While reading the newspaper this morning I discovered a new movie due out in a week or two titled Her. It seems actor Joaquin Phoenix plays a writer who falls in love with his computer's operating system. Those of you who follow my blog and my writings know I wrote a similar story a few years back. (Haven't seen the movie yet but the trailer is interesting, still I think my story is much better). For those of you who may have missed it, and for the many, many of you who loved it and wrote to tell me so; and especially for legal reasons, here is a re-posting of Ghost Writer written by me over 6 years ago. Enjoy and be sure to comment and share. Thanks
BJ
Ghost Writer
by BJ Neblett
© 2007, 2012, 2013
“Oh don’t be such an old stick in the mud!”
“‘Stick in the mud’? If I used phrases like that I’d be laughed out of the Writer’s Guild.”
“If you don’t publish something soon you are going to be thrown out of the Writer’s Guild.”
Kevin eyeballed the unfriendly looking object on his desk again. Again he took a hesitant step forward. Again he stopped.
“Go on… it won’t bite you!”
“I want my old one back.”
A sharp breath escaped from Susan’s painted, pouty lips. “For the tenth time, Kevin, it’s gone! They couldn’t save it. By now they’ve held the service. It’s as dead as your career.” She dropped a spent cigarette into the plastic cup of cheap champagne. He hated when she did that.
“Do you have to smoke in here? You know it’s bad for my asthma.” Kevin stared forlorn at the place where his beloved Wang once sat. A large square of dull, discolored desk top marked the spot. Like a weathered tombstone. “Your smoke probably killed her.”
Susan closed her eyes, shaking her pretty pixie head. “I give up. I’m going to be late getting back to work.” She grazed his cheek with a plastic kiss. “The Wang is gone. E.R.I.S is here. It’s state of the art. It’s cutting edge. John at the computer shop says it has advanced features the others won’t match for at least five years. He’s never seen anything like it. It’s designed especially for professional writers.” With that she gave Kevin a stabbing glare. “All of your files have been transferred into its memory. It’s all hooked up, ready to go: Wi-Fi, mini-cam, printer.” Her stare intensified. “And it cost me a small fortune.” Susan faked a smile. “Welcome to the 21st century, honey. Don’t forget we have dinner reservations at seven.” With that she was gone.
Kevin stood listening.
Rumbling up the street, the vintage MG’s throaty exhaust played a musical scale, Susan conducting the overture with the vehicle’s clutch and shifter.
G major…
2ndgear…
C major…
3rdgear…
D major…
Kevin waited. Susan always managed to miss fourth gear and over-rev the tiny motor when she was angry.
B flat!
She was angry.
Removing the gay pointed hat held atop his head by a rubber band, Kevin’s attention returned to the lipstick red plastic box on his well worn desk.
Eighteen inches wide by twelve inches, it occupied less than half the footprint left by the multi-component Wang.
“What the hell is a Wi-Fi?”
The deserted room didn’t answer.
He shrugged and took a giant step to the desk, reaching towards the flashy object.
His hand stopped.
It won’t bite you.
Feeling foolish, Kevin sighed and raised the lid of the futuristic laptop.
Kevin Mc Colgan was a writer of some notoriety. That notoriety arrived with his first novel, Kissing Fool, a touching romantic romp. It met with reasonable sales, making the USA Today best seller list for a few weeks. The critics weren’t so enthusiastic. Most were withholding judgment on Kevin’s skills as an author until a second release. It had been three years and they were still waiting.
Kevin managed to keep his floundering career afloat by selling a few short stories to Playboy, Esquire, and The New Yorker. Tom Wilson, his new agent, the third in four years, was encouraging, suggesting Kevin pen several more. Short story collections traditionally weren’t big sellers. But at least it would appease his pestering publisher.
Whatever he did it would have to be soon. Kevin’s earnings from Kissing Fool, while not insubstantial, wouldn’t last forever. He promised Susan that they would marry as soon as he made it as an author.
Susan wouldn’t last forever, either.
Lanky, nerdish Kevin Mc Colgan met comely Susan Pattersen at a reception for new writers. Susan ran the publicity department of a medium sized publishing company. Kevin had just been signed on the strength of three rough chapters and the hype of an overzealous and fast talking agent who charged him twenty percent.
