The English Major Work

The Second Attempt at the English Major Work </b>
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If it is to be, it’s up to me.

So there. I’ve started and (ominously) I can’t help but feel I’m finally about to achieve something.

If it is to be, it’s up to me.

It’s perfect. It undermines every single excuse I’d come up with to avoid starting this (… this major work? Assessment? Eulogy?) death wish.

I’ve started. It’s begun. The ball’s in play. (I hate sports)

Do you want to know what I was doing when I thought of that miraculous, wonderful, excuse-undermining first line? Of course you do, because it would mean progress, and you: the faceless audience, need progress, otherwise gosh, what a boring story.

Anyway.

The first line occurred to me while I was brushing my teeth. I wasn’t doing anything else, except for perhaps casting the occasional filthy look at my cousin (who does not feature in this story, so don’t log his mention away in the vain hope he will somehow be responsible for a glorious climatic twist).
And so, while I brushed my teeth, it appeared there, in my head (which happens to be a vast unconquered terrain of things such as the teaser trailer for The Mummy, rabbits with switchblades, love-sick imps and charcoal fixative).
Now I am in bed. Having written down my first line I consider myself ready to take a break… or sleep… which is what most normal students in their final year of school are doing at precisely 12:16 am in the morning.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m normal. As bleedingly, superficially normal as they come. No one close to me has ever died, I’ve never had a near death experience; which goes without saying I’ve never been mugged, shot or stabbed. I’ve never even been held at gunpoint. I’ve never been in love, I’ve never had sex and I’ve never been stung by a bee.
Hell – I’ve never even had my front door knocked upon by a wizard who wanted me to take a ring to some volcanic mountain when he could have asked the giant eagles to drop it in on their way past.

But never fear! Because I – that is Evie McPhursen, seventeen, female, caucasian – am not the main character!

… Although, consider this: I barely know my own world at all – so how can I give a world to a deserving man?

He is deserving. I treat him as I would a person I hadn’t created.

But that is the beauty of creativity. Whoever you are – the person reading this – you’re “real”… but it is within my power to write about you. To make you whatever I want.

That is power. There are many creators who forget that. I mean, do you suppose a thought was ever spared to what happened to child-vampire Claudia after Armand left her to the mercy of the sunlight? Or how Professor Severus Snape felt after his arteries had pumped enough blood from the gaping wound in his throat to cause his last threads of life to freeze in a glaze over his black eyes?
Or even parfumeur extraordinaire Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (just to prove I’ve read one or two classics) … where did he go after the Parisians had swallowed those final mouthfuls of his flesh and he ceased even to be a memory?
It doesn’t bear thinking about it.
But there cannot be progress without sacrifices such as these!

I’m tired. My thoughts are even more misplaced than usual.

Somewhere along the patterns of my neurons, Zach waits for his progress. And an ending. Every character needs an ending.

But that is not entirely true… and when writing you must always be honest. Zach is more than just a chemical concoction of the electrical firings of my synapses. He doesn’t just exist within my head. Do you know how this is possible?

Oh, ho, you think, here comes the over-used and terribly annoying “he’s my special friend that nobody else can see and as soon as everyone finally believes me he disappears” thing.

No, no. Zach can be seen by potentially everyone.

See:        Zach


There, you saw him. He exists outside my head because he is existing on this page too. Look again if you don’t believe me…



                                                             Zach.



Surely you saw him that time. If you look a little closer you’ll see he’s wearing a slightly vexed expression, which has always made the corners of his mouth deepen endearingly. His eyes, a frosty sort-of jade, look back at you expectantly. Love mehe demands. Love me and read about me.

I haven’t told him you don’t have a say in the matter. He never has to know. That can be our little secret.

It compels me to create: the desire to make characters others can love.

Because I love them. I believe I have a responsibility to bring them to life. Never forget that even though a thought is just a thought, it still exists. So if one day a character begins forming in my thoughts, don’t I owe it to them to give them a story because they exist? Existence is a very important thing.

… Am I making sense? Probably not.

To cut a long story short (hah! hardly) Zach, as well as all my characters, are borne of me. I created them and I would feel guilty if I abandoned them.

I must stick with them till their ending – and if they die? It may interest you to know I’ve never written a proper ending before.



Hm. If it is to be… sleep is in order first, I think.








