Repetition
Kevin Gong
"Another one?!"
The windows of the Fix Magazine editorial offices shook with a resonant sound.
"What is
it with these people? The last
thing I need is another sob story."
"But, sir..." A young man working as an intern looked at his boss concernedly. "This
story has a little twist to the plot. I mean, it's not just
about a down-and-out writer. It's also -"
"I don't care, little Johnny boy! No ifs, ands, or buts!! If it's about a lousy
writer, I'm not setting my eyes on it."
"Whatever you say, sir." John took the manuscript from the boss's desk, turned on
his heel, and walked out of the office.
The boss muttered to himself, shaking his head at the desk. "Lousy writers. They
think they're the only ones with problems. They've got an easy job."
Things had not gone well for Brett Diva, editor-in-chief of Fix Magazine. The magazine
hadn't taken off like he had thought it would. Oh, it was a mild success - it paid
the rent. There was nothing in it, however, that had received any critical acclaim.
Now, he was beginning to get a little disgusted with the down-and-out writer scenario.
For the past two weeks he had been getting nothing but stories like "Drexel Sux
was a good writer. But not everyone saw him as that and, unfortunately for him,
those people who did see him as a good writer couldn't publish his stories." Blah, blah, blah
Brett mocked to himself, remembering the same old, boring plot. First, there's this
down-on-his-luck writer. Then, he writes a great story. After a small miracle happens,
the story gets published and everyone's happy. Or, more often, the writer is the victim of some gruesome, ironic tragedy. Brett cringed at the idea. It was all
beginning to seem like a plot against him. He had only printed the big names and
the acclaimed young writers. He hadn't taken any risks. Now, it was only a few
days before the magazine would be put through the final stages before release. He didn't have
a single story to print.
*****
"Approaching destination." The stoic voice of Brett Diva's self-driving car droned
into Brett's half-asleep ears.
"All right. I'll take over in a minute." The car's engine began to slow, then stopped
as Brett took the steering wheel. He watched other cars whiz by, their occupants
all asleep. He knew that one of these days, he should have entered in the instructions to park the car. But he didn't really have the time to bother with that. In any
case, he prided himself as being the only person in his neighborhood who could actually
manually park a car.
As he got out of the car and moved towards his apartment building, he saw a rare sight
- someone actually manually driving his car. Brett was a little jealous. The driver
stared at Brett as his car passed the apartment building; he almost crashed into
another car coming from the opposite direction. Brett laughed and went into the apartment
building.
"Good evening, Mr. Diva. How was your day at work?"
Brett ignored the drone of his room's "pleasant" voice. He heard it every day, and
was beginning to wonder if he should have ordered a different model.
"You were called 37 times today by Mr. Richard Fenton. He says he wants to know when
you're publishing his story, "Death of a Writer".
"Damn! How did the little sucker get my number?!"
"You received no further calls."
Brett ripped off his coat and tie, collapsed onto his bed, and closed his eyes.
"You were visited 10 times by Mr. Iken Wright. He left something for you."
Brett cautiously opened his eyes and looked at the packages. They were stacks of
paper. Manuscripts.
"Ackkkk!!!"
By now, he didn't even have to read the things - he could sense them: lousy writer
stories.
Lousy writer scum. Can't write worth a damn. Keep sending me a bunch of crap. Why,
I could write better than them.
Hmmm...
Hey, great idea. I'll write my own story. Nah... Don't have time to deal with stuff
like that.
I know, a computer could write better than them...I'll just pop in this little sucker...
Brett searched through the mounds of trash - manuscripts, mostly - looking for the
disk. After mowing through the 400-page work of Ima Whinner, "Day in the Life of
Yora Luzar, Professional Writer" and tossing aside volumes 1 and 2 of "How the Editor
Was Won", he found what he was looking for - a little computer disk labeled "InstaFiction".
*****
Brett slept calmly that night, knowing that his computer was churning away at a wonderful story
. What could go wrong, he had thought as he had entered in the beginning of the story.
