The Devil On Her Shoulder Chapter 5
I might be giving away the ending by mentioning that my wife said this was the saddest story I’ve yet written. She also said that somehow it was the most hopeful. It’s a strange feeling when you see someone crying over something you’ve written. I felt happy and guilty at the same time. If you’ve made someone cry with your writing then you’ve done something right. That is, you’ve done something right if it’s supposed to be sad. For my part, I have to say I haven’t been affected as much by anything else I’ve written—so far. I hope you enjoy, or at least find some value in the final chapter of “The Devil on Her Shoulder.”
The Devil On Her Shoulder Chapter 4
I mentioned at the start of the serial that it was based on a dream I had many years ago. While the story is different than the dream, the conclusion to this chapter is very close to its ending. Without giving away the end of this chapter, the dream concluded with me crawling into bed next to my future wife and murmuring the last words Isaac speaks in this chapter. The one difference is that in the dream the Christmas hymn “All is Well” started playing immediately after. Presumably because it was almost Christmas when I had the dream. Then I woke up. I have no idea what I did the day after. For some reason I think it was a Saturday. Other than that, I have no memory of it. Seventeen years later, give or take, I still remember the dream.
The Devil on Her Shoulder Chapter 3
Writing introductions for the chapters in this serial has been rather difficult. That was why for the previous chapter I just gave up, wrote something about foregoing a lengthy introduction, and skipped straight to the story. I was very tempted to copy/paste the introduction to the last installment and simply update “Chapter Two” to “Chapter Three.” I thought better of it and wrote these three blocks of text, which isn’t much better than the introduction to Chapter Two. Hope you enjoy Chapter Three of “The Devil on Her Shoulder.”
The Devil On Her Shoulder Ch. 2
I will forego a lengthy introduction to the next installment of “The Devil On Her Shoulder”. Please enjoy Chapter Two, wherein Isaac reluctantly returns to work.
The Devil on Her Shoulder
Rather than Rod Serling my way through another introduction, I thought I might provide a little bit of back story as to how this new serial came about. It’s based on a dream I had the winter after I graduated college. In the dream, my then girlfriend now wife, had decided to end her life through a government program. She was very casual about the whole thing. The rest of the dream was me trying to find a way out of the contract. It was a Kafka-esque (a pretentious but useful phrase) journey into bureaucratic hell. Everything in the dream felt like Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. It played in my mind’s eye like a movie filmed with fish-eye lenses, extreme closeups, and Dutch angles. The story became something very different from the dream. I originally intended it to be a single entry. As I was writing, it quickly became apparent that…
The Great Migration
I’m sure we are all familiar with the phrase “May you live in interesting times.” Which according to the internet search I did in preparation for this intro, is not actually an ancient Chinese curse. Regardless of the source, we all understand the meaning of the phrase. We all understand that “interesting times” is meant ironically. We all know we’d rather not live in such times. Historic events tend to leave uncertainty in their wake. It is often the case that “interesting times” simply means that something very terrible could happen. It could be that nothing will happen. Perhaps I should say it might be that nothing else will happen. Lucky for us we get to live with the dread. Life of course goes on even in the midst of the uncertainty. Something terrible could happen today, but then again that’s true of every day. Perhaps interesting times are no…
Unmaking the Past
Every day we make decisions that put us on a specific course. They plot a trajectory for our lives. We make plans and imagine our future around them. But subsequent decisions can rob past choices of their meaning. Or alter them irrevocably. It is not uncommon for succeeding decisions and actions to slowly undo previous hopes and dreams. We might not even be aware in the moment of how we are undermining their fulfillment. Until it is too late. Until we no longer share the dreams of the past. Until we’ve either given up on it or we seek a different future. Choices inevitably affect everyone around us. Oftentimes in ways we’ll never know. In giving up on the dreams of the past we’re rarely the only ones to get hurt.
Barkeep
Moving to a new place is always difficult. Moving from one side of a town to another is an enormous pain in and of itself. Moving from one side of a country to another is significantly worse. One of the things that makes moving cross country hard is that it can sever ties to friends in what once was your home. In the digital age it’s much easier to keep in touch with people than it once was. However, there is something to be said about being with friends in person. Moving doesn’t just mean learning new routes to work, or finding new restaurants, it means creating new connections with people. For many of us, meeting new people can be difficult. Every interaction with a stranger brings with it a host of uncertainties. We can never be sure what the other person is really thinking. Two people can have vastly…
Silence is Love
Everyone, or rather almost everyone, wants to leave something behind; to create a legacy that endures long after they have gone. Legacies take many forms. For ordinary people, that legacy can be creating a better life for their children, or it can just be their children. For the egregiously rich, it can be their name on a college building they funded, or a foundation. For the creative kind it may be a particular work, a particular performance, a particular piece of art. In the end no one has the luxury of choosing what they will be remembered for, least of all writers, moviemakers, musicians, anyone who has ever made any kind of material for public consumption. This assumes, of course, that they will be remembered at all. To a certain extent, the moment you enter public consciousness, in any capacity, you lose autonomy. You lose control of who you are,…
The Title Comes Later
It’s been a while since I published anything on my site. It seems appropriate that this story would be my triumphant return to the web. Or rather, my return. For the most part, I enjoy writing, which should be obvious. At this point the only reason I post it online is because I like doing it, and some of it’s pretty decent. Even when you like something it can sometimes become a chore. Stories often create themselves, but sometimes they require a bit more coaxing. Sometimes they just become an unfinished Word doc cluttering up your hard drive. A drop in a terabyte bucket. Every once in a while, falling back on a gimmick that you yourself think is kind of stupid is what brings the story back to life.