ZACH

Me on the other hand, I like sports.
Probably because Evie can’t help but think that’s a well-rounded, male stereotype. Though, I suppose, not all her male characters like sports – she’s just never felt particularly driven to make me an individual.
No matter. I’m not bitter, and my liking of sports is perhaps not the best place to start.
Hi.
My name is Zacharias Robert Morgan – but my friends call me Zach. Or they would if Evie had invented them. I’m twenty-six; caucasian, about five foot nine in height, I was born in Saskatoon, Canada in June, 1981, though I can’t stand the tart taste of Saskatoon’s namesake berries: saskatoons – not even in pie; my favourite colour is purple, my hair won’t ever lie flat at the back; I bite my nails and smoke like a chimney, which is disgusting, I know; and I continually wear a denim, wool-lined jacket I happen to own like it’s a second skin.
That’s all I know about myself. Wait, no – I have a sister. We’re estranged. It makes for good conflict.
I came to Evie in a dream. Usually Evie is very fond and considerate of the characters created this way, but I’ve suffered all manner of woes: rebuttal, reshaping, personality swaps and three different plot-lines to date – soon to be four. Originally I was an introverted, institutionalized inmate with the habit of recording my feelings in black biro, after that I was a man mourning the tragic deaths of his wife and child whilst battling it out with a very unforgiving subconscious, then I was a vampire (please, let’s not even go there) and now…
Now Evie’s backtracking, subjecting me, once more, to her initial processes of building her characters.
It begins with our faces, and what she imagines in our eyes; then she weaves life around us, stitching and knitting, piecing us together so that she might learn to take us seriously, respect us as individuals. If our first impression doesn’t capture her interest, she snuffs us out hastily, pushing the thought away – a quick and merciful death, saving us from the possibility of never entertaining an audience.
There’s nothing worse for Evie than a character who sticks when she can’t understand why. Enter me. We’ve been at this, on and off, for three years now. She started writing her first attempt of my story as a screenplay for a school assignment in Year Nine – but gave up half-way through and switched to Leaf and Ashley’s story, two of Evie’s other dream-characters – probably just as well, because that assignment ended up killing them both. I’m like you, I don’t fancy death just yet; and, after witnessing such grim horror, I felt as though her other two attempts at my story were like vicious little tugs on a well-stuck band-aid: excruciatingly painful, anti-climatic, ultimately unsuccessful and, when abandoned, invoked a disturbing sense of peace.
But she’s doing it again. That same assignment – only this time it’s bigger, there are more marks involved, more pressure, more expectations. I suppose I should be worried, but it’s not like I have a choice.
So back to the drawing board.
Evie once read about an author who filled whole notebooks just with the background of their character before introducing them to their novel. She finds this idea romantic, and even tried it once – not with me, though, with a character named Jude “North” Millers, a veritable sociopath from a future that is both dark and bleak and where haircuts that make you look like a badly shaven hedgehog are considered fashionable.
True to her to her commitment to the non-committal, Evie never did finish that notebook (it is now filled with doodles, midnight ideas and unattached paragraphs from various unfinished stories), but she worries that, in comparison to characters like Jude, I lack a point of interest.
Well, we can’t all have bad hair.  
People don’t want to read about characters they can relate to because they’re just like them, Evie theorises, they want to read about characters they want to be, characters they’d like to be friends with, marry... or kill.
In Evie’s opinion, reading should be an effective escape to somewhere you’d rather be – not necessarily somewhere larger than life, but certainly somewhere better.
Personally, I reckon Evie’s confusing what her audience wants with the reason she writes.
Her writing in order to escape is instinctive, so she’s never once stopped to figure out what she’s running from. Complete reality often holds very little value for her.
But enough about her flaws – what about mine? I need a few really good ones. Audiences don’t like perfection, which is why fairytales don’t capture you like they used to when you were younger – or, perhaps they do, but surely not for the same reasons?
Five minutes in and I’ve already miffed you with the hesitancy of my perceptions.
Lovely. Doubt. Now there’s a flaw and a half.
No matter how hard she tries, Evie just can’t find me as intriguing as the others she’s written about. I don’t control the weather, or speak German, I don’t travel through time, shapeshift, breathe fire, fly, have any tattoos, read minds, wear glasses, and I’m certainly not up to saving the world in any way, shape or form.

Why does she persist with me if I’m so boring then?

Good question. I’d like to know myself.

Irrespective of the answer, I don’t want her to let me go. What would happen if she did? I can picture myself vanishing comically into a bubbling, green vat of that Toon-killing Dip from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? , but I shouldn’t flatter myself with something that exciting.

If she forgot me I would probably just cease to be.

I’m only an idea. Ideas aren’t mourned into the afterlife with an expensive funeral and a grieving widow to cling to their memory.

Evie once saw a billboard on a highway that said:

                                                       I AM YOUR IDEA.
                              ONE DAY YOU’LL LOOK FOR ME AND I’LL BE GONE.