Susan came from a literary family. Stuart Pattersen was a worldly, renowned author of dozens of trendy, best selling mysteries. Susan’s mother penned popular children’s books using the nom de guerre Nanny Mc Bride. Her allegories featured characters as Classy Chic, Knowit Owl, and Oily Gator. They also irritated the hell out of her pompous, priggish husband. Then again, Stuart Pattersen held a well published disdain for anything not of his own genre; or anything of his own pen, including Kissing Fooland Kevin Mc Colgan.
Especially Kevin Mc Colgan.
When Susan met Kevin it wasn’t exactly a harlequin romance. In Susan Kevin saw a witty, intelligent, sensual, sophisticated contradiction, fond of sports cars, country music, scrap booking, TS Eliot, and lime jell-o with cool whip. And he found the inspiration he was seeking for his main character.
In Kevin, Susan found a be-speckled, distrait, undernourished, struggling writer with a developing talent, a flair for the absurd, frayed collars, and a nervous, bumbling manner. But Kevin was nothing if not tenacious. When Kissing Fool was published, Susan read a metaphor of Kevin’s feelings, and his faltering, albeit funny, attempts at courting and romance. The pretty, willowy woman was won over, much to her father’s mortification.
With the lid raised, the laptop came alive. Kevin scrutinized it suspiciously. It emanated a soft high frequency hum as the cooling fans and hard drive came up to speed. The high definition DVD/CD Rom drawer yawned silently open. The ergonomically perfect key board glowed an eerie green. A built in touch pad floated in a sea of orange. Five red LED’s flashed in sequence, the last blinking randomly, mutely shouting, “Wi-Fi ready.” The gaudy contraception looked to Kevin like a Versace designed UFO ready to blast off.
Finally the large modern LCD screen lit. To Kevin’s surprise it displayed a sexy photo of Susan in a revealing bikini. Kevin recognized it as one he’d taken last summer in Cancun; the one Susan said she hated.
Kevin frowned.
Susan’s long, appealing, sun browned legs were peppered with enigmatic icons.
Just then an elevator version of Billy Joel’s Just The Way You Are sprang from somewhere inside the machine. It was their song.
Kevin had enough.
How could he be expected to write on this Buck Rogers dog and pony show? He pined for the simple, comforting ugly beige bulk of his Wang, with its innocuous green display and friendly cursor. If he had to he would use pen and paper. It was good enough for Fitzgerald and Hemmingway, his two favorite authors.
Ok. They used typewriters. Maybe he’d find himself an old Underwood at a garage sale or flea market.
His mind was made up. The ridiculous looking extravagant present was going back. Susan would understand…
… eventually.
Kevin reached to close the lid.
“Welcome to the future,” a honey dripping female announced.
The unexpected voice startled Kevin. He looked around the small den, “What…”
“Welcome to the future,” the voice repeated, “the future of professional writing.” Kevin stared blankly at the desk. The voice came from the laptop.
“I’m your new Electronic Remote Internet Storybook,” the computer cooed with a breathy air reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe. “But you may call me Eris.”
“What the…”
“For full demonstrations of all of my talents just press my demo button.”
The irresistible saccharine voice floated over the Billy Joel tune. Kevin surrendered to the appealing siren call of the beckoning machine.
“I’m ready when you are,” it teased.
The silly toothy grin Susan hated stitched across his boyish face. “Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint Susan,” he said sitting down.
“And happy birthday, Kevin,” Eris gushed.
Kevin sat at the old wooden desk in his comfortable over stuffed executive chair. Uncountable times Susan threatened to take his wood ax to the well worn, tacky, bright orange monstrosity.
Eris’ key pad felt custom designed for Kevin’s fingers. The genial glow of the treated LCD screen didn’t cause eye strain like his old Wang. Thoughts and ideas began to flow like water, words materializing as fast as he could type.
Kevin realized Eris actually typed ahead of him, filling in obvious words as the, a, and an. He didn’t even have to hold the caps button at the start of sentences, or after he typed a proper name once. Eris also automatically recognized the correct usage of synonyms and homonyms and made the necessary changes.
