Before we fully commit to our revival of fiction, which may or may not happen this week, I thought it wise to address an issue that arises more often than you’d think. The question usually comes packaged differently, though the sentiment almost always condenses to these five words:
What’s real and what’s fake?
Man, some of these questions. Man. Did this happen? Did that happen? Do I actually believe in elves? Is this truly a business? Is this a religious cult? I’m going to offer a two-part answer. No, we haven’t gone public yet and yes, I fellowship with elves on a regular basis. We sup over mushrooms and the healing power of kindness, but only when we run out of acorns.
The confusion, I’ve come to realize, is mostly my fault. Our legacy boasts many things, and coherence isn’t one of them. That’s my explanation, anyhow, because candor? I believe it’s there, most of the time, even in the fiction. I’ve thought about adding a little symbol next to each conversation to signify its rough coordinates on the plane of reality, which of course would be unnecessary and just a little demeaning. All you need to remember is this: the default voice–normal mode, as it were–sounds kinda like the one tonight. You know, the snotty one.
The punchline for tonight, if we could get that out of the way, was a snappy one-liner about how the sky looks exactly as it did at 3:45 PM. But then I realized something. There’s moot, and then there’s dead horse moot.
We’re approaching the time of year when resolutions are thoroughly reviewed and last-minute avowals are hastily committed. Our third anniversary’s just around the corner, so there’s another mark of significance, arbitrary as it may be. I’d say it’s reasonable for you to wonder at some point soon, “Where precisely are we heading?”
I think there’s going to be more fiction, more of the hypothetical and the fanciful. We currently have multiple threads going in every direction, when really there should be less wending and more tying–certainly I’m hoping to resolve some of our arcs by New Year’s. The real stories, the rich anecdotes, are indeed rare in everyday life, though that may simply be my communion with the daily grind.
Am I way off base here? I figure if there’s a life story truly entertaining, someone probably already tucked away the unauthorized biography on a table somewhere at Border’s. So, imaginary stuff. More of it. That’s my wish, at any rate. I should also tell you how I once wished for a way to harness starlight and the laughter of children for the betterment of humanity. Never happened. I must’ve ticked the wrong box.
Well, dear reader, it appears our conversation shipped overseas yesterday and, to be more precise, went very above sea level. It’s a vicarious enjoyment I seek, however, because Cloud will load on my computer, and that’s the extent of its industry. The game runs like shit, though I suppose that’s nobody’s fault but my own. I was able to maneuver the sickly hero right through the flippin’ firmament, in what may have been either a hidden feature or a symptom of a crappy computer.
I received a voicemail from a customer–it was a man or a woman, I couldn’t quite tell–who demanded a prompt callback, except he/she/it didn’t leave a phone number. This type of stupidity isn’t enumerated in any human lexicon, nor is it quarantined in the phone system. I felt dumber simply for having heard the message.
After work today I followed a police cruiser for a good stretch of the highway. Nothing extraordinary, right? Its license plate number was also “666.” That encapsulates this week pretty well, actually.