Original fiction: A short list of strange things

Take note that while I call this “fiction” I don’t call it a “story.”  Is it one?  What do you think?

(Also, please take the time to visit kellylynnthomas.com and let me know what you think of the new design!)

And without further ado,a nonstory:

A short list of strange things that I have seen during my job as an interior designer:

1. A giant squid vase. The glass made it look like it was moving when you looked at it out of the corner of your eyes, and it made me nervous. Everything else in the house was entirely normal, except for that vase.

2. Pantyhose wrapped around the base of a lamp. I wanted to ask why they were there, but decided my imagination did a better job explaining their presence than any truth could. At first I thought the owner might have a thing for erotic asphyxiation or wearing pantyhose on his head, but I didn’t get any erotic or sexy vibes from the rest of the house, so I decided that he had a secret lover who would come over when his wife was at DAR meetings and they would make love on the couch, and she wrapped them around the lamp so his wife would see, and he never noticed because he wasn’t attentive like that. I don’t even know if he had a wife, but I hope so. She would be the jealous kind, but he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t care, he just floats through life and waits for her to bring him a beer, and the only reason he took a lover in the first place was because she came to him and he was bored, so he thought why not?

3. An entire house covered in the letter Y. There were Ys in picture frames, wooden Ys, metal Ys, lamps in the shape of Y, other objects arranged into Ys, even a music stand that was an upside-down Y. The person’s name was Melissa Bracken, she didn’t even have a Y in her name. I did ask her why all the Ys and she shrugged, like maybe she didn’t have an answer, or she didn’t want to answer. I’m not sure why she even hired me, she didn’t want me to change anything, and every time I told her she needed to cool it with the Ys she rolled her eyes at me and put her hands on her hips like I didn’t know what I was talking about. In the end she asked me if I thought there were too many Ys, and when I told her I felt like I was drowning in alphabet soup with all the letters, she looked at me and smiled like a shark, like I had confirmed everything she ever thought.

4. A completely straight, single man in his 30s who had furniture shaped like human reproductive organs. There was a vagina arm chair, a penis couch, end tables that were shaped like the naked backs of muscular men and breast lamps where the nipples are the lights. I guess human shaped furniture shouldn’t weird me out, but it does. Especially the vagina armchair. I sat in it when he went to the bathroom and you sink so low into it, and the colors seem so realistic, and it’s made out of a slippery soft leather, that you really do feel like you’re sinking into a vagina. The penis couch isn’t very comfortable, in my opinion, because it’s so firm, and I had to keep reminding myself not to stare at the lamps so the guy didn’t think I was a lesbian or something. I’ve seen plenty of human shaped furniture and art, but having so much of it in one living room seems gratuitous.

5. Stuffed monkey heads in a bedroom. This woman had like 50 stuffed monkey heads, taxidermy, not stuffed animals, all different kinds of monkeys. They were mounted in groups on each wall, like a honeycomb but instead of bees and honey, monkey heads. I don’t know how she slept at night, with hundredss of dead monkey eyes staring down at her. I wondered why she didn’t have all the monkey bodies too, maybe in the basement or the attic, and maybe with a metal pole that she could screw the heads onto. Each monkey head was labeled, with its Latin name and all kinds of information, country of origin, preferred food, size, weight, everything. The stranger thing was, there wasn’t a single monkey anywhere else in the house, not even a figurine or a stuffed animal or a picture or even a book about monkeys. Just the monkey heads in the bedroom.

When I visit a house like that, no matter why they hired me, I seriously question my decision to enter this field in the first place. People are fucked up.

Ruby and the Moon Episode 4: Corgo the Great

I wanted more and more to go on an adventure.  My People played with me every day, but I was restless.

“Would you like to hear a story?” the Moon asked me one night.

“I’m tired tonight,” I replied.  “My people took me to the park and I played with the other dogs and swam in the lake.”

I felt the Moon smile—a slightly warm feeling that only came over me after I’d done or said something that made her happy, and only if I could see her through the window.

“I’m glad you’re meeting new friends.  Goodnight, Little Ruby.”

“G’night,” I woofed.

I was tired, but the truth was that I didn’t really want to talk to her.  I was busy planning, and sometimes it felt as if she could read my mind.  I wanted to keep my plan a secret.

The next morning, after my People left for work, I jumped out the open kitchen window.  Once I was free, I sat down in front of my house and looked at it, not sure what I should do next.  I hadn’t planned much farther than getting out.