Several times small boxes opened in the corner of the screen. Eris’ lightening memory continually studied Kevin’s writing, scanning her massive thesaurus, suggesting alternative words and phrases. He noticed the laptop changed 1851 to 1850 as the date California obtained statehood. When Kevin tried to change it back a box opened, politely but pointedly asking if he wished to purposely use the erroneous 1851 date.
At one point Kevin began to describe a modern country home on the outskirts of San Clemente in vague, general terms. As was his habit, he’d type whatever came to mind and sounded logical. Later, armed with the encyclopedia and other reference material, he would make the proper changes and fill in the details. Doing necessary research was a part of writing Kevin hated.
An image of a large Mexican looking adobe church filled the screen, as Eris’ satin voice filled the room. “Kevin, please excuse the interruption. Here are some details on the area you are describing which you may find useful.”
With that a text message box opened.
It read:
San Clemente, California. 2005 population 60,235; located
sixty miles south of Los Angeles on the Pacific coast. Just
outside of the city is San Juan Capistrano, 2005 population
34,673. One of a number of early settlements, it was founded
by Spanish missionaries November 1, 1776. It is home to the
mission at Capistrano, world famous for its swallows who
return to the mission annually on the same date (March 19).
The area is also known for its gentle rolling hills and fertile
fields yielding cut flowers, strawberries and Valencia oranges.
Kevin sat fascinated at the revealing and unexpected factoid. He never heard the legend of the swallows before.
This was perfect. He could use it in his story.
As if to read his thoughts, Eris spoke up again, “If you wish, you may save this charm for reference or use later. Just press my auto and save keys together.”
“Thank you, Eris,” Kevin replied bemused. He pressed the key combination. The screen returned to its soft blue hue and matted black characters.
Kevin continued to type, carefully crafting his story, conceiving characters, creating conflict, building intrigue. Several times Eris politely interrupted his concentration with well timed charms. Each provided valuable insight and information into topics Kevin had planned to reference later. Working with the intimate, expensive, thoughtful gift, he was actually enjoying writing again.
Suddenly the screen froze. The cute little eyeball cursor stopped winking and the keyboard locked. Kevin sat back in his big orange chair. Now what was going on? His question was answered as the tiny corner clock icon grew into an urgent red flashing square, covering the screen.
5:45 PM
It took Kevin a second.
He had been writing for almost five hours. Where did the time go? Using the touch pad, he clicked on the interfering icon, clearing it from the screen and freeing the laptop.
Then it struck him.
It was his birthday.
He was to meet Susan and her parents at some pretentious restaurant at seven. Kevin scrunched his face at the thought of having to spend the evening with Nutty Nanny and Stuffy Stuart. He looked at the shocking pink conical cardboard hat with frilly paper streamers bursting from the point like plumes of steam escaping a volcano. Earlier that afternoon, Susan had slipped it onto his head, planting a kiss on his neck as he sat in his orange chair, absorbed with concern for his ailing Wang.
Birthdays were supposed to be fun, hats and horns. He tried to picture stolid Stuart Pattersen wearing the gay party favor. The visual sent a shudder through his limbs.
Scrolling through the computer screen, Kevin scanned what he’d written. He slumped back into the orange chair again. It wasn’t very good: five hours and just a sketchy jumbled mess to show for it.
“Well, it’s a start,” he muttered.
Eris provided lots of good suggestions, charms she called them, which he could use later for a re-write. He felt encouraged. At least he was working again. He would organize and punch it up later.
Maybe it wasn’t that bad.
Satisfied, Kevin made sure his work was saved, and then lowered the portable computer’s lid and left.
If he hadn’t been in a rush, he might have noticed that Eris remained turned on. Her drive whirled and faintly hummed, the wireless internet connection communicating silently with its receiver.
He also may have noticed that the time was actually 6:45 PM.
“You’re late!”
Pacing outside the upscale restaurant, Susan crushed a half smoked Marlboro Gold beneath a two inch heel. “Where have you been? I told you seven PM sharp! You know how daddy hates tardiness. And your cell phone is off!” Her steel grey eyes flashed like lightening. Despite the severe but fashionable business suit and perfectly coiffed auburn hair, Kevin thought she looked like a little girl playing dress up.
“It’s nice to see you too, Susan,” Kevin replied. “And what do you mean? It’s only 6:55.”
