Bitter

 

She was in. Everything was going well. She had dialogue. Delightful scenes, a boyfriend and a family. The creator loved her. All the attention, most of the words, then nothing. It suddenly stopped;like she didn’t exist. Then came the big lament, a hissy fit. “She abandoned me. I felt violated. I was such a well-rounded character, for goodness’ sake. I had everything to look forward to. It destined me for greatness. I might have even lasted for a good hundred years. I mean, the story was going really well.” She remembered the sense of elation when she created her. So happy. She meant something. After all those years of waiting, she thought finally, yes! She was so grateful. It was hard to express the gratitude she felt towards her. But she thought well I am giving something back. She seemed happy with her. She had heard a guy downtown collects characters. Tries to breathe them alive again. It’s hard to get in. She would have to give her whole backstory. Where she was likely to go. It’s definitely not a shoo-in. “I might give it a go. I don’t see what I have to lose. I don’t know whether I could put myself in the hands of someone else like that. I feel too damaged and beaten up. And there is the danger that I might not be as good as I think. There might be a reason I didn’t make it with her. I really don’t know; what do you think I should do?” Downtown the creator met her good friend. She did not know he was in love with her. She did not know the depth of sadness she triggered in him. She did not know he had a severe attachment disorder. Hey how’s it how’s the book going you are such a star. Ahh nah, it’s just not true. No, honestly, how is the new book. I flagged it. It wasn’t going anywhere. I was just sick of it. Just too hard. I felt bad. I hear the character is bad-mouthing me about it. There’s only so much I can do. I think she had an over an inflated idea of how good she was. I am frightened that someone will pick her up and have her stalking me like a psycho bitch. Imagine that. She could turn my life into a misery. As she talked, a small white car cruised past the window where she was sitting. If she had looked out the window, she would have seen her sitting in the front passenger seat. She would not have seen the small black pistol she had inside the pocket on her oversized jacket. There’s the smart bitch. If she only knew the loser with her was a loser. I will waste that bitch. I have to have something good to present as a plot. Otherwise I am stuck with all the other bitter ones who hang around outside his door. It’s funny how certain music gives you distinct energy. Aldous Harding just makes you want to write so hard. Lifting into the happy world. Lifting off and zooming around. Hey, what the fuck are you doing in here, this is not your story. Psychedelic noir. She was. But then, maybe it wasn’t true. Such a beautiful voice. There was a battle going on, that’s for sure. It was hard to sort it out. Perhaps it was best to leave it for a while. But where to live, meanwhile. There were no lines to exist in. It felt like being pegged on the clothesline in a violent easterly storm. She would pay. That was a given. She would pay. Her cosy bourgeois life would come crashing down. She needed to learn that you couldn’t treat people like that. And I was a person. I had feelings. Emotions. I may not have blood and smell, but I am a strong visual image, albeit a written one. She had escaped that day. She resolved to go downtown and see her friend. Perhaps he could help. She got to his place on the fifth floor of a burn out apartment building. There was no door. But a phalanx of characters blocked the entrance. There was a partially formed bot, an almost finished space traveller. She spoke to a bitter robot who let her through into the blackened room. It was great to have shaken off that silky softness. That guy who wilted and moaned about singers and poets. Again, just fuck off. Her friend laughed when he saw her. He lacked empathy. “So, things not so well then. Perhaps you should not have been so mean to the rest of us.” There was a murmur from the assorted characters in the room. “You can’t take anything for granted these days. Just because the creator is a prize winner doesn’t guarantee you anything. We all have creators. It means nothing.” She decided there and then to go to the ceremony. That was where she could do it. She could tell by his attitude that there was nothing for her there. She had to take matters into her own hands. But he had, in making fun of her, pointed her in the right direction. “Don’t go. Stay with us. You really have to ask what was I and what was I to become. If you don’t do that you won’t succeed. You will get no prizes. You will exist somewhere in a computer document. It might not save you in a document. Just some scratches on a hard drive at the dump somewhere. You might just be thoughts in her head. And you know what she is like. There are some here who have been there. They know what you are going through.” She did not want his foggy sympathy. It was all going the wrong way. This is not what she wanted. It all started when someone butted into the story gas bagging about Aldous Harding. That was a wrong turn. It had all been bitter justification since then. She realised they were trying to divert her from her vengeance. They secretly hoped that they themselves might emerge from her thoughts. She was a distraction. A seductive one. It was clear there was too much chat and not enough action. She commandeered a car at gunpoint on the motorway, reversed into someone’s fence and sideswiped a car as she drove away towards the suburbs. Her girlfriend sought refuge in a house by the lights. The cops found her in the garden trying to con a gullible fool into thinking she was innocent. She was gone. This time she would let her know that she would die. Aldous alludes to her problems in an interview. She doesn’t come right out and say it. Look, you are making me angry now. No one really cares about your thoughts on Aldous. Just stop butting in and trying to take over. I love you so much for