I decided to make my way over to the dog park, since I knew the way.  Usually on walks other people would comment on how pretty I was, or how big I was, but that day no one noticed me—I felt invisible.  Normally those feelings would have made me sad, but today I was glad for going unnoticed.

Being outside without my People or a leash exhilarated me.  I sniffed everything on the way to the park, and when I got there, sniffed and rolled around in the grass like I’d never been there before.

Photo by Kelly Lynn Thomas

I had the park to myself, so I chased every bird and squirrel I saw.  In the middle of a chase, I heard music coming from far away. The sound of barking and meowing followed it.  A strange scent came to me, also from far away, so I followed it, wondering where such a strange combination of scent and sound could come from.

As the scent grew stronger so did the noises.  Almost out of nowhere, I stumbled over a large hole in the ground that hadn’t been there before.  I put one paw into the opening, and the music grew louder.  I put another paw in and again the volume increased.

My heart raced but curiosity drove me on into the tunnel.  As I walked further and further in, both the smells and the noises got stronger.  Now I could make out other dog, cat and animal smells, as well as something new, something I hadn’t ever smelled before.

After a minute of walking I found a poster pasted onto the tunnel’s dirt wall.  It read “Corgo the Great: Magician Extraordinaire!” and showed a Corgi with a magic hat with eyes peeping out from the inside.  The poster scared me a little, but I felt it was too late to turn back now.  I had to prove my bravery and cleverness to the Moon, or she would never respect me.

I walked around another corner in the tunnel and suddenly it opened up into a huge theater.  All sorts of dogs, cats, mice, squirrels, deer, birds, turkeys, moles and things I couldn’t identify filled row upon row upon row of seats, and all were stomping and barking and cheering at a spectacle on the stage at the front of the theater.

A Corgi in a black cape with a black top hat performed magic tricks on stage.  I watched in awe as she cut a cat in half and then put him back together, and as she turned a long string of colorful handkerchiefs into live doves that fluttered away, cooing.  The show so enthralled me that I didn’t even want to chase them.

I found a seat by two cats near the entrance.  They must have been able to tell I was new to this, because one purred, “Is this your first time here?”

Alternating stripes of dark and light gray stretched across her back and tail, but her legs and face were white.  The other cat was bigger and had black and brown stripes all over his body like a small, dirty tiger.

“Yes, I just found a hole in the ground and followed it here!”  Even as I spoke I couldn’t take my eyes off the stage.  Corgo had just pulled a volunteer up on stage and pulled a card, a coin and a cup out from behind her large dog ears.

“Ooo, the best part is coming up,” the tiger-striped cat said.

Corgo took a small bottle of glitter and threw all of it out into the air above the stage.  She aimed her wand at the glitter and it froze in mid air.  The crowd gasped.  Then, the Corgi drew a stick figure human.  She waved her wand at it again, said a few words that I couldn’t hear clearly, and the figure grew into a life-sized human man.  My jaw hung open and I was too stunned to speak, but the room erupted in cheers.

“Oh, just wait,” said the first cat.  “It gets even better.  You’ll never believe what she does next.”

Corgo waved her wand again and the man started chasing her around the stage.  He had a long stick with a loop of rope at the end.  I’d never seen one before, but I knew right away it was meant for catching stray dogs.  I could hear the man’s feet banging on the stage as he stalked Corgo, and my heart beat a little faster.

With each stomping footstep a little of the glitter that floated in midair fell to the stage floor.  The man closed the gap between him and Corgo, until finally he had the magician cornered at the back of the stage.  I was sure he was going to catch her, and had to keep myself from shouting out a warning.  Suddenly she appeared behind the man.  The crowd, including me, gasped again.

Corgo jumped up on the man’s back and used his head as a springboard to jump to a trapeze hanging above the stage.  The man shouted in rage and surprise, and turned around in time to see Corgo leaping from the trapeze to another across the stage.  The man ran below it, clearly without a plan.  Corgo did a few mid-air flips and somehow her hat remained on her head.

She landed on top of a ladder at the other end of the stage and climbed down.  I let a long breath out, not realizing I’d been holding it.

The man was waiting at the bottom with his dog catching rope, but Corgo didn’t walk into him like I feared she would.  Instead, she took her wand, which had been tucked in her cape, and struck the end against the floor.  A huge bouquet of flowers popped out of the end and flew straight up into the man’s face.  The crowd laughed uproariously.