Susan’s frown grew.”Did you forget your watch again?”
Kevin checked his wrist. “Nope,” he announced proudly, raising the sleeve of his brown tweed sports coat. “Garfield’s big paw is on the eleven and his little one is on the seven. I set it by the clock on the new laptop.”
“You idiot…” She resisted the urge to punch him, settling for a light slap to his shoulder. “Its 7:55, not 6:55, regardless of what that stupid cat tells you! And what happened to the silver Omega my parents bought for you for Christmas?”
“It’s too big and heavy… it keeps sliding off my wrist… and…”
“Never mind!” grasping his thin bicep, Susan steered him through the large, green leather padded double doors, and across an expanse of deep pile taupe carpet.
The restaurant crawled with achingly beautiful young women wearing Prada and Phat Farm, and seriously handsome young men clad in fifteen hundred dollar Brooks Brothers and Sean John suits. Most spoke officiously into tiny cell phones or sipped purple martinis. The latest and hippest music wafted overhead and everywhere hung lush green ferns. The plants made Kevin’s nose itch.
The Pattersen’s were seated at the best of four tables cloistered behind a velvet rope and an obnoxious Reserved sign. A starched waiter with a dour face raised an eyebrow to Kevin, and then smiled and bowed curtly to Susan and unhooked the plush barrier.
“Thank you, William,” Susan chirped as they entered the inner circle. Reaching her parent’s table, her tone instantly changed to melted butter, “Well, look who’s finally here. I swear you writers have absolutely no sense of time.”
“I thought that’s why we gave him the watch! Stuart Pattersen huffed.”
“Now, Stuie… don’t be hard on the boy.” Nanny gave her husband’s hand a maternal pat. He quickly pulled it away. “You were the same at his age.”
“Was not,” Pattersen growled.
Nanny turned to her daughter now seated beside her. “Your father used to keep me waiting for hours, you know. Then he would claim to have gotten lost in his writing. I knew better. The only writing he’d been doing was a check to cover his poker losses.”
The two women giggled.
Stuart Pattersen let out a grunt.
Kevin stood studying his brown loafers. He’d neglected to polish them. “Actually, I was writing…”
All heads turned as if they had forgotten he was there. “You were?” the trio replied as one.
Kevin met their incredulous stares and blushed. “Well… yes… I was. And it’s quite good,” he lied. “And the time did get away from me,” he added, sliding into his seat.
Dinner dragged torturously on. Nanny manipulated the conversation with funny, bawdy tales of when she and Stuart were dating. Susan listened fascinated. Her father sulked silently in his chair, occasionally interjecting a diverting, “I did not,” or, “your mother’s as loony as those juvenile readers she writes!” Kevin enjoyed not being the butt of the evening’s conversation for a change.
Kevin was disappointed, but not surprised, to discover the restaurant too chic for anything as pedestrian as birthday cake. Over Cherries Flambé Nanny asked, “So Kevin, how do you like your new laptop?”
A strange weakness coursed through him when he thought of the bewitching computer. Before he could speak, Susan answered for him. Kevin hated when she did that. “Oh, I’m afraid Kevin is stuck in the 20th century, the early 20th century! He and technology don’t get along.”
Everyone but Kevin laughed.
“Technology is a wonderful thing. Computers have helped me triple my output, and my income!” Pattersen bragged. Of course you don’t need technology to write nostalgic romantic nonsense.”
Again Kevin opened his mouth to speak. Again Susan spoke up. “Oh, daddy, you didn’t even read Kissing Fool.” She laid a hand on Kevin’s arm. Her eyes seemed to twinkle. “It’s a beautifully written, funny tale of young love,” she replied in defense of the book that brought them together.
“I… err… looked it over,” Stuart returned, “before it was published. I got a look at the galley proofs. I never could understand the popularity of such fluff.”
“Well, I thought it was just darling,” Nanny said, giving Kevin a vacant smile.
“Yes, but what has he done lately?” Pattersen demanded.
All eyes were once again on Kevin.
