Good Morning

[MalReynolds]

My front porch is about ten yards long. The stairs only take up the middle three or so yards, and on the left side of the stairs, nestled in the upper corner, is a large spider web. In the web lives a spider.

I am terrified of spiders. I have no legitimate explanation for the fear. I only have the societal norm – that most people are afraid of spiders on some level – to hide behind.

The spider routinely catches bugs and eats them. I routinely watch. Spiders, they frighten me.

I frighten society.

To help me cope with the idea of something that frightens me living on my porch, I named him. Fred. What kind of spider? Large, I guess. About the size of a half dollar. Color? Dark. I don’t get close enough to really get a good look at him. But his name is Fred. Fred the spider.

I thought about taking his web down, but it’s his home. Every time I get the broom from the closet, I think about someone getting a broom from their closet and knocking my house down just because I’m scary, just because society is frightened of me. I always put the broom back.

When I leave for work, I always put my hat on, and I always duck under the web.

Good morning, Fred, on the way to work.

Good evening, Fred, on the way home.

And Fred usually just sits there, and stares.

Work is drudgery, and I really mean that in every possible sense of the word. I highly dislike my job. It’s a Craig’s List job, but one that I’ve been working for over ten years. One that has allowed me to purchase my car, my own clothes, my own entertainment center, my own house – complete with Fred the spider.

Good morning, Fred.

Arrive at the mall.

Good evening, Fred.

Good morning, Fred.

Arrive at the post office.

Good evening, Fred.

Every night, I’d check my e-mail and see where I would be working the next day. Out of the window, I could see the web, but not the spider.

Good morning, Fred.

Arrive at the grocery store.

Good evening, Fred.

The e-mail I get arrives through proxies that have gone through filters that have gone through random name generators that have, I assume, flowed through some kinds of hands that belong to some kind of person that works in some kind of building, but I’ll never know.

Good morning, Fred.

Arrive at the circus.

Good evening, Fred.

The e-mails usually just have one or two lines to them. No signature. No CC heading. Just my name at the top, and where I’ll be. Maybe I’ll see myself on the news and not even recognize my own face.

Fred only survived one winter. I walked out one morning and found him in his web, legs curled up to his chest or thorax or whatever the hell it is that spider’s have. He had been alive and eating the night before when I had come home, but now, now he was nothing. A tiny half dollar sized husk, and for some strange reason, I was still afraid of him.

I suspected foul play, and my suspicions were confirmed when a new spider moved in to the same web a day later.

I named him Johnny, but things weren’t the same. I was always suspicious of Johnny. After all, he probably murdered Fred. There he was, just sitting in the same nest. Cunning spider. He’d attack me with my back turned, I know it.

So in the mornings, I would say -

Good morning, Johnny.

- and leave for work.

Good evening, Johnny.

Just so he wouldn’t try to attack me. The urge to get the broom became stronger. At the same time, I thought about someone taking my place. Someone doing my job, in my house. Would I want that destroyed? Everything I had worked for?

Johnny and I, we weren’t so different.

Only, I bought the house off a dead guy, from his estate. And I didn’t directly murder him.

I was living in an apartment at the time. With Lilly living up in the corner of the door.

Good morning, Lilly.

That had been the day. Gone to the auto-lot. Saw the old man before he saw me. I could feel the sun in my face. Breeze. Smell of sea-salt in the air.

The old man turned and stared for a few seconds. There was a hint of recognition in his eyes, as if he had seen me before. And of course, he had. They all had.

I was the man that stabbed his father. He gasped, and pointed at me, and gasped some more. People rushed to his side. I just stood there. He kept gasping, staring. His face turned a funny color.

Of course, the man that stabbed his father had been dead for almost twenty years.

Good evening, Lilly.

And I watched on the news, about the old man who had a heart attack, about the old man who was in over his head with debts, about how his last words were -

Seamus Flynn

- and how the reporter did due diligence, did the research, and found no connection with Seamus Flynn or the old man, that Seamus Flynn was only a small time crook in the 1930’s or so. Then they talked a little bit about his family. And more about his debts. And about his house foreclosure.

I moved in shortly after.

As did Fred.

I never checked back up on Lilly, although I don’t think anyone would kill her for her location.

The e-mails, they tell me where I go. Sometimes they’ll tell me who I’ll be. Alive, dead, imaginary. It doesn’t matter.

Good morning, Johnny.

Arrive at the Super Flea.

Good evening, Johnny.

I still don’t trust Johnny, even now. I never thought he trusted me.

In any case, there’s never a picture, so I’ll never know what I’ll look like on any given day. I took the mirrors out of the house a long time ago – it’s just too jarring to see yourself as someone else every day, day in, day out. And on the days where I’m no one, those are the worst. Those are the days that I’m myself.

The days that I’m reminded that I talk to spiders.

Those days don’t happen anymore, now that I’ve gotten rid of the mirrors. Freecycled them.

