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Write Me a Tragedy, Jenny

Advice columnist Marla suspects her friend of writing stories based on readers’ woes, with deadly results. Then she needed Jenny’s help, too.

By Josephine CrispinPublished 2 years ago 11 min read
3
Image credit to the author

JENNY is my friend. She writes romance and is very good at it, as proved by her book sales, and the huge number of her fan mails.

The romance novels she writes are not the erotic kind. She perpetuates, instead, the old-fashioned type of love and romance. If there were sexual tensions in her writings, as romance novels must have, she does not delve on it. She lets her readers’ imagination run riot.

“Nothing,” as Jenny loves to repeat, “is as powerful as one’s imagination. It has no limits, nothing is sacred even if forbidden.”

But Jenny has not always been a romance writer. She used to write short stories and novellas outside the romance genre.

Before that, her writings were on topics that are not considered mainstream - about supernatural, faith healing, witches, druids, astrology, even magic spells, and anything dealing with the unexplained.

WE met and developed our friendship when we started working for Cosmos Women’s Weekly.

Our being close was boosted when I found that she and my husband, Thomas, went to the same university, same batch, but were only passing acquaintances.

No wonder Thomas did not invite Jenny to our wedding, which was held shortly after I got employed in Cosmos.

In the magazine, I was assigned to writing 50- to 60-word reviews on new cosmetic products, then given the aunt agony column. I was a regular employee by then. I think the managing editor, also married like me, fancied me.

Jenny, meanwhile, had not been offered regular employment with Cosmos. She remained a freelance contributor. She was, however, given regular assignments by the editor who’s in-charge of the features section.

All was well until Jenny became obsessed – the editor’s word – with writing about esoterica. She ignored the assignments given to her. Instead, she focused writing articles that are unsolicited.

“SO, what happened?” I asked as soon as I sat in our usual nook in our favorite coffee shop.

Jenny had a meeting with the editor that afternoon, just before after office hours. She left the editorial in a huff. She did not even glance my way. I guess she was too upset by whatever transpired during her meeting.

Shortly after, Jenny sent me a text message. She told me that she’s at the coffee shop across the road, and if I’d like to listen to her woe before I went home to my husband.

So there I was, looking at Jenny’s sulk. Her unconsumed espresso had gone cold, the turkey sandwich gone stale.

“My latest articles were rejected, that’s what. I’ve never been rejected, you know. Anything I write gets accepted.”

“Cosmos cannot publish pieces, on a regular basis, about the topics you currently fancy,” I said, trying to appease my friend.

“What’s not to interest women readers in magic and witchery and pranic healing and all that? Or about ghost sightings or the Druids?”

I was about to speak when Jenny stopped me with her open palm.

She said, “Yes, I agree. Esoteric topics are not everyone’s cup of tea. I wasn’t, as a contributing writer, dismissed by the editor. But I was reminded to not submit unsolicited materials.”

“All’s well, then?” I asked, an eyebrow raised.

Jenny sighed. “I’ll give writing for Cosmos a break, Marla. There’s one topic I’d like to explore first.”

“Which is?”

“Remember that interview piece with a supposed witch? I gathered from her coven that she wasn’t just a witch – I’d like to follow up that bit.”

I should have discouraged Jenny right there and then.

THAT break from writing, not only for Cosmos but also for other publications, lasted some six months. Jenny and I were in contact often – except when she travelled with this coven to a small island where their high priestess dwells.

She did not even tell me the location of the island.

So hush-hush.

The dwelling, according to Jenny much later, was an old, old mansion. It wasn’t like what one sees in films where witches live. Nothing frightening at all. The old mansion was light and airy, the thick woods surrounding the dwelling consist of trees that must be hundreds and hundreds of years old.

Image credit to the author

And the birds – so many of them – were mostly crows of all sizes.

Jenny would have taken pictures with her mobile but alas, phones were confiscated from them as soon as they arrived in the island.

No pictures allowed and that was that.