Besides the quiet hum of the computer's fan and Brett's soft breathing, only the
occasional sound of cars zooming by could be heard.
He dreamed of what the computer would turn out. He had started it with a perfect
direction. The computer just had
to write what Brett wanted. Then, he would take the story and print it up in Fix,
just to show the writers that anyone would write better than them - even a computer.
The Trouble with Writers
John Carpman walked into his office one morning. To his great surprise, his mail
slot was filled with dozens upon dozens of stories. The only problem was that they
were all lousy. Not only that, but most of them dealt with the pressures of being
a writer. And John couldn't sympathize with them at all; his job was tough. He had to
choose the right stories to keep his magazine alive.
Then, the madness began. John was swamped with story after story - each with the
same plot. Soon, he didn't even need to read the manuscripts; he just looked at
the titles. It was like a nightmare. Every day he'd receive a story with the same
plot. Over and over. They reached him at the office. They reached him while he was walking
into the building. They reached him on the phone. They reached him at home. It
was all beginning to drive him batty...
The computer had taken over from there.
*****
The next morning, Brett awoke to the bright light of the sun outside, which was shining
through the window. The first thing he did was go to his computer.
...and so, John Carpman now stands as the editor of the most popular magazine in the
world.
The computer hummed lightly as it saved the final pages of the story.
Story Completed...
InstaFiction now returns you to system...
*Job Completed*
Awaiting Command>>>?
Brett instructed the computer to print the story, and excitedly rubbed his hands together
as the printer spit out a hard copy. As the last page came out, he thought to himself,
this is a perfect size for Fix
. Brett wanted to savor this story for a little longer before he actually read it.
Let's see...did those writers bite the dust? Did Carpman simply find other writers?
What could have happened?
Wild theories crossed through Brett's mind as he punched the kitchen computer for
some Cheerios. He sat down at the kitchen table, a bowl of cereal in front of him
and a glass of orange juice to his right. He ceremoniously laid the story on the
table to his left, and turned to page 1.
...It was all beginning to drive him batty...
He was beginning to cave into the pressure. He didn't want that to happen, so he
decided to meet with one of these "lousy" writers.
Brett slowly ate his cereal. The story went on fairly calmly. Carpman visited one
of the writers and hated him. He was the scum that Brett Diva wanted him to be.
But the stories continued to come in. And the magazine began to falter. There
were less and less good stories that Carpman could print. Finally, John began to give in again
and decided to visit another one of the writers.
John pressed the buzzer on the apartment door.
"Yes, who is it?"
John leapt back as a soft female voice came out of the intercom next to the door.
"John Carpman. I've received several of your stories -"
"Yes, yes...Please come in."
The door slid aside to reveal a room cluttered with piles of magazines, old books,
crumpled paper, and an ancient electronic typewriter. A small, middle-aged woman
with unkempt hair peered hopefully through thin-rimmed glasses.
"Would you like some tea?"
John paused, wondering how in the world she could produce tea out of this mess. "No,
but thanks anyway."
They stared at each other for a few seconds, waiting for the other to speak.
Then the woman shook herself, as if waking. "Mmmm...Please, sit down." She pointed
toward a soft, cluttered chair next to a rather large pile of magazines.
John sat down as the woman wrapped her legs together and sat on the floor, facing
him.
"I see you read our magazine a lot."
"I try to read all of it. I've admired the magazine ever since I could read."
"Well, let me get down to business, Miss Weisburd -"
"Please, Laura."
"All right, Laura. Well, the reason I'm here is that I want to find out what kind
of people are sending me stories like..." He let his sentence trail as he looked
into Laura's curious eyes.
"Well, you're here. I'm here. I've sent you stories. What would you like to know?"
John turned this over thoughtfully in his mind. "Well, ...I'm not sure...Well, why
do you write the kind of stories that you do? I mean, they all do have the same
sort of plot, don't they?" He said this almost inquisitively, not with the violence
that he had often recently felt.
Laura's tone of voice changed to a slightly cold, annoyed one.
