Between The Lines--Short Story

Here is my first attempt of putting my stuff out there for the world wide web to do with what they will. I used to have a really good writing community--flesh and blood and all that--but life has gotten so crazy, that I really have to prepare for a long wait for any kind of feedback from them. So if any of you have a moment to read this little goofy story, it would be much appreciated.

I got the idea for this story in class when my professor said something about the fact that books these days are being recyled into other books when they aren't sold and how when you're reading a book, you're actually reading a handful of books. It got me thinking, and this is what came out...

Between The Lines  

  Barnes sat at his chair as he did most evenings. His world was beginning to take shape once again and he was extremely hesitant to what would be missing and more so to what would be added to this new recycling. This was the fourth time he had been part of a book recycling and he was the only character left from his original book and the oldest character in the new book—whatever book it now was.

He finished his third whiskey of the morning and looked hazily around his room. Everything seemed to be intact, but his author had been a very meticulous detailer and his apartment above his employer’s garage had been given extreme attention as it was the place where the murderer had been discovered. He still shuddered when that was discovered—the butler—who would have guessed that?

Contemplating another drink, he decided against it. He no longer felt the lightheaded, threaded feeling that being torn to bits, pulped and thrown into a machine with all the other copies of the current dud, or soon to be out of print novel he was ensconced was turned into pages for the next attempt, caused. He was actually a bit hungry. Maybe he would have a bite to eat and then venture outside and see if any of his acquaintances had gone missing and if there were new characters to introduce to how the book works in the world inside the pages.

Tottering to his refrigerator, he was a little disconcerted with the paraphernalia he didn’t recognize, but looked slightly sinister, lying around his counters. There was a smell too, a smell he hadn’t experienced since the last quarter of the sixth printing of “Fear and Loathing” got recycled into his pages five years ago; when its author died and they pulled the old copies to replace it with a “memorial” edition that would make much more money.

He was tired of this.

What he needed was a bestseller.  He dreamed of the Book-of-the-Month-Club selection. Maybe something steamy from Jackie Collins or Danielle Steele, or a something thought provoking like Amy Tan or Nicolas Sparks. Hell, he’d even bunk up with ghouls and the walking dead of King’s Castle Rock; if it meant that it would sell and sit in someone’s bookshelf.

It was just after he had finished his breakfast of sausage and eggs that the door of his apartment was pounded upon. He knew instantly who it was—Trevor, the hero of the last book they had been. The man hadn’t left Barnes alone since he had come across him at the park one day. Barnes was so excited to discover there was now a park on his pages that he allowed the imbecilic devotion of the cookie-cutter blond, blue eyed muscled here-I-come-to-save-the-day boy to follow him wherever he went.

“I’m coming,” Barnes bellowed and then clutched his own head. Either the drinking or the process of being reattached to new pages had send shards of brain matter to disintegrate and attach themselves to nerve centers throughout his temple.

Before he even got the door completely open the man was in his arms, “You’re here! Oh thank God! I was so worried that you had finally been thinned out entirely.”

Barnes patted himself down. “Nope, still here.”“You’ll never believe where we are. Have you ever heard of,” he leaned in and whispered in awe, “Oprah?”

 “Oprah? Is that a new literary term? I can’t keep them all straight. Hyperbole, irony, dramatic license. It’s too much. Now Oprah, what does that mean?”

Trevor took a deep breath, “Well thankfully I’ve been spread out throughout the book,” he beamed. “And from the information I’ve gathered from the title page and the introduction this Oprah thing is some sort of deity. Apparently she is the sole reason that housewives read. She must be great and powerful.”

Barnes tried to usher the boy into the apartment as he was tired of standing about at the door and he needed to find some aspirin. “Well that’s all well and good and bully for those who need a new God, but what exactly does this have to do with us?”

“Come here and I’ll show you. It’s quite extraordinary really, you must see,” Trevor grabbed at Barnes’ robe excitedly.

Barnes knew that Trevor wouldn’t be calmed. As much as he didn’t feel it was appropriate to wander around a strange environment in his skivvies; he really didn’t care enough to take the time or energy to remedy the situation. Reasoning it was Trevor’s infectious enthusiasm, and tying his robe tighter, Barnes followed him down the stairs over the garage and was stunned to silence as soon as he got outside.

“What is that…that…feeling? I’ve never…ever…” This was a first, Barnes was completely speechless. The air felt different. There was a breeziness and a…a…well flexibility was the only word for it. It was a bendable, pliable quality he’d never felt before.

Trevor looked ready to soil himself with excitement; it was a new sensation, knowing things that Barnes didn’t. “That my friend is the feel of, paperback.”

Barnes lost his legs and Trevor was quick to catch him as the trudged down the stairs. Looking around, Barnes noticed that his garage and apartment was the only thing that had remained of his original. The master house of his employer had finally gone, and thank God. He was tired of looking at it. It was that sorry sod that had turned readers off and had stopped people buying their book. Who could support such a pompous ass being any sort of “hero” in any type of who-done-it of quality?

“We’re a paperback?” Barnes whispered.

“Not only that,” beamed Trevor, “a paperback that the great and powerful Oprah has deemed to include in her “club.””

“What does that mean?” Barnes asked, not liking one bit that he was now the one doing the asking of questions. He’d been so thinned out throughout the years, he barely covered a page and a half of text, but Trevor, with his “newness” and the fact that they were now using more and more old books to make new ones, was full of information you can only gather by having a lot of pages at your disposal and a lot of new characters, plot and setting to peruse. 

“Well, apparently this great and powerful Oprah,” he already sounded reverent when uttering the word, “has the power to turn a nothing nonfiction book about the crazy antics of an addict and his recovery from drifting slowly into oblivion, to becoming an international bestseller that uplifts an entire generation to see the beauty in life.”

Barnes studied Trevor skeptically, “You do know that it’s comments like that that got you pulped in the first place.”

Trevor laughed. “I thought you said it was having an author who got an exorbitant advance before it was proven that the man had a grasp on structure, theme or the ability to spell past a third grade reading level because he happened to be the grandson of the publisher that was my undoing.”

Barnes reconsidered. “Well yes, there’s that too.”

While they talked Trevor was dragging him along the lines of Barnes’ pages seemingly looking for something that was proving elusive. “Where the hell did he go?” Trevor finally asked himself.

“Who are we looking for?” Barnes asked.

“The protagonist. He’s an odd fella, he needs help, your help.” Trevor answered, weaving through a plethora of minor characters—all of which looked as if they could do with a good bathing and a hot meal.

Barnes tugged back his arm, “Oh no you don’t. I can’t be involved with another one of you. I can’t do it. I won’t do it. I’m…I’m…” he was going to revert to cliché and his face turned red at the very idea, “I’m too old for this shit!”

Trevor tried to hide his amusement with concern. It was shaping up to be an extraordinary day for the young man. “Cheer up ol’ chap,” he slapped Barnes on the back consolingly, “I promise, this is the last one of us rookies you will have to deal with. We are in a bestseller, I tell you, there is no more getting dusty on shelves of book stores, behind the other four books of the same title—so we’d be eye catching—but not so we get any glimpses of the outside world as we get flipped through by eager consumers. No more bargain book bins, to be tossed about as they dig for the hidden gems—which turn out to be more copies of us—at the bottom, no more being carted to the back room, having our covers unceremoniously ripped from our bodies, thrown in a large tub and sent to the bad place, to the hell on earth place. Trust me; these pages are our last. I can feel it.”

Barnes had to admit, this place did give him an uplifting feeling, even if he’s particular pages were filled with ne’er-do-wells and assorted seedy types, he couldn’t deny, that over all the environment had an inspirational feel. He’d never been a part of a self help book before. He instantly felt better about himself. Better enough to chide his friend’s robust proclamations. “My dear, I do believe you have been consorting with me for entirely too long with vocabulary such as that moving indictment. Well said.”

Trevor beamed. “Someone had to lift me out of the elementary school grammar and vocabulary I was created with.”