“Eris… the new laptop… is the reason I was late. I was working; deeply involved.” His gaze searched one pair of expectant eyes to the next, finally resting on Susan’s. “She is a delight to work with,” Kevin admitted. Very helpful…”
“Why, honey, you sound as if you are talking about a real person.” There was a refreshing note of jealousy in Susan’s voice. It gave Kevin a warm fuzzy feeling.
“Legal pads!” Pattersen spit out, nearly shouting, attempting to turn the conversation around to him. “I wrote my first novel on yellow legal pads; in pencil! Death and Misfortune sold ten million copies to date!”
“What is it you are working on, Kev?” Nanny asked, completely ignoring her husband.
Kevin felt his blood drain. All he had was some thirty pages of jumbled dialog, descriptions, vague plotting, and a lot of disjointed notes. He now wished he hadn’t been so quick to speak up earlier in the evening. Three pair of eyes studied him, waiting for a reply. Even Stuart Pattersen sat complacently waiting for what he was certain would be some silly, sappy trite.
“It’s a short story,” Kevin blurted out.
Pattersen let out a snort.
“I think… I…” Kevin swallowed hard. “It takes place in early California, as the territory vies to join the union. A beautiful señorita, whose family helped settle San Juan Capistrano, falls in love with the son of a rich, powerful, arrogant land Barron who opposes statehood.”
“Ha! I knew it…” Pattersen interrupted. “Another Romeo and Juliet!”
“Stop it, daddy.” Susan’s eyes melted in the soft glow of the restaurant’s ambience. “I think it sounds perfectly wonderful.”
“Well, if you ask me…” Pattersen’s vexatious voice faded in the din of the restaurant as Kevin thought about Eris. She suggested the setting. Kevin’s original story idea took place in contemporary San Clemente. With the simple change to 1850 and the Mission as a back drop, it all suddenly came together. The story still needed work. But Kevin now felt proud of his efforts.
Pattersen’s scathing diatribe on the lack of real originality in modern literature was finally winding down. Kevin looked the smug author in the eye. “You know, Stuart, there is a reason why they call it classic literature. Shakespeare has inspired the likes of Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Bradberry, Rice, Wolf, even Mickey Spillane and Stephen King. His works have been successfully adapted to everything from Forbidden Planet to West Side Story to American Beauty. Everything from westerns to adventure to modern sci-fi has barrowed and benefitted from Shakespeare. It’s the familiar and timeless themes that readers and movie goers alike are drawn to. Where will Dirk Pit and Robert Langdon and Mac Bolan and Dr. Kay Scarpetta and your own Rock Trueblood be a hundred years from now?”
Kevin forced down the nervous bile that now lined his throat. The small stunned party considered his words. What brought about that little paroxysm he didn’t know. Maybe it was Susan’s rare praise; maybe Eris who made him feel good about his work again; maybe he was just tired of stodgy old Stuie’s lectures. Either way, Kevin had stepped off the cliff into the clouds. He now waited for the anvil to land on his head.
It didn’t.
“Well…” Stuart Pattersen calmly folded his linen napkin and signaled for the waiter. “Check please…”
Kevin Mc Colgan’s head hurt. It rang and echoed like one of Capistrano’s bells. Bright sunlight engulfed the comfortable bedroom through the open window. The clean sweet scent of freshly mowed grass made Kevin nauseous. Outside, the neighbor’s neurotic, bucktoothed bulldog barked incessantly at its own shadow.
“Woouph!”
“Woouph!”
Gingerly, Kevin sat up. His blue eyes were slits and his tongue felt like it needed shaving. Even the follicles of his hair ached. Fumbling for his glasses and slipping them on, the room came into a foggy focus as an errant cloud filtered the harsh sunlight.
11:40 AM
Kevin blinked his bleary eyes trying to clear his head. After dinner Susan insisted they have a drink together to celebrate his birthday. Several bars and numerous drinks later she poured the tipsy writer into his bed and drove home.
At least that’s what Kevin thought. His memory was as fuzzy as his tongue. He seemed to remember stumbling to his den somewhere around 4:30 AM. He thought he may have done some writing. He wasn’t sure. It had probably all been a dream.
Or a nightmare.
Did he really tell off sainted Stuart Pattersen, the great savior of contemporary literature, in the middle of the city’s most popular restaurant? Shakespeare? Mickey Spillane and Stephen King? American Beauty? What the hell was he thinking? And what was with Susan all of a sudden? He couldn’t remember the last time she showed so much affection.
