Notes #27 - The Narrator and I

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Notes From an Amateur Writer #27
THE NARRATOR AND I

This Blog series is an exercise in creative writing. Sometimes expressed in short story forms, sometimes as a journal, or just my thoughts written down. This is my attempt to help coalesce my writing ideas and knowledge into usable form. It is a nursery of sorts for the stories that are on their way, or yet to be written.

The Voice of the Narrator

Sometimes I feel like there is a narrator in my head telling me what is happening. Telling me the story. My story. I'm not really sure why. Perhaps it's in case I missed something. It can happen. Sometimes I miss things. I missed a whole year once. I'm not really sure how that happened. I didn't believe him at first. I didn't believe that voice in my head. But he told me it happened. That a whole year had passed.

Maybe it's like when you are reading and the story is so good you let it run wild in your mind. And it does run wild. It goes places. Just not the places in the book. But you're still reading. And when you get to the bottom of the page you can't remember what you just read. You just remember what you were doing when you read it. The places you went. Maybe it was like that.

Or maybe that is just what happens to me.

Fight Club

I was reading Fight Club. I have seen the movie. Many times. I wanted to know what the book was like. I was reading the part where Marla was attempting suicide. The police were at the door. "Let us help you! Miss Singer, you have every reason to live! Just let us in, Marla, and we can help you with your problems!"

It made me wonder why the police go out of their way to prevent suicide attempts. Perhaps its just the movies (or books in this case), and they don't actually do that. But it seems they do. They seem to spend as much effort keeping the suicidal here as they do tracking down and locking up criminals. These actions appear to be at odds with each other, but are they really? It just made me wonder, that's all. If you are alive and doing okay then you are ignored. But break the law or seek eternal release and you will show up on a radar somewhere. Alarm bells go off. Emergency plans go into action. Life is strange. But don't you dare try to get out of it. You will do your time just like the rest of us.

The narrator tells me to hurry up. To stop thinking about death so much. It isn't healthy. I am writing this in a journal. What isn't healthy is my handwriting. It sits somewhere between a doctor's and a criminal's. I think I hear alarm bells go off. Am I on a radar somewhere? A pinging green dot growing larger? At least I'm not suicidal. I'm not trying to get out of my sentence lightly. I will do my time like everyone else. I wonder if any one actually knows what our crime was?

It Must Have Been a Monday

Like I said, I'm not suicidal. But my handwriting, it looks like death. I have jittery hand writing. Not normally, just today. Perhaps because I haven't written in a while. Or perhaps because I am writing this on a Monday. Yes, that's it – this is my Monday handwriting. I'll type this up, no one will know. Typing defies categorising. It goes under the radar.

The narrator tells me it's time to stop. I have places to go now. Handwriting journal number one has been interesting. A lot like reading a doctor's prescription.

And I still wonder what happened in that year. The one I don't remember. If I had been keeping a journal then I could look back and fill in the blanks.

I imagine an old journal. From my mystery year. I'm searching for clues. Trying to find out what happened. I read through it wanting to know more. Unfortunately this is what I see:

Journal Entry: [undecipherable text...something about a doctors visit (I think)...etc].

I must have written that on a Monday. Life is a strange, life is a mystery. Especially life that year.

All images used with permission, and sourced from Unsplash.com.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you liked it then please like, comment, and follow

@naquoya

Short Fiction:

Bang Bang You're Dead
I Have No Name and I Must Scream
The Last Book Store
The Judge
The Man In The Mirror
The End of the World [Part 1] [Part 2]
The Locked Room
The Gods of Love and War [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

Notes From an Amateur Writer blog series: