Washed Out & Washed Up

Watered Down:

In old cowboy movies the bad guy wears black and the good guy wears white. Since those days, colours and shades have been added to both antagonists and protagonists - not just to their attire but also to their personalities. But apparently my palette got left out in the rain for this particular story, as all my characters got written in washed-out hues of pedantic boredom.

Name that Tone:

Adding insult to injury, I gave my bad guy a silly name: Lobsterman. It was a moniker born of his real-life counterpart, who has a wacky theory that a crustacean hierarchy is a good model for human behaviour. The tone of my story didn’t support the outlandish name though. If this was comedy, maybe it could work, but this was dead serious, and the name could only be a glaring red flag of the bad writing to come. Lobsterman was only in the scene so my protagonist could say things - I could've just named him Sounding-Board-Man.

Perspective is Your Friend:

My dead serious approach was a result of my being too close to the subject matter. My story was devoid of the sort of humour or irony that perspective can bring. I was writing from a place of anger. It was a justified anger but also a blinding anger. No one wants to read shouting on the page, unless it's well crafted dialogue, and even then, take care.

Clichés, I have a Few:

I wasn't willing to put in the work to give my characters a fresh take - I just wanted my pro to be my mouthpiece.

Clichés are the bad guy: put 'em on a hoss and ride 'em outta town.

Hold Your Nose, It's All On the Nose:

I often find it useful to write a bunch of on the nose dialogue so I know what my characters are really thinking. Then I transform that into dialogue that leaves out what that person is really thinking. Subtext. But in this story I had no intention of changing Lobsterman's exceedingly contrived replies nor my protagonist's soggy sermons.

Hush Now, Don't Explain:

My essential story was good but the telling was bad - because it was telling, not showing. How many times do I have to tell myself not to tell? Give me sensory input, action, metaphor, but dial down the explanations.

Twofer:

I think there are at least two separate stories in my one effort here. They do intersect but each seems to want its own platform. This is a case of wanting to jam all my discontent into one big washed-out blow-out. Here it is:

Love Harder: an unfinished short story (read on if you dare) -

We had to move. Laws had been passed in our state meaning my daughter could no longer get the care she needed. In fact, she and/or her providers could be fined and/or jailed for receiving or giving care.

So I put our house up for sale, the place where I’d raised her, where we’d lived all of her sixteen years. The home where we’d carved pumpkins for Halloween and cut out paper hearts on Valentine’s Day.

One day, a man came by to look at our house. I recognized him right away. An influencer who had some whackadoodle theory about the hierarchy of crustaceans and how it applies to humans: males at the top, two genders only, pincers at the ready (I guess).

This vile conspiracy-theorist-hater wanted to buy my house. Over my dead body. I would have kicked him out but he sprained his ankle on my stoop and I felt obliged to help him. I don’t know why since he was the cause of so much heartache in so many people’s lives.

I got him settled in a chair while he yelped in pain. He wouldn't let me call medics, said his daughter would know what to do. So he called her. Hanging up, he popped a few of my painkillers, then settled back.

"This place will be perfect.”

“I know who you are, Lobsterman, and this house is not for sale, not to you. Your work is hateful and destructive…”

“Now wait a minute."

"No, you wait a minute.”

I felt like strangling him so I shoved my hands into my pockets and went to look out the window. I let my anger simmer to a nostalgic sadness.

“From this window I watched my daughter head off to school almost every day of her school years.”

"I also have a daughter. She's a genius.” Tears welled up in his eyes. I'd seen him cry in many online videos and it didn't sway me a bit.

“In this room,” I said, ignoring his weepy brag, “we decorated Christmas trees and drank egg nog. Here, we set the mood for readings of A Christmas Carol.”

He dabbed his eyes dry with his sleeve.

“One year, Tess wondered if those sounds in the night were our rads clanking or Marley’s ghost rattling the chains he forged in life.”

“Your rads clank?”

“We got that fixed. But you still don’t get the house.”

"Everyone has their price."

"One snowy day, just after the holidays, Tess wore her first ever dress to school - a purple velvet frock she’d asked for for Christmas. She was fourteen and, on that day, I invented the magic sparkle bubble kiss.”

“The what?”

“I blew a kiss at her and imagined it sending out protective sparkles that would surround her and keep her safe, always. Now, if we intend to stay safe, we have to move.”

"What, the magic kisses and fairy glitter won't do it for you anymore?”

I bit my tongue. “Author Alok Menon responded to a hater on social media with: 'I love you more than you hate me,' and went on to say: 'Every day I ask myself: how can I love harder?’”

"What the hell is love harder?”

I offered Lobsterman a drink, even though I was aware he didn’t drink. I took a slug myself. And then I took another.

"I have a neighbour who was furious because my daughter put a sign in her window that said Trans is Beautiful. The neighbour sent me a message on social media telling me to take it down. She called me a horrible mother.”

"I think I agree.”

"You don't even know me. And neither does our neighbour. So, I spent a whole evening writing her a letter, trying to tell her who we are. I figured if you’re going to attempt to love harder in the written word you’re going to have to write harder too.”

“Ah, now we get to the lover harder bit.”

“It’s not a bit. Shut up and listen, Lobsterman.”

“Don’t call me that!” He looked like he was going to cry again.

“I knew my letter was a long shot but maybe these days, we’re all about the long shots. Loving in the current climate is a long shot. Loving harder is - well, maybe that mark is clear out of range, but I had to try. And so I sat there for hours, trying to pen words of love and understanding.”

“You shouldn't call me that,” Lobsterman whimpered.

“And then I slipped the envelope, festooned with cheerful stickers, into her mailbox. I went home and sat quietly, picturing her as she opened and read my letter.”

“And now you’re going to read it to me…”

"How did you know?" I took a copy from my pocket. “'Dear Penelope,'" I read, "'I come in peace. I respect you and in the spirit of helping and healing, I have a suggestion. Why don’t you knock on our door and have a civilized chat with Tess, about her sign and her concerns?' I imagined Penelope staring at the letter, her face stony, like the boulders at English Bay, only with less character."

"In my mind, Penelope lights a cigarette as she continues to read my letter: 'If you feel you can’t knock on our door then perhaps a note in our mailbox. Maybe there’s an apology in the offing. I know your goal is not to be 'right' in this matter but rather to realize peace among neighbours.'"

I stopped reading, my rage boiling to the surface. I pointed to a wall of drawings and paintings.“Look at that. All done by Tess, all through the years.”

“I’m not disparaging that.”

“Your hate seeks to erase her existence!”

“So tell me, did Penelope do a one eighty based on your loving letter?”

“She sent me a Facebook message, opening with 'Dearest' followed by many heart emojis."

"Lovely."

"Then she called me a 'sick, bottom-feeding bully'. She hated my stickers and was incensed that I had asked her to apologize. But I hadn’t, you see. My letter didn’t say who should apologize. For some reason, I thought she'd have the intelligence to see that by making the first gesture, she’d be opening the door to all kinds of possibilities, including apologies from who knows who.”

“Whom.”

"My communiqué was a love letter of sorts and..."

"...and hers was a hate letter.” He smirked.

“I see Penelope reading the final paragraph before crumpling my letter in her fist: 'Often I dream that we live in a world tempered with compassion, driven by creativity, along with a good dose of courage. Compassion is a starlit conduit for the anger we feel in the face of hatefulness. Imagine if people could bring that kind of compassion and creativity and courage, what a wonderful world this would be.'”

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