I've been trying to work on this story for a while and it just doesn't seem to want to go anywhere...though it seems like it should. So in the tradition of crowd sourcing, I am family sourcing. If you have time to read through what I've started (which, granted, isn't much) here is what I'd like help with. (1) Do you think it is worth working on further or do you think I should just cut my losses and try something else. (2) What are your thoughts about the direction the story should take? In other words, what do you think comes next. I'd like your ideas. I'm also open for any editorial suggestions about what is already here.
Story
John woke, opened his eyes and
wondered who he was going to be today.
Light creeping in around the shades revealed that the old wooden clock
on the wall was still there and as his eyes created shape from the darkness he
recognized everything in the place where it had been when he’d closed his
eyes. The open closet with his clothes
on hangers below the wall clock and the book shelves that his son had built for
him years ago in the indented space beside it where his eyes rested as he lay
in bed were still there. So, when he
turned his head, were the dresser and the dilapidated plant shelf that he
brought in for the winter.
The difference was rarely anything
he could spot immediately, though for a series of days, he had woken to realize
that he was living in a foreign country and, for another stretch of time, that
the president of the United States was also the Grandmaster of the KKK. Most of
the time, though, it took him awhile to figure out what was different. One day, he had the constant memory of having
taught at a school where records of his employment revealed that he had
actually never worked. Another time in
conversation with his wife, he was referring to an episode from his childhood where
his parents had taken him to Yosemite , only to
have his wife remind him that this memory was from a story he had written and
had not actually ever occurred. Today,
was more like that. At first light, there was no crack in the cosmos.
**
John went into the kitchen and
grabbed a mug off of the rack of cups on the counter. It was glossy and black with white letters
saying, DRINK ME,” a joke gift from his daughter who’d picked it up in the
airport on one of their excursions, Dubai or Florence maybe.
“This is
for you – for first thing in the morning,” she’d said. It wasn’t because of a reputation for being
an early morning grouch. In fact, John was more of an early riser, but at one
point he had tried explaining to her his sensations of never waking up the same
person. The cup was her faux solution. “Strong black coffee, first thing, will bring
you back to reality.”
John liked
to think of the cup in another way. He
imagined all of the images and ideas in his head swirling around, the rush that
seemed to change from day to day, sometimes from moment to moment even on those
days when everything seemed outwardly banal.
Despite the amount of writing that his work required of him he could
never make the ideas come out in any rational form on the printed page in ways that
were not stiff and clichéd. Attempts to verbally explain what he was trying to
sort out were even more hopeless. He
felt as though the words pouring out of his mouth were those of a ten-year old. The command of the bold white letters on the cup’s
black background made him fantasize that the swirling black liquid he drank
were all those thoughts, and when he took in their deep caffeine there would be
not only that easing of the muscles and loosening of mental clouds, but a kind
of clarification distilled in his mind by the hot liquid.
When John
turned back towards the table from filling his coffee cup, a man was sitting at
the kitchen table. His hair was gray and straggly, his face nearly round. The aura he gave off was of a man out of his
time. He was dressed as though ready to
play a part in a nineteenth century biopic of the American mid-west, but what
he wore was clearly not costume. It was his everyday clothing. John was used to
slight shifts in the fabric of his world, but this was unusual. He knew instantly, though, that this was
someone to whom he was related.
“You got
more of that coffee?” the man asked.
**
John
reached over and grabbed a mug off of the tree.
He opened the top of the Keurig and popped in an innocuous morning blend
and pressed the button. When the brown
liquid finished pouring out, he turned back around and handed it to his
visitor. “I guess I’m supposed to know who you are.”
“Henry,”
the man said. “Your grandfather. That’s a fast cup of coffee.”
“My
grandfather was Frederick .”
“Not that
one. Three generations back. Henry Mueller.”
“Oh.” John
said, recognizing the name. “Why –“
“The same
reason as you’re here. I woke up this
morning and here I am. This is the
furthest, though.” Henry’s speech
carried with it the definite accent of her person whose first language was
German.
“What are
you talking about,” John hedged.
“You know…it’s
never the same.”
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