Week Fourteen
Welcome back, fellow writers and readers. This week's
triple-take on the fictional "leads" that surround us: "Final
Words," "Natural Defences" and "Mind the Gap."
Final Words
This week I had the pleasure of watching the eighties
dystopian classic Blade Runner for the first time since, well, the eighties.
I'm definitely less inured to on-screen violence than I was back then, but I
enjoyed the film immensely all the same – especially the penultimate scene
wherein the humanoid "replicant" Roy Batty elects to spare his
would-be destroyer in the person of Blade Runner (replicant killer) Rick
Deckard.
Like all replicants of his class, Batty has a lifespan
of four years – a short period of time that's almost up. Rather than taking revenge on the
man who killed his three close friends and tried to kill him, he chooses to
spend his last few minutes attempting to effect a meaningful communion.
Imagine being stuck with an enemy in your final hour – someone
who had done you a deep and lasting wrong. Would you find your way to
forgiveness if it meant not dying alone? How much would you share of yourself
once there was nothing left to lose?
Plenty of material here for a short story – maybe even a novel, if the protagonist and antagonist have known each other for a long time.
Natural Defences
Recently, while re-reading the fascinating book, Tropical
Nature, by Adrian Forsyth and Ken Miyata, I was struck by the notion that
certain plants evolve defences against insects and other "predators"
that ironically render them more attractive to us. The mouth-watering scent of basil
denotes the presence of a chemical that interrupts the hormonal development of
various insects; the aromatic oil in sage inhibits the digestive bacteria of
horses and other grazing animals; the enzyme papein, a common ingredient in
commercial meat tenderizers, causes the mouths of over-eager pineapple and papaya thieves
to bleed.
The idea of "natural" defences that reward some
while repelling others got me thinking along narrative lines. I began to
imagine a less than likable protagonist: Gert, an aging, acid-tongued woman who
runs her own fresh herb business and prefers the company of aromatic plants to
that of her fellow human beings. The story begins as a certain thick-skinned
gentleman comes calling in search of a rare hybrid of Rosemary – one too pungent
for most . . .
Mind the Gap
"'Sheer terror' as 4-Year-Old Falls into Toronto
Subway Gap"
I don't mind admitting I felt a shiver of terror myself
when I read this headline. Imagine if a child in your charge . . . it doesn't
bear thinking about.
Except that fiction writers have to think about all
aspects of the human condition. Lorrie Moore's short story, "Terrific
Mother" (from the collection Birds of America) tells the tale of Adrienne,
a single thirty-five-year-old who accidentally drops her neighbour's baby.
When the baby dies, Adrienne loses much of what she knows about how to live.
It's a scary, gutsy, deeply moving piece of fiction – one I will never forget.
But back to our real-life story, in which, thankfully,
the child was spared. Here are the bare bones of the article:
"Four-year-old Ava Buckareff is hardly aware, but
her mother Julie is holding her little girl a little tighter after a terrifying
experience on the subway.
"'I hugged her. I held her. I cried for 45 minutes.
Just the possibility of what could have happened,' said Julie.
"Ava was on her way home with her aunt and her older
brother, Ethan. When she stepped towards the open door, she fell between the
subway train and the platform.
"'She stepped in the gap and slid full through. You
could only see one arm sticking up holding onto the platform. And her head,'
said Ethan.
"'There's a moment of sheer terror, right,' said
Esther Buckareff, the girl's aunt. . . . She grabbed her niece by the
arm and hoisted her onto the train just seconds before the doors closed. 'It
never crossed my mind the space was that big.'"
If I were to write a fictional story inspired by this
real-life close call, I would be inclined to make the daughter an only child,
thereby intensifying the potential loss.
Now that there's only one child, a key question comes to mind: Does the little girl remind
the aunt of herself when she was little? Perhaps they're both dreamy and
distractible by nature, in contrast to the sister/mother, who always has things
under control. Is the mother regularly hard on them both for being
"away with the faeries"?
Does the aunt ever fantasize about taking her sister's little girl away for
real?
Not a pretty story – at least not to begin with, but then
many good stories aren't. Come to think of it, the beginnings of this disturbing
tale could dovetail nicely with the fictional lead explored in "Selfish Jean,"
from the twelfth instalment of this blog . . .
One thought on “Week Fourteen”
Blade Runner is a fabulous movie, based on a terrific story by Philip K. Dick called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. If you like the movie, I highly recommend the read, Dick is a master of the science fiction form. Happy reading!