Charming, really. Perhaps I will be.

It’s up to her.



EVIE

Well, he doesn’t like saskatoons. Surely that would make a reader go, ‘Ooh, what are saskatoons? I’ll head off to Google for a spot of enlightenment and return to this story simply because saskatoons sound so intriguing!’
Unless of course the reader was from Saskatoon, or anywhere else in Canada or America where saskatoon trees grow. If not, I can’t rely on the hope that a small, richly-flavoured, purple-red berry is the proverbial ‘hook’ needed to capture and hold my audience. Everything about Zach is mild, boring – but if you saw him you’d understand why I keep my faith.
Picture this: in the prairie towns of inland Canada, there is always a small diner situated on the highway, and its customers are either the townspeople or those passing through; when you drive by you are passing a pocket of time, and you will most certainly always drive by; the snow that has crept out from the side of the road flurrying dejectedly away in the wake of your vehicle. People don’t stop as often as they used to, life is shorter, and there are bigger places to go. These diners are dying.
It’s in a diner like this that I can see Zach, talking with the people I’ve met there myself; they’re quiet, contemplative, there’s no urgency to communicate or raise their voices. The tiny Spanish man at the counter with the brightly coloured sweater smiles and sets wrinkles deep into his cheeks as he tells Zach the biggest mistake his country of birth ever made was letting him have a passport. Zach’s own smile is crooked, raising dimples as the man says, ‘My travelling all amounted to this, though. I know I’ve found it here: the end of the world.’
In Zach’s eyes I see his understanding.
I can put him in any of the places I’ve known – a diner on the prairie, a dried up river bed in Alice Springs, an old, thatched-roof cottage in provincial England beneath the ever-drizzling clouds; I can even see him amidst the beautiful graveyards of Hong Kong which undulate over the hills, the gold lettering on the marble headstones glinting under the sun, reflected in his eyes.
This world is too small for what I see in his eyes.
When you look at someone, you watch their face, knowing it will allow you to gain an insight into who they are, but in reality that face, those eyes, are a singular, crystalline shard from the very top of a cavernous iceberg, that spills on forever down deep until the blue has bled from the ocean and waters swirl pitch black. In essence: what you see is not what you get, regardless of who you’re talking about.
But that’s real people, characters are different. Think of the good old comic book heroes: Superman, Batman, Spiderman – what you see is what you get. Yes, yes, they have their secret identities, but Clark, Bruce and Peter are all there for you in plain view, too – there is precious little beneath the surface save the tragedy of some dead family members and a weakness for kryptonite.
You’ll find even better examples in the villains – Harvey Two-Face? Please. Two-faced and two-dimensional, everything there is to him is all there at the flip of a coin.
The most famous villains in history are subject to this issue; as much as I hate to admit it Darth Vader, Sauron, Voldemort, That-Wolf-Who’s-In-Nearly-Every-Fairytale, Scar (although Scar was really just Hamlet’s uncle as a lion emitting Jeremy Iron’s dulcet tones, which I guess leads me to include Shakespeare in my spiel, which might not be wise because he’s the hailed eternal Bard and all, and I get that, I do, but even the depths of King Lear’s psyche give back a tinny echo every so often, admit it) and The-Witch-Who’s-In-Everything-The Wolf- Isn’t are all ultimately the same.
Tortured, driven failures, beaten, every time, by their respective heroes, who I don’t need to mention because they are the yang to the villains’ yin, you already know what they’re like.
It’s entertaining, to be sure. But only so much variation can occur; you’ve heard the same story a million times:
In the Beginning, an angel tripped and fell –the Rolling Stones appealed for us to sympathise with him, but in the End the overwhelming power of God’s goodness won over our temptation to be swayed by Lucifer’s offers of compensation as he tried to mask his shame for being such a klutz.
… This is how good I am at procrastinating. Maybe you didn’t even realise I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing. You didn’t forget about Zach, did you?
Not that I’m blaming you if you did, he does kind of slip under the radar.
I need something different, something intriguing to give him – but nothing superhuman, I want him to be relatable, and yet engrossing.
I think my expectations might be a bit high, but I’m sure I can blame that on the human condition.
In the Beginning… see, this is my problem, I’m no good at starting things – and once I do it’s a battle right to the end. I’m sure this is why every so often my school projects remain unstarted, and also why that even though starting a new story is so exciting, as soon as I run aground I abandon it, set out searching for another means of transport. To continue that metaphor there is probably a colourless beach somewhere in the recesses of my mind, on which at least twenty ships are wrecked having run aground, splintered their keels, the tillers rendered useless, their sails rotting in the salty wind. It’s almost beautiful, but very cruel. I could go to them, mend them, but that would require more effort than I’d feel willing to give.
It’s not like it doesn’t take it out of me, writing. When you put as much on the line as I do, you’re very tired by the end of the day… Failure can become a necessity, or the sinking ship will take you down with it.
Can’t escape this time though, need help. I’ll use some never-fail form of layout to build Zach’s plotline around – like Vogler’s “The Hero’s Journey.” So, I’d commence with Ordinary World. Lovely, Zach’s very ordinary, he’ll be perfect for this…
Assuming I can take it seriously.
But I haven’t got a choice this time, this is for school – ignore what I said about school projects, I’ll start and finish this one, I have to. Actually, I need to dig out the marking criteria, I know it’s in one of haphazard piles of sheets I have on my floor. If I’m already bending, beaten, beneath The Establishment because I’m embracing foppery like “The Hero’s Journey”, I might as well write according to the marking criteria, too.
Oh, but I bet it’s fantastically vague.
Probably because, like me, The Man doesn’t have any idea what he actually wants, but hopefully we’ll know it when we see it.








