In Which We Tell The Story Of Something Inside Us

Enjoy the depths of our Saturday fiction series here.

Inspiration

by LINDA EDDINGS

She began the story with a coda, thinking that when it was over she could put the coda wherever it was you placed such things, right before the end.

The idea for the story was a woman housesitting for her boss, a certain Mr. Williams. In the tale's opening minutes a strange man came to Mr. Williams' home, but the woman opened the door anyway. The man offered her fish he had recently caught from a river. She accepted and cooked them. Before she could thank him something had frightened him away.

It was later revealed, in this version of her story, that the thing that frightened the fisherman away was the woman herself later on in the story, perched on the roof of the house. She had subsequently traveled back in time to protect herself.

This had, upon her departure from the Starbucks near the mall, felt like a stroke of genius. When she reappraised it the next morning on her way to work the twist was verifiably the stupidest thing in the world.

Next the housesitter received a phone call from Mr. Williams that shortly followed the cooking of the fish. He asked his employee to find an ancient helmet in the upstairs closet. On her way there, the housesitter became lost. She mused on the metaphorical development of saving your own self from danger. Was it possible to hint at this in a more subtle way?

In the bathroom at work, getting up from the toilet, her iPhone dropped into the bowl. She tried to put it in a bag of rice but, hours later, it would not turn on. She wondered what she had done to deserve this and decided on nothing. Making this happen to the housesitter of her imagination was an easy step, and she found that the woman suffered more easily, surprising herself as quickly as her author.

Her dream the next night involved being returned to her high school. The corridors whipped around the classrooms like cars racing around a track. She arrived late for the next class, and everyone had a copy of The Great Gatsby. The classrooms swept about her like a train on rails, and now when she looked out into the hallway the world there was a cold and frosty London. Each member of the class told her to get a handful of pebbles. She did, and a blonde man loaded them into a handgun. He shot a man in a top hat approaching from the street, and she woke up.

Mr. Williams transitioned from being a slightly effete, if well-intentioned superior to a man stressed by forces beyond his control.

While working out that morning, she saw the running of the bulls on the news. Those absconding showed a requisite amount of fear and in some cases, exhilaration. The bulls, to her mind, were absolutely terrified. The housesitter found the helmet, somewhere deep in a closet preserved from the onset of the years. The headgear allowed her to see things as they truly were.

Linda Eddings is a writer living in Brooklyn. You can find an archive of her work on This Recording here.

"Twirled With Slight Fingers" - Sam Willis (mp3)

"Weird Science" - Sam Willis (mp3)

In Which Neither Of Them Had Seen It Before

Experience the archive of our Saturday fiction series here.

Your Pawn

by LINDA EDDINGS

Q: What do you think about when I mention the idea of self-expression?

A: I picture something closing, then opening again.

Q: You were the third of four children.

A: My mother worked as a veterinarian. She loved animals when she began her practice; by the end she was completely indifferent to them.

Q: Can you suggest a particular incident or anecdote to illustrate that point?

A: Yes. Self-expression... it isn't that the concept itself is a fallacy, it's that what we usually think of as self-expression is actually more like lies which benefit us the moment they are announced.

Q: I have noticed you are fascinated by what something isn't.

A: You're right. It's a problem I have.

Q: Do you mean an actual problem or is that simply a flip statement designed to ward off future questions on the topic?

A: I honestly don't know.

Q: When I was thirteen I was taking a bus to visit my father. Tunneling through some bad part of town, I saw a family roasting an animal on a spit. It was a cat.

A: That's not what I call self-expression.

Q: Do you dream?

A: Only when I have had too much to drink.

Q: For the rest of our conversation, I want you to speak without using the verb "to be."

A: All right.

Q: For the rest of our conversation I want you to speak without thinking of what I will think.

A: My father worked as a physician. He never developed my mother's indifference. He spoke often of his patients. Posssibly this was unethical, I always felt in my heart that it was unkind. When he hugged or kissed me I felt in his embrace that the act meant something but perhaps no more than it meant for him to shake the hand of an acquaintance.

Q: Go on.

A: He always seemed impossibly old.

Q: That word "seemed." It is overused. Be careful.

A: It refers to a perception.

Q: It's not as if, comparatively, he was young.

Bird with Truck and Pawpaw, 2009 Marian Drew

A: My mother's 68 now. She looks a decade older. When I visit her, I have to remind myself the person I knew left some time ago.

Q: It is the same person. Numerical age means nothing except insofar as we adjust our own behavior. It's all preconditioned.

A: Why do you lie?

Q: A nightengale, for example.

A: A bird.

Q: One can never exactly know how old it is. (pause) A moment ago, you used the word "is." Before that, "was." Just because you used a contraction doesn't mean I did not notice.

A: When I have had. Don't. When I have had too much to drink, I begin to anticipate my dream, hoping for certain things it might contain. The idea that how old something is does not matter is an invention of the old and the young.

Q: In my dream, a white lion went down on all fours. She screamed in agony. A bird in flight caroused back and forth, slamming down a forty. The lion shuddered and arched her back. The bird ceased its flight. The lion's front paws turned into licorice. The bird began its ascent.

A: If you were the bird, it means you're going to die someday. If you were the lion, it means the same thing.

Linda Eddings is a writer living in Brooklyn.

Dusky Moorhen with Chinese Teapot, 2008, Marian Drew