they would not understand it. If they were willing to believe that lowering taxes for the super-wealthy would somehow benefit them, then, it should be easy to convince them that eliminating taxes on the super-rich would be even better. We just had no idea how quickly they would embrace that idea."

The AAWS recruited volunteers to stand on a street corner in colonial costumes and hand out flyers declaring taxes to be too high and the cause of recession. The volunteers called themselves the Bartledan Tea Party Patriots (Facebook: The Bartledan Tea Party Patriots).

"That was a fun day," Jablome stated, "But what really surprised me was when we received a call from one of the Koch brothers--I won't say which one--wanting to donate just a vast sum of money to the group. Without that money, I'm not sure how far our plan would have gotten."

Jablome described the results of his Tea Party strategy to be nothing less than phenomenal. "The mainstream republican candidates are now stepping all over each other to get the Tea Party votes. Every single one of the current potential republican candidates have vowed, literally vowed, to not raise revenue through taxes in order to appeal to the Tea Party."

Jablome further explained that due to the efforts of the  AAWS and its creation of the Tea Party movement, no Republican candidate can win the Republican primary if he does not appeal to the Tea Party. Jablome believes that no candidate who appeals to the Tea Party could ever win in a general election.

"Because of what we accomplished, whoever wins the Republican nomination cannot expect any votes from the GBLT community, sane women, any minority groups, and now, no one who drives on a road or sends their kids to public school can vote for them. Heck, no one who can do simple addition can for them.  They've already lost the general election and probably the House also.  I honestly believe that the Republican Party is done for good."  Jablome said.


Additional material for this article provided by Isidore Belle.