Good morning, Johnny.

Arrive at the book store.

Good evening, Johnny.

They pay me through a routing fund, through a trust account, through dividends and stock portfolios that belong to some kind of person who works in some kind of building, but I’ll never know.

They pay me for my body, to use my face, to turn in to someone unreal.

Whoever you blame, I am.

Whoever wronged you, I am.

Whoever raped your mother, stabbed your father, kidnapped your child, drowned your cat when you were just a kid, I am.

Even if you don’t know what they look like, when you see me, there will be recognition. As the doctor that performed the fatal surgery, the reckless driver, the airline pilot.

Even if they may be dead, you’ll still see me.

I only wait around long enough to be seen. Then I get paid.

Good evening, Johnny.

Every day it’s someone different. I’ve never had to play the same part twice.

The only time I’ve ever spoken to that some kind of person in that some kind of building, they told me that I wouldn’t need makeup or a costume. That they would handle everything. And they do. They even covered the long distance charges on my phone bill, to the cent, from the call.

Last week, I walked outside. Johnny was AWOL. His web looked dirty, covered in still moving bugs that had just flown in. Dust. Pollen.

I said nothing in the morning.

Arrive at Cold Stone Creamery.

I said nothing in the evening.

As a sign of respect, I left the web until time found it prudent to send a strong gust through.

I do expect that one day, I’ll see a crowd of faces. The people that have seen everything evil and hated about my person. All the other blank slates, like me.

A some kind of person, some kind of building picnic for all the outstanding employees. I know I’m not the only one. There are others that have gone to auto-lots and moved in to houses. A room full of reminders. Maybe we’ll all die from shock when we see each other, and everything evil we hoped to forget.

Just like that old man.

My routine is very much the same now, but my mind will often wander to Lilly, or Fred, or Johnny. The spiders I have lived with. The creatures that knew all my faces. That frighten society.

Kindred spirits.

There are still people out there, waiting for me. Counting on me.

Memories that are trying to fade.

I won’t let them.

So now, on the way in to work, I’ll just say –

Good morning.

- to you.

[IamMoFo]

wow. This story was amazing! Lilly, Fred, and Johnny.

[AC1speakerbox]

Saved.

Pretty weird. I might ask my AP Language teacher what she thinks about it.

Did you write this?

[MalReynolds]

I did. I submitted it (and it was summarily rejected) to an online magazine, so I posted it here. Lemme know what your teacher thinks.

[Superfreak04]

I really like this, I don't see why they would reject it.

[MalReynolds]

Lemme dig up the e-mail.

Originally Posted by E-mail

Thanks for submitting to Pindeldyboz but I'm going to pass on this
story. It's an intriguing idea, but I wanted a little more detail
about the narrator's job -- I couldn't quite figure out why anyone,
person or mysterious force, would want to scare innocent people to
death with their worst nightmare, and it kept me from really buying in
to the reality of the story.

Thanks,
Whitney Steen
Web Editor, Pindeldyboz

[dore]

That's actually exactly what I thought about it. The idea was cool, but it's so vague the reader doesn't really know what to think about him. There isn't really any conclusive why or how which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but since the idea is very open-ended and there are so many possible interpretations, it would be nice if the reader's choices were narrowed down a bit. That way, the reader's conclusions about the man's job can be based off logic and not guesswork.

[MalReynolds]

But it's not a logical job. The man literally embodies memories. Any kind of explanation as to a corporation that hires him or a purpose behind his job would literally never live up to what the reader can come up with. If it's just nameless suits who do it for a living, then that's not really intriguing. They're just out to make a buck. If I de-mystify it and say it's an ancient cult, or God, or Satan, then that takes any mystery out of it all. Any explanation that someone would want would totally devalue the story.

I left it deliberately ambiguous so that people could draw their own conclusions, because any one conclusion that I give would cancel out what they're coming up with, making the story - which is supposed to be open ended - fall flat.

[devonin]

There's "Ambiguous so that we draw our own conclusions" and "So vague that we have nothing reasonable on which to base a conclusion"

The story isn't open-ended though, it's more open-started, since it's the lack of any background or understanding of who/what the narrator is that is the problem.

Also...at the end, he says good morning to us, the readers...are we spiders living by his house? Do we live next door? Are we his new target? I'm not even sure whether the ending is supposed to suggest that I should be worried that I'm next or not.

[MalReynolds]

The ending simply implicates that the narrator has been literally speaking to you the entire time and not just prattling on to himself. That's all it means.

And there is some structure - the guy got the job off Craig's List, doesn't like it, gets paid well.

Also, the story isn't about the people he works for. It's about the idea that memories - good or bad - will not die, and that often times bad memories are just shoved away to the side, but will always be there. The narrator, for all intents and purposes, is just a cipher. I wrote the story because I was in Border's and someone came up to me, like they knew me, and then when they realized they didn't, they got sad. I thought, "Isn't it funny. What if I was just a simple trigger for his memory?"

