A Novel Immortality
This short story was originally written way back in 1995 as part of a journalism course, interestingly enough. Having recently rediscovered it on the hard drive I thought it worth sharing with you all.
I hope you enjoy it. Please share if you do.
A Novel Immortality
by
Jonathan Crossfield
Coffee shops were always considered neutral territory for meetings with Jerry, a no man's land in the ongoing battle for relationship supremacy. Jason had been seeing Jerry for almost a year, but like every relationship he had known, it was about mind games and domination. When in her house, he was made to feel like he had to abide by her rules. When they stayed at his flat, she acted as if marking her territory, overcompensating her demanding behaviour at the same time as rearranging the cupboards.
Of course, Jason never let Jerry gain too much ground in the eternal battle for control. Jason wasn't one to be manipulated. Instead, he reassured himself that giving Jerry occasional victories kept her interested. And who cares which cupboards the mugs are in anyway.
But here in the coffee shop, things could be equal. No one had dominance and the game was more fun.
"You should have worn the white shirt, you know. That orange one just doesn't go with the jacket," Jerry scolded him. Her dark hair and dark eyes were so striking against the white skin that Jason always felt as if she was only available in mono-chrome; the colour edition long out of print. Being entirely dressed in black gave her a look best, and most politely, described as 'dramatic'.
"Ah, but colour says more about me personally than a white shirt ever could. The very fact that everyone else would wear a white shirt and I'm wearing an orange one says it all, doesn't it? An expression of character, independence, and a dig at her own two-tone approach all in one comeback. The caffeine had really put Jason on form today. And the scorecard reads ...
"Yes, it says you can't dress and you refuse to fit in. Companies want conformity, not independence. God, you've been to so many interviews. You'll never get a thing if you don't learn how to fit in." As Jerry pushed her empty coffee cup forward, Jason grabbed the two small sachets of sugar and pocketed them in one smooth movement. "I wish you wouldn't do that. It's so embarrassing. You can afford sugar."
"Of course I can. But it doesn't hurt to be subsidised."
Jerry looked out of the window in disgust. You need a job. If you don't get one soon..."
"What? You'll leave me?"
Jerry turned her gaze back to Jason, fixing him intently with those dark eyes. "I was about to say you'll start relying on handouts and end up lazy and amounting to nothing."
"Yes, and then you'll leave me, Jason smiled. Jerry was so easy to rattle. Her pretentious, snobbish outlook was a wonderful amusement to Jason. He had few priorities in his life; sex, art, children and books pretty well summed him up. He enjoyed Jerry, certainly, but he was fascinated with her more than he loved her.
Jerry was with him because of his talent - he knew that. Some day, he would complete the great novel that would push him, and her, into the spotlight of artistic success. In the meantime, he knew that Jerry was quite content to hang on his arm, let him eat her expensive cheese and have incredible sex every Friday night.
"You're impossible. And you're going to be late for the interview." Jerry got up to leave. "I suppose you want me to pay for the coffee as well."
"Aw, gee. Would you?" Jason grinned his childlike grin. Jerry didn't kiss him on the cheek, which only meant that the scoreboard had Jason at the top; she felt trampled and used. That meant she would try to regain ground tonight. Jason smiled. The sex would be great.
He waited five more minutes and then walked slowly in the direction of the publishing house that would become today's prospective employer. Under his arm was a crumpled pile of notes and articles he had written over the years for a variety of magazines. Yet again, he was going to have to try and convince an editor that he was diligent, fast and boring enough to be a staff writer on a gossip magazine.
The whole notion of writing for the rags was enough to make Jason want to throw the interview, even before he reached the lobby. This was writing for necessity, for a living, and therefore gave Jason no pleasure whatsoever.
Hack writing. The very idea repulsed him. But writing was all he was ever good at. And he was very good. But writing because he had to, writing to someone else's specifications, to a predetermined word limit and style, was like prostitution.
He looked at his watch. Two minutes late already.
Standing in front of the grey and steel corporate office block, Jason could feel his creativity and inspiration cowering in terror. Art doesn't happen in cubicles in an open plan office. Genius can't be squeezed between the photocopier and the rented pot plants.
He found himself looking around in desperation for any escape from this humiliation. And there he saw it.
A bookshop; small, wood-paneled and crammed with rickety, bulging shelves of books to the ceiling. Without a further thought for the interview, he strode into the shop like a dying man finding water.