ZACH

A layout? I’m sorry, but do you think God used a layout? Not that Evie has a God-complex, those are both predictable and dull, I’m simply using Him as an example because He’s the most famous creator of all time.
Actually maybe He did use a layout, but you have to wonder when you look at the fact that our airways are dangerously adjacent to our digestive tracts. Masterful genius, that is.
I accept that at least a vague plan should exist, but you can’t force someone into a mould, surely that’s got to be counter-productive to shaping the sort of believability Evie wants.
As for the marking criteria – how ridiculous! How could you honestly hope to categorize, analyse and force your different values upon all the responses you’d get to the demand of: “Write a story”? Such a task is beyond me, I don’t know why anyone would ever subject themselves to it; though I suppose there’d be the perk of coming across something you really liked, but I doubt it happens often. People are a lot pickier today, which isn’t because things used to be simpler, it’s because there were generally fewer things to worry about.
I think Evie’s going to struggle, but at least she’s aware of it.
But you know what? Awareness counts for nothing, especially when you consistently do nothing about it. It’s as if Evie’s brain is fully functional and self-aware even though that is reserved for the final stages of adolescence, but she has the willpower of a clinically depressed sloth.
And with that stirring image I’m off to register a complaint. Assuming she’s benevolent and doesn’t smite me where I stand (or make me a vampire again), the next time you hear from me I won’t be dangling inches from the rainforest floor in some cannibal’s inescapable net of vines duly labeled The Hero’s Journey, while next to me a particularly dispirited sloth does nothing to improve my situation.



EVIE
Fine. You know I can’t keep a straight face when using things like The Hero’s Journey. But I need help, there’s no denying that.
I want a plotline with the potential for slowly accumulating emotional depth. I like writing characters like that.

ZACH
You only have eight thousand words. How much emotional development can you hope to achieve in that amount of space?

EVIE
Well, I’ll be sure to write you as a killjoy.
What I need is a topical issue to set you against, something I actually care about.

ZACH
You could always start your research by concentrating on the news past the point you think it’s a gross façade of violence?

EVIE
Oh, I know!  You can die at the end, tragically alone in a hospital because your lifestyle-choice-partner isn’t legally allowed to visit you.

ZACH
… “Lifestyle-choice-partner”? Thanks, but no thanks, I’m too manly with my liking of sports, remember?

EVIE
You’re just covering your insecurities. You have a strong mother figure, you’re distant from your father figure, women never interested you – Alfred Kinsey would have a field day with you – maybe I can write about him, he’s interesting, you could be one of the men on his team, the one he –

ZACH
A sister! You said I had a sister!

EVIE
You do. Her name is Sarah Anne Morgan. Your father, Simon, left when you were five and Sarah was three. Your mother, Claire, raised her two children alone. When she killed herself you went to live with your grandmother, Elise. Sarah distanced herself from you, not understanding your way of grieving, while you could not understand hers. You grew up, you grew apart. You fought, she moved away. Her fiancé, Dean Chester, is English. Now she lives with him in Vancouver, though they plan to move back to his home in London. You intend to make contact before she leaves, but the chance passes you by. She has a son, you haven’t seen her in years.
You dwindle, not knowing what to make of your own life whilst feeling so acutely aware of the success Sarah is having with hers. Maybe there’s a woman, a career, but you’re not interested. Things don’t capture you like they did when you were young, but you’re quite sure the passion you felt was a symptom of youth, and not the presence of your mother. You don’t miss her now like you thought you would. You toy with the notion of seeking out your father, but know that if he’s anything like you you’d rather not meet him. You’re waiting for an excuse to see Sarah, you need an excuse because you can’t face the thought of moving freely into a decision.
Your hand needs to be forced… it needs…

ZACH
What? It needs what?

