Today you’re going to get a blitz of stories! This is the first of two rapid fire entries that I will be releasing. This was my entry for Furious Fiction for the month of October. After the pretty immense high of finally making the long list for September (2019), I was pretty content! I was also featured on Furious Fiction’s 21st month celebration to which you can read my postcard entry and response here!
I’ve noted in a protected post that I don’t plan to release my long listed entry “things i wish i could tell you.” anytime soon. The nature of it being that it’s quite a personal story and I don’t really feel comfortable sharing that unless the time is right.
But let’s not linger on the negatives. Here is my entry!
October 2019 Prompts:
- Each story had to take place in a LIBRARY or BOOKSTORE
- Each story had to include AT LEAST SIX of the following 20 words – each taken from the openings of the previous 20 Furious Fiction winning stories:
- BROKEN; MUSIC; AROUND; MECHANICAL; SMELT; GRUBBY; GAME; COFFEE; BEIGE; HANDS; TWELVE; LETTERS; BACKPACK; NAMELESS; COWBOY; OPERATE; CUPID; TRAIN; PUNGENT; UNTOUCHED
Two Copies Sold by Charles M.
The pungent scent of coconut and vanilla was inescapable from the dazed and confused conscience of Rudy Barracks as he stepped into the mercurial bookstore. The interior was grubby and the bookshelves were barely intact. The mechanical sounds of ticking clocks and the ethereal sounds of dream-like music kerranging from the speakers could be heard around the store.
Rudy nervously browsed around the bookshelves only to be startled by the shopkeeper.
“How can I help you?”
Rudy jumped. “N-no it’s okay.”
But the shopkeeper did not flinch. “So you know what this bookstore is all about right? We don’t just sell any kind of biographies. We sell the histories of everyone! Even ordinary people! All your life events, relationships, feelings and even what you had for brunch at a particular date! Well only if it’s memorable. Or if you posted it on social media. Silly silly!”
“Do I have one too?”
“Of course. Yours is not a very popular one. We only have two copies. Although we recently discovered a very handsome fellow by the name of Langdon Muller expressed interest and told us to keep a copy on reserve. Very handsome. His biography is far more popular than yours. In fact I think it’s sold out!”
“Langdon expressed interest in my biography? But why?” he thought to himself.
“He can’t read what’s inside! Please tell me where I can find those copies.”
Rudy panicked as the shopkeeper directed him to the only copy left. It was a thick, hardcover book with a nameless beige spine. The front cover was a rather unflattering picture of Rudy with a broken smile wearing a frog suit.
He randomly flipped through the pages. “Overly neurotic, needy and while highly imaginative – forms outlandish speculations that sends him into spirals of severe anxiety and depression. In love with Lang—”
He stormed to the front counter. He could not bear the shame of having Langdon Muller read the contents of his story. He then smelt the scent of coffee mixed with coconut and vanilla which could only mean one thing.
“Cupid, did you still have that copy on reserve for me?”
It was Langdon. Rudy could not help but feel a surge of mixed emotions.
“Oh hey Rudy. This is awkward!” Langdon said, as he was handed Rudy’s history.
“Please don’t read that. It’s not true,” Rudy pleaded.
“Actually these histories are 100% accurate,” the shopkeeper interjected with spitfire succession.
Without hesitation, Langdon grabbed his personal copy of his history from his backpack and handed it to Rudy.
“It’s yours. Everything about me is all there.”
“Emotionally distant, prone to stress, conceals their true emotions and crazy. Can be incredibly withdrawn much to the frustration of others. In love with Rudy.”
“I guess you know the truth now. Do you love me even less?” Langdon queried, startling Rudy. Rudy shook his head.
“I guess we’re both crazy,” Rudy joked, a shy smile beaming at his recently discovered realisation.
“Crazy attracts crazy,” Langdon said, smiling back.
Writer’s Commentary
I hate this story. I really do.
This was one of the occasions I really tried to be clever with the premise. A bookstore with the biographies of everyone in the universe. The initial title was “The Entire History of Rudy Barracks” who is a protagonist I used in one of my stories at Year 12 High School and also in the story A Leading Man in Space and for my NYC Midnight stories and potentially my Journey project for Lexical Journal’s second publication.
The inception of Rudy was that I always wanted a character to represent myself to navigate really creative and imaginative scenarios. However, later I found myself writing a lot of mundane stories which pretty much the same character in mind over and over. The first story he featured in was in a story called The Discords of Radiance where he was a frequently ill student reflecting on the life he had so far and the farewells he tells his friends and eventually the narrator.
While Rudy was only meant to be a one off – I found myself resonating with his character over and over again. I loved the name. However the character slowly detached from being just me – and then had a life of his own. He was the eternally curious, caring but extremely neurotic and self-conscious character who daydreams endlessly – but was an enigma to the people around him due to his silence and fearfulness to connect.
At the risk of doing another story really similar to Perennial Attachments and Japanese Jazz and Funk where there is a powerful bond between two males, I tried to inject some truth into it and a constant state of neuroticism. The coconut and vanilla motif is actually a real thing (although I’m not sure if that’s actually is what it is) – where someone I recently spend a lot of time smells a bit like that. Which later on freaked me out because I smell that scent at other places without that person being there (what?!)
I also took some quotes that were from actual conversations that I’ve had with people. However, I’m quite disappointed in it because it was used in such a piece that I’m not necessarily really proud of.
I think I got really cocky about being able to fit in all the concepts like privacy, confidentiality, problems with intimacy, connections and wrapping it up as an allegory of a writer’s angst about being seen and heard with the neuroticism of being in love.
Given a longer word count – I’ll probably be able to do what I wanted to accomplish. Reading back, I don’t hate it as much as I’m suggesting. But it was something I wish was more than what it is.
Let me know what you think!
C.