I DIDN'T hear from Jenny until well after that adventure into the secret island of the witches. But I felt that she wasn’t forthcoming with what transpired during that month-long immersion with the high priestess.

“It was more like a gab session, really,” was what Jenny did say. “Each coven member shared experiences, the others voiced their opinions, the high priestess just listened. It’s like an AA meeting.”

FOR all her adventures into the unexplainable realm, Jenny did not write anything about those explorations. She focused on writing short stories. Cosmos publishes one a week, and two sister publications, Purple and Peak, have opened their pages for Jenny.

Then I noticed something. Something which I suspected a bit early on, on her third month of writing fiction regularly.

“Your story that was published in Purple last Friday, did you pick up the story idea from one of the letter senders to my column?” I asked Jenny. We were in our favorite Starbucks branch across the road from the office.

Jenny smiled casually. “Where do you think I sometimes pick up ideas for my fiction? Aunt Agony columns are my best sources!”

I would have just laughed. Jenny had unconventional sources of story ideas.

This time, however, I was uneasy. I don’t even know for what reason.

“That story,” I said after I took a sip of my Apple Crisp Frappuccino, “that was included in my column last month. Remember?”

“Of course,” Jenny said, thinking, nursing her espresso, “I submitted my short story three weeks ago, then Purple published it last Friday. I think you named the letter-sender as Serial Cheater’s Wife. What about it?”

“The husband of Serial Cheater’s Wife died in a horrific accident last Saturday. His car went over the bridge; he was dead before help arrived.”

“You’re joking,” Jenny said.

“I’m not. The husband died just as you described it in your story. It’s in the papers, and as it happens, I know the names of my letter-senders.”

“A coincidence, that’s all.”

“And in the latest issue of Cosmos on Wednesday,” I added, “your story about a wife whose mother-in-law was perpetually inventing lies against her. Remember that? The in-law wanted to alienate the wife from her husband who works overseas. Did you also use that as basis for your story?”

Jenny shrugged as she put down her coffee cup on the table. “I did. I made the character, the pesky mother-in-law, choke on her food. But I made her daughter-in-law save her by doing the Heimlich maneuver. Happy ending. Mom-in-law was grateful to the protagonist. What’s wrong?”

“It wasn’t a happy ending, Jenny. I read it in the local paper this weekend. The mother-in-law of my letter-sender died. My letter-sender nor her sister, who was having dinner with them, didn’t know how to do the Heimlich.”

Jenny appeared thoughtful, but in the end, attributed it to coincidence. “How could my story influence real-life events? Come on.”

And so like Jenny, I dismissed such coincidences. I even dismissed my thoughts about my friend’s earlier fraternizing with a group of self-proclaimed witches. And she even hobnobbed with their high priestess! To what end, I asked myself.

MANY months passed by. My friend mostly centered her writing on romantic stories which evolved to romance novellas.

She still wrote short stories occasionally. I read them all. I followed – no, stalked – her writings because, hmm, I didn’t really know why.

Perhaps, just perhaps, I was scared but at the same time thrilled that her stories based on real people would, like black magic, pass into reality.

But none of her subsequent and infrequent short stories was based anymore on my letter-senders’ agony.

So whether or not the endings of her recent stories affected the characters in real-life if, indeed, she continued to grab story ideas from other advice columns, I had no way of knowing.

Still, a nagging disquiet resided in my head.

And my friend did not help in easing my unexplained anxiety. She hardly had time for our bonding even over a cup of coffee. She’s always busy writing.

When she managed to write a short story for Cosmos, she either emailed it by attachment or sent the hard copy – the editor’s preference – via a courier.

BUT the time came when I desperately needed my friend. I sent her a begging text, asking for a few minutes of her time. Soonest, if possible, after office hours that same day.

“What’s the matter, Marla?” Jenny asked without preamble as she sat across me at the coffee shop, away from the other customers.

I’ve just picked up my Apple Crisp Frappuccino from the counter. “I’ll get you your usual first. Espresso?”