EVIE
I don’t know, I lost it.

ZACH
You haven’t lost it, it’s there, everything you ever think of,  you keep it all. What did they say? Braving the perils of creation is like building your own door and knocking on it even though you have no way of knowing what’s on the other side. Figure out which door it is!


EVIE
I haven’t even built it yet – In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree –

ZACH
You are not Kubla Khan, why build a dome when all you’ve got to do is build a lousy door? Stop avoiding it –

EVIE
Zach, separate yourself from me, you sound too much like…

ZACH
You.












EVIE

Me? Oh! Family! His story is about family. That’s his door.

The Golden Rule of Writing: Write What You Know.

So I suppose I’d have to draw from my family, which is subject to the most twisted issue any family could have:

No
problems
what so ever.


I mean, really, what were my parents thinking when they modeled for me the unachievable – a functioning, content relationship based entirely on love, trust and respect. As cynical as I am, there’s no denying it: they’re soul mates.
One in three marriages end in divorce – and the last time I checked up on that statistic was when I watched Bridget Jones’ Diary on the weekend... surely it must have climbed since then. What hope is there left for love? Especially for me, having watched my parents nearly everyday for the duration of my seventeen years and comprehending nothing of how they do it.
You don’t notice things like that when you’re young, but now that I’m a little older – although I in no way claim to be wise – I’ve seen the relationships my friends become involved in, and I’ve watched them all breakdown... and I’ve also seen the relationships of my parents’ friends and watched them breakdown. Friendships end, marriages end, and yet here my parents stand, apparently unscathed by the debris.
They tell me it takes hard work. I have faith that this is true, because faith does not always require understanding.
My faith doesn’t extend to myself, though. There’s always the off chance that the lesson their teaching is sinking in inherently, and I’m set for life.
But, my voice of doubt offers doubtfully, there’s always the chance that it’s not.


My siblings aren’t much better, unfortunately. There’s three of them, all younger than me, all entirely different and yet entirely similar. We’re all thinkers, we’re not unintelligent, we’re not unattractive, we each have our own talents, we have generic, manageable flaws, and we all have twenty-twenty vision. And don’t even get me started on the dog.
My father, when asked, says he’s just glad none of us were born disabled. It’s in these moments I sense and see how he marvels at our existence, like I’m sure every parent marvels at their children.
He can’t believe his luck. While I can’t believe my own, I can believe his. He’s earned and is deserving of every ounce of happiness that comes his way. And then some. The same goes for my mother, who is very different from my father, but belongs with him like maple syrup belongs with ice cream.
They’re good people, and I love them... I just wish they’d fight at least once so I could experience some nice, healthy dysfunction.
I can’t help but feel our good luck is a temporary, ticking time-bomb. While all around me, left, right and centre, families are struck with horrific tragedies like death, injuries, assholes becoming in-laws, divorce, illness, drugs, abuse – none of this applies, not even in part, to my family.
Enjoy it, you say, be grateful! I am. I can’t tell you how much I am. But I can’t help worrying about when it’s going to end. A universal truth: nothing lasts forever.
Hope and doubt intertwine when I am confronted with this, because I know for sure my parents’ love for each other and the family they’ve created will last forever. It will surpass and conquer death.

I don’t wish anything that epic for Zach. Having one person enjoy what I write has always been more than enough for me. Though I suppose it couldn’t hurt to find out what it’s like to have your characters enjoyed by more than one person… But do you know what can ensure such a thing never happens? Counting your chickens before they hatch. One must never get cocky, nor allow ambition to determine the direction of what they create.
You have to be able to feel what you’re devising in some way. I know that when I try to describe an expression I can imagine it with perfect clarity, and more often than not I will end up making that expression on my face. Actually, that’s a bit embarrassing.
As for my family inspirations, their lack of any interesting dysfunction renders them somewhat void.
No matter. It’s a great big, global world out there, there’s bound to be inspiration somewhere.




ZACH

It is very easy to condense vast amounts of time into words, for example:

One Year Later

is a popular one for the very end of films when the Director panics that enough hasn’t already happened.

I hear that Nineteen Years Later Harry Potter named his kid after Snape. I only saw the first two movies, so I’ve got no clue as to why.
That’s the great thing about time lapses, you can spring right out of left field and say a bunch of stuff completely unrelated to the plotline preceding it because it’s entirely possible a lot has happened in that amount of time.