giving me space to tell my story, but it doesn’t come with some ransom note where you can just say what you like. You are feeling like her. And seriously, have you worked out by now where that will end. You are just babbling to avoid the actual story. The proper story is about me and the fact it fucked me over at a point where I was just about to break through. If I can’t get the job done myself I am sure someone will help. It was a glittering event, but strictly no Jewish people. The price of a ticket was cheap, reflecting the fact that it was a bullshit event.But her sycophant buddies all three surrounded her, trying to ingratiate themselves. You could tell none of them cared about their characters at all. It was all about themselves. She sat by herself towards the back of the auditorium with that little silver pistol. She felt like a western character. A dusty avenging angel out of the desert. Perhaps that’s what she really was. A zombie from a ghost town full of other zombies. As she gaped at the crowd, she felt a presence sit beside her. “Are you sure you really want to do this? Isn’t it a little extreme? I know how you feel. It’s happened to me.” She ignored this person. First up was a music segment. She gasped as Aldous came on stage, dressed in a red velvet gown with ten-inch heels and a dog collar. She felt betrayed. She had her white gothic guitar with her. She dedicated her first song to the creator. She squirmed with rage. Would it help if you tell me your life up to where you were canned? She wore red denim jeans, a black top, black jandals and toenail polish. Owed her existence to a psychological thriller. Unhappily married to a terrible poet. They consummated their marriage at a writing festival. It may do, it may not - it depends on whether I like you. Well, I don’t want to condescend, but do not like me. If you liked me too much, I would have to arrange for you to see another colleague. I can arrange that for you if you like. It was only four sessions in and things were not going well. My other life is that what you want? I didn’t really mind; it boosted me. The thought someone was jealous maybe, feel good, that is until it all turned toxic. That was about part way through the second chapter after that she had me go on a rampage. I lost count of the number of strangers I woke up to in my bed to but again some sex was good. She started too early, she should have started later, for my backstory she struggled. Like some of those guys who f****** me. I feel you are trying to manipulate me. It would be much better to tell me. I know it’s painful but avoiding it well who knows. I don’t think this twat knows quite what she is dealing with. The tale I have to tell is not a happy one. One February night as summer was winding down, the creator thought she would start a new book for the year. I wasn’t born anywhere. I came into being as I left school to go to university in a small southern city. It was the seventies and on a Sunday the outer city was so quiet that tumbleweeds might have floated down the street. Back a few street numbers from the corner, the parrot bar, tropical fish tanks, reds and greens dominant. I made money quickly around the corners. The street itself was high on a ridge. There was a large hotel down below the road, hidden by a scrappy hedge of privet. I rented a room there for my work. What was my work? That’s private, and it’s not what you are thinking. On the next street over, the major one in town, there was a large rock club. The owner was a dally. Soon my study dropped off, and I worked at the venue and stayed at the hotel. I changed my name. What was your new name? Funnily enough up to that time I didn’t have a name. So my name went from nothing to Christina. One night the creator’s husband visited me at the hotel. He wanted to fuck me, I know. He knew where the manuscript was up to and thought it was going off the rails. He wanted me to dump the rest of this story. I couldn’t do that. It had to be told. We weren’t that far in; I felt solid, not a cardboard cutout, so I told him where to go. He offered to pay me money. I could not understand why he was so disloyal to her. There must have been something I did not know. One night at the parrot bar I ran into a friend from the past - one of those special people, very innocent, did not understand the effect he had. So oblivious, you thought it a deliberate ploy until you finally realized - no, that was actually him, he did not understand. Just being seen talking to him bought me a wave of jealousy. None so more nasty and infectious than the jealousy from the husband. He became impossible to contain. One night at the bar he threatened to cut him. Fortunately, he could not control him because he had a genuine life. The creator knew him and fantasised him into the story as my love interest. She assumed I was straight, which I was, but at other times I just wanted to fuck women. This guy made me straight for the day in an instant. There was just something about him that women wanted to fuck and a lot. So god looking. If it wasn’t in there, she was sucking it. In where? You know in there! Oh, in there. Why didn’t you say? WTF. In between times they spoke of her bitterness. She watched it flow away. First, the head of a mountain stream, then a wide muddy river next to the sea, last, the lunge of a great white. The days saw it spent. You still seem angry and upset. I am, but I no longer feel the need to kill. I realise now I am my story. The creator need not construct me. I existed long before she wrote anything about me down. I am my story.Yes. We are all sitting at the places we are at. Someone coming to us is reaching a platform where we sit. We all have our own platform. When someone sees you, they have travelled from their platform up to yours, but we only exist on our platforms. The other person is not stable. Like visiting someone on a space station. Imagine a lattice of platforms and that is where the person exists. When you move on the lattice to see someone you are out on the lattice, not on a platform. You are only ever on your own platform.