Barnes was so pleased with this that he didn’t even mind the cliché this time, “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

They were coming to the end of Barnes limited pages and had still not found the main character of this book. Ducking down a foul smelling alleyway littered with broken bottles and empty pizza boxes they heard a faint whimpering coming from the back of the passage and Trevor held his index finger to his lips. “By Jove, I think we’ve found him,” he whispered and then began taking exaggerated steps in slow motion. He really was badly written.

Barnes stopped him. This didn’t make sense. “How can the main character of a self help book be whimpering? This is non-fiction for chrissake. There’s no plot twists, no blown out character development that leaves a man wrung out with back-story and exposition.”

“That’s just it,” Trevor turned, looking at Barnes with puzzled fright, “This is a memoir and yet, this man,” he pointed to where the sniveling was coming from, “is nothing like the man up there.” Trevor pointed to the words above their heads, the clouds of their world inside the paper itself.

Uh-oh, Barnes had a bad feeling about this. Of course it were perfectly natural to be a little disoriented but he expected more from a character in a non-fiction book—he didn’t even think “character” was the right word—especially one that had been around long enough to be in paperback.

He had come too close to peaceful retirement to let a sniveling, confused protagonist get in the way. He was going to get to the bottom of this. Inwardly, he blamed this great and powerful Oprah. For if she was so great and powerful, then why was this person whimpering in a corner when she was propping him up? 

Trevor approached the back of the dumpster, “Hey buddy,” he said soothingly, “it’s me. I brought my friend I told you about. We’ll fix everything. You just have to tell us what’s wrong.”

The young man was practically in the fetal position. He shook his head mournfully. “It’s gotten out of control. It’s all out of control. This has just gotten too…too big.”

Barnes was flabbergasted and if he wasn’t wearing fuzzy slippers he would have kicked this whiny little nothing. “Are you telling me that you are upset that you are an international bestseller? You cannot be serious. Do you have any idea how long many of us have waited?”

Trevor put a hand on Barnes to steady him.

The cowering man looked up, tears and snot wetting his face, “Don’t you see? It’s all a lie.”

A sharp piece of ice dropped to the bottom of Barnes bowels, “What are you saying?”

“This book. It’s a fabrication, an exaggeration, minor stories blown to huge proportions to enhance an insignificant life and make for a better story.”

Barnes relaxed, “I think you’re over-reacting. You’re a memoir, all memoirs exaggerate a bit. It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

The man shook his head frantically, “This is more than a few fibs and white lies, and this is more than a memoir. We are being marketed as recovery self-help. Do you know what that means?”

Barnes shrugged. “Not really,” he hated to admit.

“It means that millions of people who have actually gone through the things depicted in these pages credit this story with changing their desperate lives. What do you think they are going to do when they find out?”

Trevor began whimpering now alongside the main character. “Forget what they are going to do, what are we going to do?”

Seriously thinking about joining them for a fraction of a second, Barnes snapped out of it. He had to be the rational thinking one here. The kind of hysteria this could cause was way beyond recycling. He didn’t want to go into yet another book, but he really didn’t want to be barbequed.

Clapping his hands loudly, he got their attention. “Okay, listen to me and listen to me now. You young man, what is your name?”

“Call me Steve,” the boy said, with the nasally croak of someone trying to stop crying.

“Alright Steve, you are coming with me. I need to know exactly what happens in this book and why this great and powerful Oprah has chosen us. What is so special about this story? I need to know, so we can figure out how to save ourselves.” Barnes had pulled Trevor back to his feet and was now working on Steve.

On the way back to his apartment, with his head splitting, Barnes listened intently to the plot of this page turner he was now a part of. By the time they arrived, he not only felt much worse, he also wondered what the world was coming to when this piece of dredge—that even he could see in the few pages they passed was crap—passed for world class literature.

Steve voiced his earlier thoughts, only using much saltier language, “That bitch Oprah,” he spat, “If she would have kept her little book club out of this, we would have done just well enough to get a book deal on our next book and a cozy readership. But now? Now? Bitch!”

“Now, now young man, there is no reason for that language,” Barnes said with soothing shock.