For a few minutes he just walked among the shelves. Then he picked up a large paperback and stroked the cover. Holding it in his left hand and raising it to his nose, he flicked through the pages, taking in the clean, unmistakable smell of freshly-printed paper. Jason loved everything about books; feel, smell, everything. But most of all, he loved what they contained; ideas spreading from writer to reader like highly contagious infections, messages from long dead minds and far distant ages, tales about everything the world has ever been or ever will be.
He picked up another book, leather bound and quite old. Slowly turning the pages, he was captivated by the highly detailed illustrations of birds, colour ink washes having been applied by hand over the printed intricate line work. This was a first edition, very old and quite valuable. Jason had a feeling of reverence for the book. It was printed sixty years before he was born and would probably exist long after he had gone. For a moment, he wondered why such a collectable book would be left out on the table instead of sitting in a locked glass cabinet only to be handled by the most reputable and interested of customers.
"This one book will last longer than I am alive," he thought to himself. "Longer than any of those magazines published next door, that's for sure."
He heard a movement behind him and turned around to see a young shop assistant. "It's a beautiful edition, isn't it." She was small and delicately put together with a pale skin that looked so vulnerable, betraying her indoor bookish lifestyle. Strands of blonde hair had escaped from her pony tail and hung rebelliously about her face. Jason found himself distractedly watching her as she gently blew the vagrant tresses away as they strayed too close to her eyes.
"Um, sorry, I'm not buying. I'm just trying to avoid going somewhere I don't want to go. Whenever I feel lost, I browse bookshops."
"That's okay. You don't have to buy the book. It's out so people can admire it. What sort of books do you like?"
"Doesn't matter. I just like books. Although I suppose I do read a lot of classic literature."
She grinned. "Then you've just got to see this."She reached up to the top shelf and pulled down a superbly bound first edition of Dickens.
"Hang on. How did you do that?"
"Pardon?"
What?!
"You reached the top shelf, yet they go all the way to the ceiling."
The girl looked at him suspiciously. "Yeah, I could reach it."
Oh bugger.
"But you're short. It said so... I mean, it didn't say so, but it..." His head reeled, giddy and dizzy and fuzzy and...
The book dropped to the floor with a clatter. Leaning against an already overburdened shelf, Jason breathed deeply. He blinked a few times and looked about. Nothing had changed, but... There was the girl, looking at him with a concerned expression.
"Are you okay? You seem a bit..." She smiled in a caring sort of a way, that sort of tense smile that looks as if it could just as easily turn into a frown if the response demanded it.
"I don't know. I just feel weird. Do you have a bathroom?"
The girl looked uneasily over her shoulder. "I'm not supposed to let customers use the bathroom. You're not going to be sick, are you?"
"God, no," Jason laughed. "At least I don't think so. I just need some water. Wash the sweat off my face. Then I won't trouble you anymore."
The girl checked over her shoulder again and as there was no one else in the shop, she led him through a small alcove to a wooden door marked STAFF ONLY. Closing the door behind him, Jason moved to the sink and splashed handfuls of water onto his face. Feeling his composure coming back, he wiped his hands and face on the towel. As he brought the towel down from his face, he staggered back, letting out a little yelp. His reflection was staring back at him from the mirror.
It was like looking at himself for the first time. Aged about thirty, Jason had a slightly haggard, pale look about himself. His brown hair, although obviously neat and tidy this morning, was now ruffled and plastered with sweat. He was dressed smartly, with that orange shirt that had caused Jerry so much distress.
Jason was half expecting the cute girl to be knocking on the door in a minute. He quickly checked his pockets and found a wallet containing a reasonable amount of money. "Funny," Jerry thought to himself. "I really stiffed Jerry over the coffees then."
Curiously, he seemed to have the exact amount of money needed to buy that Dickens first edition the girl had just shown him and somehow he instinctively knew that was somehow expected. Yet, he couldn't even remember which Charles Dickens novel it was. Surely he wouldn't consider buying such an expensive and collectable book without even knowing the title. And how did he know this money was the exact amount? The girl hadn't mentioned a price yet and he had dropped the book before opening it to see the price on the flyleaf.
Patting his remaining pockets, he panicked to discover that there weren't any keys. Where did he live and was he locked out? Jason tried frantically to visualise where home was, but all that came into his mind was that it was a flat where Jerry sometimes stayed.
He needed help. Was this how nervous breakdowns started? Amnesia, maybe? Perhaps talking with the cute girl again would help. It certainly wouldn't hurt to get to know her better. Somehow, that felt right, as if getting to know the girl better was what he was here for. Buying the Dickens novel would be part of his charming yet desperate attempt to impress. Part of his... story.