"I write the kind of stories that I do because I think they are good stories. And
they mean something to me; they help me realize what kind of life I am living. You
don't think I like it here, do you?"
She waved her hand around her, indicating the sad, small place that she called home.
"No." He said it softly.
"Well, I don't know what else to say. I've been trying to improve my story; I've
added plot twists and turns. I keep sending you stories because I think each one
is better than the last." She paused, looking at John's confused expression. Then
she surmised in a quiet voice, "You haven't even read my stories, have you?"
"No, I haven't." Laura sat, waiting. "Well, the first couple I read, but I just
couldn't stand it anymore. I've been getting story after story with the same plot.
It's been getting ridiculous. Even nightmarish. So, no, I haven't been reading
your stories." Suddenly, he realized again what he had come here for. "And why should I???
I've been getting close to 500 pages of manuscripts a day now for the past 2 months,
and they all say the same damn thing!!! Tell me that, why should I read your goddamn stories???"
Laura sat there quietly, turning his words over in her mind.
"I guess we should apologize to you. We're sorry. We didn't realize what we'd be
doing to you."
"Damn right, you better apologize...What do you mean 'we'?"
Laura lowered her head. "Well, we - I mean, well, we're just a bunch of local writers
- we had a meeting a few months ago. There were about a dozen or so of us. We're
all good friends. I mean, we're all in the same sort of situation. None of us has
ever made it big. So, well, we decided we would try to help each other. Well, we
just shared story ideas with each other and mine just sort of won a lot of acceptance.
Unfortunately, we haven't been keeping in touch with each other, so none of us knows
what the others are doing. I guess we all started writing the same stories."
John thought for a minute. "You expect to me to believe that?"
"It's the truth." She paused while John continued to struggle with that. "What did
you expect, some sort of conspiracy?"
"Yes. I guess I did."
"Well, I'm sure if any of us knew what was going on, we would have stopped."
John put his hands to his head, working things out in his mind.
"Tell you what, do you have a copy of your last story? I think I should read it."
At this point, the manuscript became unreadable. Brett had started to choke and regurgitated
half-digested Cheerios. He gasped and managed to squeal out "What?! This can't
be happening!"
After the initial shock, Brett managed to go to the computer to reprint the last few
pages and grudgingly read them. He got sicker and sicker. At one point in the story,
he nearly threw up again.
And Laura was no longer a small, middle-aged woman. Now, her hair was neat. She
now appeared to be the young woman of average size that she was. Her glasses added
to, rather than detracted from, her appearance. And John and Laura eventually became
good friends...
"Ugh. I don't think I can read this anymore."
Brett tossed the pages aside and slumped onto the table.
"This computer has a wild imagination."
At that point, the room computer beeped. "There is someone here to see you. Her
name is Linda Weiss. She says it concerns stories."
Brett reached over to the room computer control panel and pushed a button. He heard
the computer say, rather politely, "Mr. Diva does not wish to see you."
After a pause, the computer again spoke inside. "She says it is important."
Brett reached over and pushed another button. This time, the computer said, in a
not-so-polite voice, "Get out of here!!!"
After he heard footsteps running down the hallway, Brett went back to sleep.
*****
Fix Magazine folded 6 months later.
Brett could never find another job as an editor. Soon, he was forced into doing the
only other thing he might possibly be good at - writing. He lived his life alone,
and with few luxuries. The only money he made was from occasional stints as a janitor.
His stories were never accepted. He was a very stubborn person, and he would only
submit one type of story. Several years later, his body was found in his apartment,
his hands still clutching the knife that had pierced his heart. Next to his body
was found a letter:
Dear Mr. Diva:
Your manuscript is decent, but we are sorry to say that we cannot print a lonely editor
story. Reader studies show that the public would rather read about the pressures
of being a writer. Surely, being a writer, you might be able to accomodate them.
Sincerely,
John Namprac,
Executive Editor
P.S. I suggest you might read stories written by Laura Drubsiew.
Copyright 1987 by Kevin Gong. Unauthorized duplication,
posting, or publication is strictly prohibited.
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