The room blazed brightly causing Kevin to blink and squint as the deflecting cloud moved on. Mrs. Kelso’s hound picked up his one dog chorus.
“Woouph!”
“Woouph!”
The telephone shook Kevin into a groggy awareness. “Hello…” It was Susan.
“Good morning, sweetheart. I hope I didn’t wake you. I waited as long as I could. I’ve only got a minute… I’m late for a department meeting. I just wanted to tell you I loved Return to Me. It’s the best thing you’ve ever written! And you were so modest about it at dinner. You are just full of surprises sometimes. Gotta run… love ya!”
Kevin stared blankly at the phone in his hand. What was that all about? He returned the receiver to its cradle. It rang again.
“Hello…”
“Kevin old man, how are you? How have you been? Busy I see… why didn’t you tell me?” Tom Wilson’s voice was animated. The writer’s agent seldom showed any emotion, stoically reviewing manuscripts to the annoyance of his clients.
“Tom? Hi… what… what are you talking about?”
“What am I talking about?” He let out a restrained laugh. Kevin could hear the ubiquitous unlit cigar rolling from one corner of the agent’s mouth to the other. “What am I talking about? Susan told me you two celebrated last night… by the way, happy birthday. Maybe you should lay off the liquor… bad for the short term memory.”
“Yes… yes, ok… sure… but… but…”
Tom Wilson ignored Kevin’s mumblings. “I’m on my way to a meeting with your publisher about Return to Me… great stuff… every bit as good as Kissing Fool. No… no, better…. might make the perfect anchor for that short story collection. And shove a big ‘I told you so’ right in the face of more than a few critics. I knew you had it in you, kid.”
“Thank you… I guess… but where… how did you…?”
“Waiting for me on my computer first thing this morning. I figured you must have E-mailed it to me as soon as you finished. Ain’t technology great? Say… you sound a bit fried… get some coffee into you, boy… a cold shower… you’ll feel better and it will all come back. I’ll be in touch. Keep up the good work, kid.”
The phone went dead again. What was going on? Was everyone crazy? What was Return to Me?
Kevin’s head hurt worse. It began to throb in time to Butch’s endless barking.
“Woouph!”
“Woouph!”
He staggered into the shower and turned on the cold water.
Kevin felt better. Still, little came back to him. And nothing made sense. He and Susan ate dinner with her parents. That he was sure. He had made a speech, and probably an ass out of himself. That gave him a shutter. Afterwards, the two of them went bar hopping. That he was pretty sure. Where and how much he drank he wasn’t sure. From leaving the last bar until he awoke a short time ago was a total blank.
Eventually, Kevin made his way down to his den. He discovered a stack of papers in the out tray of his new laser printer. Withdrawing the top sheet, he read:
Return To Me
by
Kevin Mc Colgan
“What the…”
Collecting the stack of printed papers, Kevin leafed through them, scanning a sentence here, a paragraph there. It was his story. Only it wasn’t… but it was…
He flopped down in his big orange chair, studying the pages more closely. It was definitely the story he was working on, right down to a few sketchy ideas and notes he’d made. Only this was a finished, polished manuscript, double spaced, perfectly typed and well edited.
Kevin turned to the last few pages. His heroine, Victoria, the Mexican señorita, was dead, just as he planned. Only she died in a house fire, trying to save her aged, ailing father. The fire was purposely started by Carl Bracken, her fiancé’s domineering father. Kevin planned for her to die from an illness. He left an electronic reminder to that effect in Eris.
Eris…
Kevin eyed the machine sitting idle on the desktop. He lifted the lid and the computer instantly lit up. It wasn’t shut down, only sleeping, awaiting use.
“Good afternoon, Kevin,” Eris chirped as the picture of Susan materialized. Searching with the touch pad and winking green eye cursor, Kevin found the confusing icons now partially covered Susan’s face. He also discovered an icon of the old Spanish Mission at Capistrano with the words: Return to Me. Clicking twice opened the file. The title page appeared:
Return To Me
by
Kevin Mc Colgan
He scrolled down. It was the story he held in his hand, his story; the one Susan loved; the one his agent was at this moment probably pitching to his publisher, in its finished form.