Having decided to buy the book and chat up the girl, Jason checked himself in the mirror, adjusted his artificial leg and opened the...
"Hang on! What artificial leg?"
Didn't I mention the leg before?
"No, you..." Jason put the lid down on the toilet and sat. Pulling up his trouser leg he saw a prosthetic limb strapped just below his knee. Feeling around, he could feel scar tissue on the stump. "How the hell does this fit into the story?"
Your character wouldn't be interesting if you didn't have obstacles to overcome.
"Jeez, that's lame. Let's face it. You're a pretty disorganised and cliched writer, aren't you! And your plot line stinks!"
Then came the knock at the door. "Are you okay in there? Only I'm not supposed to let customers use it."
Jason adjusted his artificial leg and opened the door. Again the concerned look and the whispy hair tresses and that faultless skin and... "I thought you'd washed yourself away," she tittered uncomfortably at the feebleness of her joke.
"Have you ever felt like you're part of someone else's story?" Jason asked, stepping back into the shop. The girl took a step back, obviously surprised. "I mean, have you ever thought that you're not in control of what happens? As if events are preordained or created by something else?"
A slightly panicked waver entered the girl's voice. "Are you feeling alright? Shouldn't you go to your interview now?"
"There! What you just said. How did you know I was avoiding an interview? I didn't tell you what I was avoiding. Jason stepped towards her again, and again she backed up until she was pressed against the book shelves. "I'll tell you how. Because the writer of this particular story put the words in your mouth and he's just not very good."
Oh shit!!
"I can almost see all the words around me, now. The writer just swore, by the way so I hope you're not easily offended. This is so strange. I'm a character in a story." The girl was shaking. Jason wasn't sure whether she was scared because of his behaviour or because, deep down, she felt the truth as well. "You believe me, don't you?"
"How can I believe you? It's impossible. I'm here. You're here. In the real world."
Jason slumped to the floor, leaning against the shelves. "Of course it's not possible in reality. But is this reality? What is reality, anyway? People keep debating whether free will is an illusion. Well, it is for us 'cause we're just characters. The words we speak are written for us. The thoughts we think are given to us. The things in my pocket are all that is needed to let the story happen without any messy back story or unnecessary detail. I bet if we went through any other door on this street, there wouldn't be anything there. The writer hasn't written them."
Jerry looked up at the girl as she stared at him through a glaze of tears and horror. "Concentrate. Tell me about your life; your home."
She thought for a moment before falling to her knees. "I can't. There's nothing there!"
"Because you're just a secondary character. The writer didn't need to create all of that for you. Crikey, I don't think he's even given you a name."
"I'm..." She struggled for a moment. "I'm... Tears began to trickle down her pale cheek. "I'm... 'girl'. That's what I'm called. I can't think of anything else."
Both of them fell silent. The rumble of traffic outside of the shop had faded away. It was as if everything outside of their immediate vision no longer existed. Their world was now confined to a couple of feet of bookcases and a hard wooden floor.
Eventually, the silence was broken by the slightest of dry-mouthed murmurs from the girl. "So what do we do now?" She was beginning to sob quietly to herself.
"Hey, don't be upset. I think I was supposed to meet you in the story, anyway. Probably flirt with you, start an affair and leave Jerry. Thing is, if we don't even know your name, all of that fun stuff I was looking forward to probably happens between chapters or something."
She nodded slowly, with a slightly vacant look. Jason could tell she also instinctively knew their story.
"I guess it all depends on what the writer had in store for us," he continued, trying to comfort her. "It's his story, after all. And if I am... I mean if my character is a writer, then that probably means he's one of those amateurish hacks who always writes lead characters based on themselves. First mistake of the amateur, you know, writing yourself as the hero. So I can't see him writing anything bad happening to me. And you're with me so maybe you're safe too." Jason knew he was acting braver that he actually felt. He had no reason to assume any of the rules in this fictional world, but he had to be optimistic. He admired books; now he was one. Probably.
However, deep down, a cold dread was growing. "What if this is one of those dashed-off formulaic and creatively barren bits of fiction that appear in crappy women's magazines like those published next door? What if I'm now a victim of everything I was trying to avoid?"
The girl reached next to her and picked up the copy of Dickens that had been dropped earlier. "We could be in a book," she murmured, barely audible. "Think. The characters in this book keep living every time someone reads them. They're immortal, living for hundreds of years."
Jason smiled, reaching across to stroke the leather of the old book. "Yes. You're right. Let's hope ours is a long story in a long and very popular book. Just think. There could be hundreds or thousands of pages to go yet."
END
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