Unless you’re Evie.

To be fair, she hasn’t had a year, she’s had six months, though she’s done bugger all.

I chose the milder expletive there.





EVIE

I’m four thousand words in, that’s half the word limit… and nothinghas happened.
In terms of creating reality, I feel that’s believable; describing life would take many words, but I can’t conceive the markers agreeing with me.
According to Vogler (don’t you say a word), Zach’s still Refusing the Call, so to speak.
This is most likely due to the fact that I’m still Refusing the Call. I need to find my own means for progress before I can find Zach’s.
Maybe I could squeeze some of my other characters into Zach’s story, then perhaps it would at least halve my interest. Character’s like Iggy – no, they’d have to be human, uh… Jye, he’s human, but I can’t conceive Zach meeting a behemoth African psychic anywhere in Saskatoon.
Maybe I could write a story about me writing Zach’s story. God, wouldn’t that be a deathtrap of confusion.
But these are the only means of inspiration left: internal ones. I’ve sought external inspiration, I really have, but nothing’s capturing me. Retreating to the vast, unconquered terrain of my mind is the only option.
Perfect, I couldn’t even get halfway without being forced back into myself. I’m sure that means I’ve already mounted the bough of this ship, and I’m steering straight towards that dispiritingly dull beach just up ahead.




ZACH

She imagines her mind like a corridor, and she believes it stretches on for a very long way, seemingly straight, but bending, folding into different levels. She’s sure that somewhere there might even be a staircase.
However there isn’t a fire escape.
Once, when she was younger, her father told her about hypnosis and the different levels of consciousness – alpha, beta, etc. It was the word “levels” that inspired the image of the corridor within Evie.
It’s a very plain corridor, lit by flickering, naked bulbs. The walls are grey concrete slabs, stained by the rising damp. The floor is coated with a faded scarlet Turkish carpet.
Most importantly, there are doors. Hundreds of them, all made with the same rich dark wood – probably red gum. I’d even go further to assume that all the doors were cut from one tree, because, if you listen hard enough, they appear to sigh with a united life, the secrets they hold ebbing together rhythmically like a heartbeat.
The doors are marked with rustic gold numbers – a facade of order.
Evie never much cared for numbers, she doesn’t believe in them, but she knows the importance of appearances.
Ultimately, the numbers are useless, Evie can open any door she wants and inside will be just what she’s looking for.
If she wants it, she will open the door on the scrub of a forest. Long-eared creatures rather like hares dart through the flowering bracken, pausing to raise their heads above the plant’s weaving tendrils. Their large brown eyes search for danger and their noses twitch, sniffing with such fervor their lips are pulled back over their teeth. Evie might stay long enough to see one of the creatures shot by a man in the attire of a nineteenth century European soldier. He exults wildly in French, so glad to have found food.
Evie doesn’t have to open the door on an entire world – she might turn the handle to find a threadbare room matching the corridor outside. Unaware of her presence, the room’s inhabitants go about their business. A teenaged boy with coal black hair, a gap between his front teeth and the tattoo of a star under his left eye argues animatedly with his two peers; one of whom is pale, ethereal, with high cheekbones and languid grey eyes. His English has the inflection of German, and, appropriately, his hair is a dull blonde. Both he and the boy appear to be human, but the third man’s appearance betrays them. His bluish-green hair stands on end, and argues with a devilish sneer on his lips, every so often he pushes his glasses up his nose and his waxen yellow eyes catch the light.
When the argument becomes heated, he conjures ice with his gloved hand, the blonde man’s eyes flash silver, and the boy raises a threatening fist, his fingers darkening and lengthening, morphing  into vines.
Evie doesn’t leave the door open for long on these characters. They’re lurid, independent, brought to life so thoroughly they’re almost running their own show. She worries she would be unable to control them.
There are some doors that haven’t been opened in years. That’s where I’m headed now, walking briskly past the reception desk Evie made for herself at the mouth of the corridor.
Another image of organisation.

She’s never once actually sat there.



EVIE

I’ve run aground on a particularly stubborn bed of coral – which is unexpected… and somewhat ominous.
The beach is still there, threateningly white, but now I’ve got no choice but to sit here with my laptop under the baking sun and wait for assistance.
Water, water, everywhere –
No. I don’t have time for that anymore. I have to finish this. Bury it. Move on.
As soon as I’ve succeeded at raising the anchor.
















