Answering the Call – Part 1
My goodness that was a fun finale to write. The use of an improvised potato gun as a finishing weapon was pretty spectacular, if I do say so myself. And it continues to add the characters history and a general sense of him being a very smart troublemaker when he was a child. All in all, it felt like a remarkably well done bit of story. I think for now we will leave T. Jefferson Green where he’s at, and stray to another aspect of my writing that I’d really like to improve: Fantasy!
You see, this year is when the fire was truly lit for being a writer. In May, my family attended a comic convention in Kansas City. There, I met a man responsible for more stories I have read and loved than any other author. Kevin J Anderson. He was an incredibly nice guy, he even stood for a picture with me. I got to talk to Jim Butcher as well, shake his hand, and have him sign his latest masterpiece. It was my first convention, and the atmosphere and energy contained within it were captivating. It’s what I want of my life, what I need of my existence.
On the drive home, I had my first complete story hit me full force. Everything. The whole of the story played itself before my eyes. I saw the people of that world, the powers and abilities they possessed, how their hierarchy was structured. It was glorious. It also turned out that I had bitten off an enormous chunk of writing that I didn’t have the chops for. It sits in my word processor still, but it deserves a more seasoned writer to give it form. It’s going to be an incredible story, and I want to do it justice. In the meantime, I have been cutting my baby teeth on the known quantity. I’ve had daydreams of sci-fi universe after universe since I was a very small child. It’s what I know best.
Time to branch out however. I have tons of fantasy ideas as well as sci-fi ideas, and it’s time to give those worlds a try. As with most non-high fantasy settings, this one will occur in the average, hum drum world. Some of my favorite fantasy novels are from this genre. Rivers of London, Dresden Files, Gravewalker, and too many more to name. In that line of thought I have a story that I’ve been kicking around for a few years.
It’s an odd little ditty, at once sad and identifiable. Just an ordinary guy who is placed in extraordinary circumstances, given impossible options, and asked to make the best of what he’s been given. I guess part of it stems from my own thoughts as I read comic books and fantasy sagas. I would always put myself in the shoes of the protagonist. What would I do if I suddenly found myself in possession of strength beyond the normal? Would I stay the man I am, or would I become something else entirely? Does power corrupt, and absolute power corrupt absolutely? Or, if you are a man of exceptional quality, can you resist the urge to misuse strength, and instead use it to protect those that have no power of their own?
For your reading pleasure.
Answering the Call – Part 1
My desk phone was ringing. This wouldn’t normally be a cause for comment, for you see I run my own small business, and I spend entirely too much of my day answering it. No, the strange thing about this time was that the phone wasn’t plugged in. No mistake there, I hadn’t even had a chance to unpack the cords yet. This was the first box I had grabbed, and I had only just taken out the phone when it began ringing. A strange move for a phone in such circumstances, but I can play along with the best of them. I picked it up, and as I did so often during my day, I intoned “Brindle Accounting, how can I help you?”. Silence greeted me, but not the simple silence of a phone with no signal. No, this was the silence of an active phone line with no one talking. I heard breathing, and then a voice spoke through the unplugged, unpowered phone. “Is this Joseph Brindle?” he/she/it asked in a low, rumbling basso that filled me with uneasy dread. “Speaking” I answered as I leaned back, hoping to move this along so Jinny could jump out and end this little prank. “Is this the Joseph Brindle who destroyed a life on October 17th, 1996?” the voice asked with a dark sneer, finding amusement in knowing what the answer would be. Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn’t that. Without thought, I leaned forward and harshly demanded “Who is this? How did you know about that? This joke isn’t funny any longer.”