Kevin began to read in earnest. This was good… very good. It was his story… his ideas, his thoughts, his feelings… but not his words. Almost, but not quite. When he got to the end, Kevin read it over several times. It worked. It worked beautifully. It brought a tear to his eye.
What was going on?
Kevin relaxed back in his chair trying to think. He must have come down and did the re-write sometime during the night. He just didn’t remember because of the hangover.
That had to be the answer.
Unable to sleep, he had wandered down into the den around 4:30 AM, wrote the final draft of Return to Me, and then E-mailed it to Susan and Tom. The basic idea and outline were already done. Thanks to Eris’ intuitive and detailed filing and organizing programs everything was there. It just needed to be laid out and stitched together. He had done it overnight. And it was good… very good.
“Maybe I ought to get drunk more often,” Kevin mused out loud.
One thing still bother him: where did the ending come from?
Kevin remembered struggling with the ending most of the afternoon. Several ideas came and went. None were very satisfying. He decided Victoria would die. But how? He settled on an illness of some kind. The electronic post-it describing the scene was right where he left it in the computer. Try as he may, he couldn’t find any reference to a fire. And yet here it was. Victoria had been overcome in her own home by smoke and heat. It was the perfect ending to a perfect story.
Just then a mail box icon appeared and began to flash. “Excuse me, Kevin,” Eris’ voice stirred him from his thoughts. “You have an urgent E-mail, from your publisher. Just click the icon.”
It was Alan Rauch, senior managing editor of Kevin’s publishing house. He wanted to see Kevin in his office at 3 PM. Kevin looked at his watch. Garfield said it was 12:35.
It couldn’t be.
He knew he’d been sitting in the den puzzling over Return to Me for at least an hour. Before that he showered and managed to keep some dry toast and orange juice on his stomach. And it was already after 11:30 when he awoke.
The clock icon on Eris read 1:35, as did the digital clock on the printer. Kevin checked his wrist watch again, making a mental note to have Garfield’s battery changed. Then he typed a short E-mail to Rauch saying he’d be there and clicked send.
“Your E-mail has been sent, Kevin.”
Studying the E-mail menu, something occurred to him. Kevin clicked on mail, then selected outgoing and history. A box appeared showing three sent E-mails: the one he just sent with a 1:41 PM time stamp; one to Tom Wilson his agent, and one to Susan at her work. Both of these were sent at 12:45 AM with attachments.
That was impossible.
At 2 AM he and Susan were sitting at the bar at Casey’s, drinking Cactus Flower Margaritas. That much he remembered.
Kevin picked up the phone and dialed the number for time. “1:44 PM,” the electronic voice announced, the same as his clocks. Hanging up, he reached for Eris’ operator’s manual, finding the desired section:
Time and date are continually
monitored and updated automatically
over your WIFI internet connection
with the National Observatory.
There was no way the time stamp on the E-mails could have been wrong. And yet, Eris gave him the incorrect time yesterday, making him late for dinner with Susan.
Kevin scratched his still aching head, running his fingers through his sandy hair, closed out all the boxes and programs, and lowered Eris’ lid. Picking up the newly printed manuscript, he began to read Return to Me again.
“Sensational! There won’t be a dry eye anywhere… even got a little misty eyed myself.” Alan Rauch let out a hoarse laugh. Publishing magnet Alan Rauch didn’t get misty eyed over anything, except maybe runaway best sellers, ones he published. “You may just single handedly bring back the short story, my boy. Got any more like this?”
Kevin sat across from the older man in an oversized wingback leather chair. He felt like a fifth grader in the principal’s office. Tom Wilson was seated next to him. The matching chair didn’t seem to swallow the agent the way Kevin’s did.
Everything about Rauch was big, from his six foot three frame, to his long, bloodhound face, to his always dead on target business decisions. Kevin liked the often gruff but genteel former steel worker. Alan Rauch started his publishing empire with two unknown authors and a hundred dollars borrowed from a loan shark. One of the unknown authors was Stuart Pattersen, an out of work cab driver Rauch met while shooting pool in a Youngstown bar.