There's not a whole lot to the story, but it's a statement on how the past can always come and find us. By making it a corporate job, and making the narrator someone who just 'took the job because', I was trying to give the story some voice. Obviously, the guy has means - he bought a house, but he also used to live in an apartment complex. He wasn't born being a cipher for memories, it's just his day job.

Some nights, he might play poker.

I think people are trying to read to deep into this: It's very simple. You may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with you.

[devonin]

Right, but now we're getting into all kinds of other issues that are not even touched upon. And you might say "Good, what I wanted was for you to wander far afield ain your thinking about this"

Is he a physical person? If yes, how is he also people's bad memories. If no, how does he play poker some nights?

This is the problem with personification for the sake of personification. Once something is personified, you need to address a number of issues before it gets its versimilitude back, namely the characteristics of the personification, the form it takes, and the degree to which others can actually perceive it.

[MrRubix]

Originally Posted by devonin

There's "Ambiguous so that we draw our own conclusions" and "So vague that we have nothing reasonable on which to base a conclusion"

The story isn't open-ended though, it's more open-started, since it's the lack of any background or understanding of who/what the narrator is that is the problem.

Also...at the end, he says good morning to us, the readers...are we spiders living by his house? Do we live next door? Are we his new target? I'm not even sure whether the ending is supposed to suggest that I should be worried that I'm next or not.

This

[MalReynolds]

Why should the story have to have versimilitude, though? It's clearly not rooted in fact, although I always pictured the narrator to just look like a regular dude that through the course of his job forgot what he actually looked like. I'm glad that this is actually sparking discussion, though.

The dude is real, actual and whole. He's a person. He's spoken on the phone, probably got laid a few times when he was younger, but he's shiftless.

I mean, really, the story is just a long answer to a question that nobody asked, I guess.

[devonin]

So in fact, he's an average guy, real, people can see and interact with him outside of work, and everything's cool, except also he is the physical embodiment of bad memories and is hired by unnamed sources to go and scare people to death? And you don't think this requires some level of additional explanation?

[MalReynolds]

He doesn't necessarily scare people to death. The one thing that I meant to fix (but never did, etc) was to show him do another job where he just shows up and the person is mortified, but doesn't die, and to have him show up at yet another job where someone might be pleased to see him, but that would kill the word count anyway and hamper the flow.

And I think any deeper explanation other than what is given would kill the story, thematically. The narrator doesn't even really know who he works for, so why should the reader be privy to that?

It's just a fantastical element that I believe should not be explained. I do know who/what he works for, but to elaborate more on that is just unnecessary.

[devonin]

Except that the message we're left with is "He is scary and people die" and you were going for "Sometimes people are even happy to see him"?! That's not ambiguity, that's not communicating your intent to the reader.

[MalReynolds]

I know. And as a writer, I'm not going to be there every time to my readers to explain what my motivation is when I write each thing, or forget to add something (even if it's around 2 lines near the end).

As it stands, I'm actually kind of fine with him just representing bad memories. Other people that are in the same line of work could very well represent good memories, as well.

There was a story I read by Stephen King about this guy who would write down symbols, and someone would die. He got paid in cash every week, and eventually he found out his targets were small time dissenters, print journalists for tiny newspapers, and he found out who he worked for - some office, and he wrote all their names down to kill them. I hated the ending. Hated, hated, hated it. It was awful, because it was a story that was so deliciously ambiguous that bringing it to the close it came to killed the rest of the story. It went from "Hm, this is interesting," to, "Oh. Okay."

I read that story after I wrote this one, though.

In any case, content wise (besides the ambiguosity), did you like it?

Also, +1 for getting more replies in a lit thread in 2 days than most get in a week.

[devonin]

Well, if you -forget- to add something, then that's a failure as a writer (I don't mean that like -you- are, just that forgetting things that are necessary for the story means that the story wasn't done properly)

And you said right in your opening few lines that he frightens society. So that would have been at odds with the rest of it if you -had- remembered to include someone not being frightened of his presence.

But then to have your only case example of him doing his job being one that resulted in someone -dying- ostensibly of -fear- at the sight of who he looked like, you lost your chance to not make this character an embodiment of fear/terror right from the outset.

And with your stephen king anecdote, the whole story now just sounds derived...just saying.

[MalReynolds]

The writing and attempted publication of my story predates his, though. So there's always that.

EDIT: Also, I would think that someone who could metamorphose into any other person given his job requirement would frighten society regardless of whether or not he was a good witch or a bad witch.

Doublay Edit: Actually, the book was published in 2002, but I got it for Christmas 2008.

[devonin]

But if he can do it on command, I'd say that your earlier statement that he is at all a normal person stops being true, and that would completely alter our perceptions of the character -even more- putting us right back into being too open-started.