“Macchiato, please.”

I thought that was strange, Jenny changing her coffee preference. She is – no, was – an espresso lover for eons. But no matter. What’s important is that she heeded my SOS.

When I sat down again with Jenny’s macchiato, I came straight to the point.

“Write me a tragedy, Jenny.”

“What are you talking about?” Jenny asked, her macchiato cup poised in front of her lips for a sip. She put down her coffee cup to concentrate on what I was going to say.

But no words escaped my lips. My tears, like from a dam that suddenly burst, flowed copiously without shame, without care.

Eventually, between controlled sobs, I managed to confide to my friend. “My husband is cheating on me.”

“How could you be sure?”

“I’m sure. If you have a husband and he’s cheating on you, you’d know, too.”

I saw how Jenny squirmed at what I said. I felt her sudden pain, remembering what she confided, in a moment of pique long ago, that she had a boyfriend. But that bloke broke up with her when he met someone else. She had had no boyfriend ever since. I guess she’s still heartbroken.

“I’m sorry, Jenny. I didn’t mean to – ”

With a wave of her hand, Jenny said with a sad smile, “No worries. Let’s get back to what you wanted me to do – write you a tragedy? I don’t understand that.”

I made Jenny understand what I wanted her to do.

JENNY adamantly refused. She insisted that I was out of my mind, that asking her to write my story and how Thomas was poisoning our marriage with his infidelity was out of the question.

“Maybe it’s just a phase,” Jenny said, “maybe it will pass. Maybe you’re working too hard and giving him less attention. Does the managing editor still require you to work after hours?”

I ignored Jenny’s insinuation about my sometimes flirty nature. It wasn’t my fault that I was blessed with lots of sex appeal.

I said, “He’ll pay attention to me again when his partner in cheating me is gone. Forever. Thomas is mine, and mine alone.”

Tears started to well again in my eyes.

“So, what do you want me to do, Marla?”

“Write me a tragedy, Jenny. Like what you wrote about my letter-senders’ stories. The endings you crafted for the villains, which then happened in real life, I believe those are related to your having consorted with a coven of witches.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying, Marla.” Jenny was frowning, but I saw a glint of unease in her eyes.

“Oh, but I do! So write me a tragedy, Jenny. Give a right ending to my misery and make his lover perish. I want my husband’s love back, and soon.”

SO Jenny wrote a tragedy. Only, I didn’t recognize it immediately. It wasn’t my story at all. It was the story of one called Eve who fell madly in-love with Adam.

But Adam was snared by a vixen who lured Adam into marriage by pretending to be pregnant.

Adam could not forgive himself for the grief he inflicted on Eve. He tried to win back Eve’s love. It wasn’t easy. Eve wouldn’t be a party to infidelity.

Adam knew, however, that Eve had never stopped loving him.

With persistence, Adam was able to claw back Eve’s affection. The problem was Adam’s wife, the vixen – until fate intervened and solved Adam and Eve’s problem…

AND so, here I am, my body broken in several places on the hard pavement. My brain splattered, too, mixing with the blood and gore from my shattered innards.

I didn’t see the oncoming lorry whose driver was trying to avoid a big black cat that appeared from nowhere, crossing the road.

I was preoccupied with the story which Jenny wrote about Adam, Eve and the vixen. I was trying to recall the one time that Thomas called me a vixen, when the lorry crashed mercilessly against me.

The resulting traffic snarl due to the accident was horrendous.

Jenny, indeed, wrote me a tragedy because I insisted on it.

How was I to know that she was Eve and my Thomas, Adam?

The big, black cat that caused my death appeared from nowhere, and disappeared to nowhere, too.

Like a phantasm.

-------------------------------- the end --------------------------------------

First published here.

Thank you very much for reading!

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Mystery
3

About the Creator

Josephine Crispin

Writer, editor, and storyteller who reinvented herself and worked in the past 10 years in the media intelligence business, she's finally free to write and share her stories, fiction and non-fiction alike without constraints, to the world.

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