ZACH

When we last spoke, I was venturing through Evie’s mind. A task that turned out to be easier said than done for anyone other than Evie herself.
After getting hopelessly lost amidst the room where she keeps the majority of what she’s learned from school piled lazily into hundreds of the most boring filing cabinets you could ever have the misfortune to see, I finally found the door I was looking for.
Inside was a room much like the one that had contained the three paranormal men; unfurnished and plain. This room also contained three characters – well, four, now that I was in it.
They were seated on three chairs, facing me, like a panel for a job interview. Although I don’t suppose you could ever expect to have a job interview conducted by two dragons and a phoenix.
The dragon in the middle is the very first character Evie ever created.
Domoe was younger when he first came to be. Evie had been six, possibly seven, and instructed by her Year One teacher to draw a picture of a friend she had made up. Big, green and smiling, Domoe entered the world, rising up from the felt-tipped markers that patterned his scales and curved out his wings.
As Evie matured, however, so did her image of Domoe. Now that he sits before me I can see age has both wearied and wizened him; and even though his scales have faded, his eyes remain the same rich russet colour of the marker Evie chose all those years ago. Both he and the dragon who accompanies him are humanoid, they always were. If they were to stand it would upright upon their clawed feet, and their clawed hands would rest at their sides. Their chests are broad, sporting the sternums that allows them to fly; their leathery wings are folded neatly behind their backs. Though they have a lizard’s muzzle, their bright eyes hold the same questioning intelligence as yours or mine. They are not gargantuan beasts, either. I’m slightly taller than both of them.
The other dragon, Asheim, is the heroine of Evie’s first story. Both she and Domoe are dragon Seers, protectors of their people, and the red phoenix to their left, Arcea, will forever remain Evie’s favourite supporting character. His expression is sour, holding none of the politeness that Domoe and Asheim’s do.
‘You’re late.’ He says, cocking his head and fixing a tawny eye on me accusingly. I begin to apologise, but he cuts me off, ‘It’s the middle of the night in our world, we could be asleep. What the hell is so important, Zach?’
It’s no surprise to me he knows my name. Inherently we all know each other, unless Evie decides otherwise.
‘Uh,’ I stammer, looking around for my own chair. ‘I’m supposed to interview you for Evie’s school assignment. It was originally just going to be about me, but now she thinks she might write about her characters as they are, instead of in their stories.’
Arcea clicks his beak frustratedly and Asheim leans forward, shushing him.
‘Your chair’s beside the door.’ Domoe says shortly. I glance behind me, wondering how I could have missed it. ‘No, boy, that door.’ Domoe points at the wall and, inconceivably, another door is there. I venture over hesitantly. This door has no number, and, when I grow near enough, I feel inviting warmth emanating from it.  I hesitate, reaching for the chair beside it.
‘Hardly surprising that you should be tempted by our world, Zach.’
I look back to Domoe guiltily.
‘Don’t be fooled by it seeming more fantastic than your own. It contains suffering and death just the same as yours. And the air is growing stale. Evie hasn’t thought about us in a long time.’
‘She’s thinking about you now,’ I reassure him, finally taking my seat in front of them.
‘Not for a very satisfying reason, though,’ Asheim says, smiling. Her voice is surprisingly thoughtful for her young age. ‘Though we won’t complain. She’s doing the same to you.’
‘Any progress is good progress.’ I sigh, pulling out a small notebook and pen from my jacket pocket.
‘Exactly.’ Asheim nods, though Domoe and Arcea continue to scowl.

Zach: Ok, first question –

Arcea: How many questions are there?

Zach: I… don’t know. Anyway. First question… um.

Domoe: You don’t have any questions, do you?

Zach: She didn’t give me any.

Domoe: Typical. It’s as though she thinks we’re not her, rather we’re completely separate entities who can think for themselves.

Arcea: At least that sounds romantic. But she must really be at her wits end if she’s sending you in here, Zach.

Zach: She’s stuck. Again. She’s at least figured out how to get my sister Sarah to come back to me, after scrapping the idea of forcing me to go to her. Turns out I’m too difficult. She’s going to make me sick, cancer I think, something dire, so that Sarah will have to come and see me.

Asheim: That’s rather drastic, is she going to kill you?

Domoe: You’re a smart girl, Asheim, don’t incriminate yourself by asking stupid questions – of course she won’t kill him, she’s never killed anyone.

Asheim: What about Nemesis?

Arcea: Heartless villain, no remorse. Had to go. She outgrew him.

Domoe: Why did she choose you, Zach? Surely some of the others, like Karma or Waffen, would be easier for her to write about? Or Farrere and Harry?

Arcea: Yes, even Olivia and Philippe are more interesting than you. No offence.