“Sorry, can’t help it, that’s the way I was written. I’m a bad man.”

“Well, that might be true up there,” Barnes pointed to the words floating above them, “but around here, it will get you nowhere.”

“Yes sir.” 

By the time they got to his apartment, Barnes had a good idea of what was at stake and what needed to be done. He began to give orders to his partners in this—what he hoped would be his last—adventure.

“Okay, listen. First Steve, you’re a first person character, you’re on every page, you need to figure out exactly where we are right now. This will only work if we are on the book shelf or have already been purchased.” Steve was going to ask what would only work, but Barnes didn’t give him time, he then turned to Trevor. “I need you to call together the other main characters for a meeting. I’ll gather up the minors and maybe even the villains, yes even the villains can help. Tell them all to meet at that park where you have your first sexual experience with the professor’s daughter—oh, first check and make sure that park is still there.”

“Right,” Trevor said, blushing only slightly at the memory of those passages in his story and wondering vaguely what ever happened to that sweet girl. “What should I tell them the meeting is about?”

“What’s it about?” Barnes repeated incredulously, “It’s about saving our lives. Hurry. Both of you.”

The meeting was scheduled for the next morning and by the time that Barnes showed up, he knew exactly what to say. “Ladies, Gentleman, thank you all for meeting here in these dark and dangerous flashback pages. I know it is much more enjoyable in the epiphany pages; but not all of us are lucky enough to be uplifted. But that is neither here nor there. We are in danger of not only being once again recycled,” the crowd of old-timers booed. The new characters looked scared. “But perhaps burned in effigy.”

A burly man in the front shouted, “No!”

“I know you know what I’m talking about Guy. But for all of you not from a book about burning books, what awaits us if we don’t do something immediately is worse than being ripped apart. There is no coming back from fire.”

He had everyone’s attention now, well almost everyone’s. “Gonzo, get that rolled up dollar out of your nose! You are not allowed in these pages anymore.”

“Conspiracy!” The bug eyed character shouted, and then he went into a monotone rant that everyone who knew him ignored, and all who didn’t slowly edged away. 

“Anywhoo,” Trevor said into Barnes’ ear.

“Yes, yes right. Back to the plan. Now listen, I know it seems impossible to go up against the great and powerful Oprah, but really it’s not that impossible.”

“You don’t know her. What’s she’s capable of.” Steve screeched.

Other new characters agreed enthusiastically. One of them piped up, “I overheard people talking as they were thumbing through us. They said that she single handedly had people reading some guy named Steinbeck who has been dead for years.”

Barnes clutched his heart. “What do you mean she singlehandedly did anything? Steinbeck is a classic. How can you single handedly get people to read great literature?”

It took everything in Trevor to calm Barnes down and get him back on task. After a deep breath Barnes continued, “Anyway, back to the plan. We know we are in a bookstore and that people are thumbing through us. What we need to do is send out enough good energy and positive power that people will first do what this great and powerful Oprah tells them to and buy us. Then while they are reading this we need enough subliminal messages and osmosis working that they will believe every word so passionately that when it is discovered we are a fraud, they won’t care.”

There was a lot of protest that it would never work, that they didn’t know how to do what he asked, that it was impossible and they were doomed, doomed.

Deep down, Barnes agreed with them, of course he did, but he swallowed his fear and feelings of ineptitude and the futility of it all. If nothing else, the exercises he had suggested would give them something to do while they waited for the inevitable death of yet another book.

“People, people, please calm down and listen. Now you can go about your everyday life, certainly there isn’t a need for us to build temples of Oprah and convert heathens to give all their money and devote themselves to spreading the word. What I’m suggesting is much more subtle. When you’re pages are being perused, studied and read over, you stop what you are doing and throw out as much good energy that will deep down resonate with the reader and have them putting down the book with an unexplained feeling of peace. All we need is to save us, this particular book, these particular pages. I can care less what happens to the rest of the copies of this story—no offense Steve.”

“None taken, sir.”