“Well, sir, I…” Kevin began blushing. He wasn’t used to receiving praise from his publisher. “If you recall, I have six finished stories. I believe Tom showed them to you… I…”
“Yes, yes,” Rauch interrupted impatiently. “Of course, not bad… make good filler. But I need two… no, three,” Rauch slapped the desktop, “three more like Return to Me. Same theme, and lovey dovey mushy… and tragic… love tragic!” He laughed again. “Women love tragic… sales of Kissing Fool was 72% female. Women love you, boy. They understand, identify with you… err… your characters. And you understand them… know what they want… what they like.” Rauch rose from behind his desk. The big man reminded Kevin of a circus clown emerging from a tiny car. “Give me three more like Return to Me, son, and I’ll give you a number one best seller.”
With that the meeting was over. Rauch had spoken. And Alan Rauch usually got what he wanted. Kevin and Tom both popped out of their seats.
“Yes, sir,” Kevin replied, not sure how he was going to come up with three more stories. He still wasn’t sure where Return to Mecame from.
“Excuse me, Kevin. You haven’t typed anything for almost thirty minutes. My system is about to go into rest mode.” Eris’ soft voice tugged at Kevin like a gentle hand.
A week after the meeting with his publisher, Kevin sat in the big orange chair, adrift in a turbulent sea of plot and characters. He had eaten dinner with Susan, returning home around eight thirty.
It was now one AM.
Kevin read what was on the laptop screen:
Untitled
Sara Jane stood on the old abandoned wood bridge gazing
down into the coal black water. Her tears begat tiny spiral
ripples on the becalmed surface. Across a once proud field
of snow ball cotton, now choked by weeds and thatch and
kudzu, drifted the shrill whistle of a train. It shattered the
thick, stifling summer air. It was the noon express leaving
the station, leaving the sleepy southern town; leaving Sara
Jane. And taking with it the only man Sara Jane ever loved.
Kevin’s stomach felt queasy. It wasn’t Susan’s tuna-noodle casserole. He wished he’d printed the noisome paragraph so he could tear it to pieces; shred and rent it mercilessly. That was the problem with modern technology: with machines doing most of our work – and most of our thinking – for us, there was nothing left on which to vent frustration. Man was still his basic, primal self. His needs were still basic and primal. Humans hadn’t matured mentally, or even emotionally, at the same rate as technology. Man still needed to shred paper; punch a wall; kick a fender. He needed to spend his anger on the offending inanimate object; offer an appeasing sacrifice to the goddess Nemesis. You could take a Louisville Slugger to a smug Mac, and then have to cough up two grand to replace the machine. Technology was far too fragile and too costly. It should come with a built in punching bag.
Instead, Kevin did what he always did when he became frustrated with his writing: he sulked down deeper into his big orange chair.
“Would you like some assistance?”
Kevin’s brow wrinkled.
That’s odd, he thought. How does Eris know I’m having trouble? He studied the web cam built into the computer’s lid. It seemed to wink at him, causing Kevin to jump in his chair.
“That’s just silly,” Kevin said aloud, his words ringing unsure. “I must be working too hard. It’s just a stupid machine.”
Eris spoke up again. “No, Kevin. I am programmed to recognize and help with writer’s block.”
With that, a box opened on the screen. The word genre?flashed, followed by the hypnotic, blinking green eye cursor. Kevin stared at the screen for a minute, and then timorously typed love story, romance and hit the enterkey. The box vanished, replaced by another asking time? Fidgeting in his seat, Kevin typed nineteenth century. Once again a new box appeared this one inquiring location? Kevin sighed and typed the US south.
Eris and Kevin played a game of twenty questions, the computer probing his thoughts on plot, setting, characters and other details. Finally the screen cleared and Eris spoke in her wispy voice, “Thank you, Kevin. Please wait a moment.”
The laser printer lit up and began to operate. Kevin retrieved two pages. They outlined the story of a woman who travels from Philadelphia to Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1865 in search of her brother, a union officer. She meets and falls in love with a handsome southern gentleman who served as a captain in the Confederacy. The man soon realizes he is the one who killed the woman’s brother during the fierce battle for the city.
Kevin’s imagination kicked into high gear. He could easily picture a war scarred town and crumbling plantation. He saw the two ill-fated lovers; felt the heart breaking conflict of the woman’