Zach: I… I’m gonna have to take offence, actually – wait, didn’t she finish Olivia and Philippe’s story?

Asheim: Oh, she did, didn’t she? She hated them afterwards though, so she decided it didn’t count. Nobody’s seen them since.

Arcea: Same with Leaf and Ashley. She finished their story for that school assignment, remember? They died, too.

Asheim: Not really, they became ghosts, trapped forever together. That’s a nice ending. Although she hated them as well once she’d finished. She never thinks of them at all.

Domoe: You’d better be careful, Zach. You don’t want her to hate you. I can’t conceive what that would be like.

I stopped recording at that point. We talked further, but I wasn’t concentrating.
Hate me… Evie wouldn’t hate me – all these years of coming back to me to try again, surely that love could never form into hate.
I wait in the corridor, afraid to go back. It’s like perdition here, but… safe.
I can almost feel the cancer growing, a dull throb behind my eye, it’s distracting, welcome – although it means the moment is drawing nearer. The moment where I End.
There’s nothing I can do but sit down and wait.  





EVIE

Who am I?

Oh, yes. I’m Evie. Evie McPhursen.
I can write. I can write. I’m sure of it. I’ve been good at writing my entire life. I’ve been good at creating – I draw, paint, tell stories.
So… why isn’t it coming to me now? Why do I feel as though my fingers are so numb with cold they can’t beat the words out onto the keyboard as fast as I can think of them?
It’s too fast. Fleeting panic. Unfortunately enough: barely suppressed tears.
Why did I ever think I could do this –?      RIDICULOUS QUESTION.
I’m a loyal creator, I’ve stayed true, I’ve built it all from the ground up – but, of course, being so dedicated to those of entirely my own devising doesn’t count for anything! It’s as sad as making up other people to believe in you and encourage you because you can’t inspire yourself.
That’s what I’ve done. It’s not about marks anymore… I know it never was.
It was about feeling as though I’d finally finished something, finally succeeded.
But the due date is days away. I let all my chances slip through my fingers because I felt sure that – during those moments when I began to write – I wasn’t ready – wasn’t good enough.
Er, how do you say? Approach the inmost cave? Thank you, Vogler, here I am.  Trying to grow life while you hammer your fences around it.
You can’t put a time limit on this! Parameters, guidelines, marking systems – HOW DARE YOU JUDGE THIS.
This has been an eight month long labour – and in macabre imaginings of utmost horror I will not let this thing leave my womb.
How could I do that? Bear it out, expose it, to a world where my torment goes unseen and unsung – and my fruit has teeth glide agonizingly inside it, split its skin, sample its nectar – yet continue to gorge, not yet sure…
You’d even eat the seeds, wouldn’t you?
Don’t forget: God abandons those who eat fruit such as this.

Hah. Don’t forget.





ZACH

I don’t disappear.
I grow cold, weak.

The walls close in so that all I may see is grey concrete. I barely remember the doors.

Death would be better than this.

You can kill me, Evie, let them remember me.

The scarlet bleeds out from the carpet. The light bulbs flicker one too many times.
I understand. I know you’re scared. You shouldn’t be burdened with deciding someone else’s fate when you’re not even allowed to decide your own.
It’s not a matter of fading, it’s just that I can’t see myself anymore.
He said his world was stale… the air was… but I never had to breathe. I don’t have to breathe because I’m not real.
All the same, my throat is sticking – there’s a dry, caustic something there… like carbon, black, heading downwards.
I’ll suffocate, Evie.

But I know how hard you tried.































EVIE
Zach.





ZACH
Evie.










One and the same, really.



























I know your ending.

I’m so grateful.

They’ll know it, too, though.

It doesn’t matter what they think. Do you like it, my ending?

I knew it all along, it was just a matter of accepting it. They should have said you need to break down the door before you can build it back up again, let alone knocking on it.

I never had much faith in “they”.

Oh. Neither did I. You probably got that from me, hm?

Probably
Are you ready?

No, but I’ve got to do it anyway.

You are ready, you need me to tell you that.

This wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that the due date’s tomorrow and you’re worried I won’t come good on that ending?

Nothing what so ever.

Zach, what’s it like to end?

I’m not sure yet. You’re  not either, so you’ll have to guess.

That’s what writing is.
Guessing.
















He stands with me now, a hand on my shoulder, while my own hands hover over the keys, my eyes on the screen. The sun is setting outside the window behind me, its light dances over the pixels that form the words, creating a glare, catching in our eyes so we might keep it.

He wishes me luck


and I wish the same for him.






















































































Hey… Evie?


Can I have a sequel?