The voice held me entranced, glued to a phone that by all rights shouldn’t even be working. “Oh this is no joke Joey. Was it hard watching her die? I bet the memory of it keeps you up at night.” My mouth dry, I tried to form a thought and put it into words. How? How could he have known? No one ever called me Joey, no one. Only her. It was our secret, the name she had called me that last night so long ago in a quiet hospital room. “What do you want” I croaked out as I figured out how to make my voice work again. “Oh, I already have everything that I want, Joey. I’m here to talk about what you want.” A pause, another dark chuckle. This one seemed to have fire and brimstone in it, and for one terrible moment I thought I caught a whiff of sulphur. Gathering myself, I responded “I don’t think we have anything to discuss. I have everything I could ever need. You’re barking up the wrong tree.” My voice and my hands steadied as the words flowed. I knew it was the right answer, although how I did was beyond me. “What if you could’ve saved her, Joey? Wouldn’t you give anything to have been able to stop her? You’re why she died that night Joey, and you know it.” Again, that waiting, breathing silence as my heart raced. How?! I’ve never talked about this, not to anyone. Not even my Mother, rest her soul, had known. This voice I had never known was here, speaking the thoughts I had never given voice.
“I’m waiting Joey” stated the basso in my ear, startling me out my painful reverie “Her life was in your hands, and you killed her. Wouldn’t you have given anything to save her?” My hands began shaking, more than I could control this time. The wretched odor of that night reached out to me, the blood and offal stench so strong I could vomit. It had been an accident! No one could’ve stopped it, it wasn’t my fault. We hadn’t known any better, we were just children. I had tried everything I could to save her. I had called 911 just like my father had told me if anything went wrong. The ambulance had come, and I’d stayed with her that whole time, my hands splattered with her blood as we rode to the hospital. Her quiet words to me that night, after all the surgery. She called me her Joey. She hadn’t blamed me at all, loving me as only she could right until the end. It hadn’t been my fault, it hadn’t been my fault!
“I didn’t kill her” I said shakily, not even believing myself “it was an accident, something that happens when you don’t know any better.” Laughter met my response, and I could almost feel hot stinking breath on my neck as though the amusement hadn’t come through the phone, but rather from a head leaned over my shoulder. Whoever was on the other end hadn’t believed me either, it seems. “I’m sure that’s what you tell yourself at night when the memories seem so real you can smell them, Joey. She didn’t find the gun herself, you did. She hadn’t been the one to load it, you did that for her, so proud to show her that you knew how it worked. Funny how you failed to explain that part to your poor Mother.” Again the sneering laughter, so full of blame and certainty. Why now? It had been twenty years since that terrible day, twenty long years where he’d tried everything he could to carve out a normal life for himself.
I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t face this voice and it’s mocking laughter and it’s blaming statements. This had gone too far. I slammed the phone down on the desk and began taking it apart. Whoever had played this sick joke on him was in serious trouble. How dare they!? How dare they pick at wounds so old and sore that they would never heal. He didn’t deserve this, he treated everyone around him with kindness and fairness. It was what she would’ve wanted from him, and that had been the mantra that carried him through the dark years. As the phone came apart in his hands, he grew more and more alarmed. There wasn’t anything in the receiver, other than the parts that always went there. I’ve fixed this blasted thing enough to know. So how had they done it? The speaker on the front of the phone crackled to life, and the deep basso rumbled forth from it.
“You can try to shut me out Joey, but you’ll always know in your heart that it was your fault. You couldn’t save her then, but I’m offering you the chance to save others now. Isn’t that what she would want you to do?” That last question hit me with the strength of a thunderbolt. It was all that kept me going some days, asking myself if quitting on living was what she would’ve wanted from me. Her beautiful blue eyes imploring me, cajoling me, loving me despite what I had done to her. She had always believed I was going to be something special, someone who helped others. She called me her hero, always came to me when things would go wrong. Would she want me to turn my back now, when there were other lives at stake? Thinking of her perfect little face that last bedtime we shared, I summoned up all of my courage and put the torn apart receiver up to my ear. My voice was surprisingly calm as I told the expectant voice “I’m listening.”
To be continued…
Justin