They broke up in groups and began discussing what exactly they should be thinking as they believed a uniformed approach would carry more power. It was decided that the first hundred introductory pages would send out messages that this was important; that they would be better people after having read this story.

The next 200 tedious pages would be chanting love and inspirational nonsense—turns out that some of these new pages had been spiritual/motivational handbooks in a “previous life” and were quite experienced in uplifting mantras.

Barnes was relieved, because he was fresh out of optimism after meeting more of his new neighbors. The fact that they were learning the millions of ways to convey subliminally “You’re a good person,” didn’t distract from the fact most of them were sleaze balls and most of the setting he was stuck in was jail, and seedy side streets with pushers on every corner.

He began leaving his house less and less. 

It was a few days after the meeting when Barnes was once again sitting in his room finishing his third scotch on the rocks—the only good thing about being in the creepy flashbacks, always easy access to vice—when there was an anxious knock on the door. He rolled his eyes, “Come in Trevor,” he called out.

Trevor opened the door, warm sun streaming in with him. Barnes shielded his eyes and scowled. “Jesus, shut the door. What is all that light?”

“Haven’t you been paying attention?” Trevor asked, almost wetting himself with excitement. He stopped jumping up and down long enough to study his good friend, “Are you okay?”

Barnes raised his empty glass and rattled the ice, “I’m just splendid, never better. And you?”

“Oh, I’m worried about you. Won’t you come outside and see what is going on? Come and get some sun. We’re on the beach. Can you believe it?”

Barnes felt the sun now, the real sun, “What do you mean the beach? Like real sand in our pages and salty air to breath?” Excitement was creeping from his knees and working their way up his thighs to the pit of his stomach. Despite the funk he had been in, he was getting the thrill of life once again.

“Yes, come. Come,” Trevor urged. “You’re pages will be read any minute. Your characters need you.”

He didn’t believe anyone needed him anywhere anymore, but he did want to get out and feel what real sea air felt like. “Give me a minute to put on my suit and sunscreen.”

Trevor waited and when Barnes returned, Trevor had to swallow the smirk and guffaw he felt welling up inside of himself. Not only did Barnes put on a Speedo that he had clearly acquired in Trevor’s old pages, and was not exact Barnes’ size, but also Barnes had never been in a sunny book and his skin told the tale.

Walking out into the warmth and fishy smell, Barnes was in love with this book like he’d never loved anything or anyone in any of the lives he’d lived. He’d do anything for it. And it was so simple. All he had to do was to shout out these feelings so that the girl—he knew it was a girl, the vanilla musk in his nostrils told him that—would feel that love as well.

He walked through the streets and noticed he wasn’t the only one who was overjoyed by the developments. The sleazy riffraff had a certain sparkle to them. They all beamed at him and he waved and smiled at each and every one of them. They wouldn’t be so bad to spend the rest of his days with.

“Are we all ready?” he called out.

They all began chanting in unison, as if awaiting his direction, “YOU ARE A GOOD PERSON! YOU ARE A GOOD PERSON!” over and over.

Then it was their time and they each took a moment from their chanting to hold their breath in anticipation. The blue of the sky was the first thing to hit Barnes as he threw his head back and let the warmth soak him in. The waves washed over him next and he matched his rhythm with the others as he whispered past the lump in his throat, “You are a good person.”

It wasn’t until he was shocked with a splash of something that he realized he had closed his eyes. He opened them again with a shock as once again something all consumingly wet hit him, this time soaking his still upturned face. He licked his lips and tasted saline.         

“What is that?” Trevor asked before Barnes had the chance.

Barnes shrugged and then looked up at the darkening of the sun. It was the shadow of the woman reading their pages. She was a beautiful young woman with deep red full lips and hardly any nose hair to speak of. It was when Barnes saw her puffy, moist eyes that he figured out what exactly it was that was showering them.

“She’s crying,” Barnes gasped. “Lord God in Shakespeare, we are truly safe. We are bringing tears to her eyes.”

Barnes and Trevor embraced in jubilance and began skipping through the storm of tears, not dodging them, but dancing in their salty redemption.

They truly were saved.