Corgo used the distraction to run under the man’s legs as he screamed in frustration once again.  He recovered from the flowers quickly and caught up with Corgo in the middle of the stage.  She stood on a raised platform, calmly looking out at the audience.  The man began to creep up to her, thinking she didn’t see him.  A wicked smirk on her face told us that she knew exactly what the man was doing.

Just as he was about to pounce on her, she leaped up, took off her hat in midair, and threw it down on top of the man.  The hat landed squarely on his head, but it kept going down over his body until he completely disappeared within it!  I barked in surprise and approval.

Corgo landed on all four paws, recovered her hat, and took a bow.  The crowd erupted in noise.  Everyone stamped, stomped, barked, meowed, chattered and yelled at Corgo’s amazing trick.

After her bow, she flipped her hat around so the audience could see inside—it was completely empty.  She reached in, moved her paw around and came out empty handed.  She shook it out on the stage, and nothing fell out of it.

The hat had swallowed the man entirely, which was even more amazing considering the small size of the hat and the large size of the man.  I couldn’t believe it, and could feel how wide my eyes grew.

Then Corgo tapped the hat with her wand, reached in with her mouth and tugged.  A different man’s head popped out, and he looked around bewildered.  Corgo shook her head and shoved the human back into the hat.  She tapped it again and repeated the motions.  This time a woman’s head came out, and the crowd laughed.  She shoved the woman back into the hat, tapped it again and once again reached in with her mouth.

This time the original man’s head appeared and Corgo waved her wand at the crowd, enticing applause for her trick.  She pulled the rest of him out of the hat, but before he had the chance to start chasing her again, she tugged on his shirt sleeve and he collapsed into a giant white handkerchief.

The crowd went wild again, and I joined another dogs’ howls.  Corgo took one last bow, placed her hat on her head and threw the giant white handkerchief over her head.  It settled over her, but kept settling, until it lay flat on the stage floor—she had completely disappeared!

“Wow, that was absolutely amazing!” I said to the cats next to me.

“Every show is better than the one before it,” the tiger-stripped cat said.

The white and gray cat said, “Corgo always has the best tricks.  I’m Cleo.”  She preened at me a little as she spoke.

“And I’m Tony,” the stripped one added, rubbing up against my legs and purring.

“Uh,” I said, a little surprised.  I’d never met a cat before, and wasn’t sure what he was trying to accomplish.  “I’m Ruby.  It’s…nice to meet you.”

“Well, Ruby, where are you headed off to now?” Tony asked.

“Home, I guess,” I responded.  “My People will probably be home from work soon, and I don’t want them to worry about me.”

“I see,” said Cleo.  Maybe I imagined it, but she sounded disapproving.  “We can disappear for days at a time, and our People don’t mind at all.  They give us catnip when we come back.  They know it’s silly to think they can keep us cats locked up all the time.  We need room to roam and hunt, but I guess dogs are different.”

“Dogs need room too,” I blurted.  “That’s why I’m here.  I was tired of being stuck in the house all the time.”

“That’s rare,” Cleo purred.  “We’re going to go look for an adventure, but I guess you need to get home to your People, so we’ll see you later.”

The two cats waved goodbye and started walking away.  At that moment I felt proud of myself for discovering such a wonderful place, but also like it wasn’t enough.  I chased after them.

“Can I come with you?” I asked the cats.

Cleo shrugged, but Tony smiled at me.  “That would be great!  You can be our bodyguard!”

“Oh, will it be dangerous?” I asked, suddenly feeling a little scared.

“Nah, we’ve never run into trouble before, just with some nasty alley cats.  But they’d never bother us if we’ve got a big, scary dog with us, right Cleo?”

Cleo purred her agreement.  “Let’s go, then.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Oh, nowhere special.  We’re just going to wander around the city and explore a little,” she said.  Relief flowed through my body.  I was okay with exploring, but the thought of going too far still scared me.

“Sounds like fun,” I said mostly to myself.

“This way!” Tony pointed at what I thought was the same tunnel I used to enter the theater.

Tony led the way, and we walked back out through the tunnel, past the same scary poster and up, up, up until finally I saw light ahead.  When we came out of the tunnel, though, it was dark.  I knew immediately something was wrong.

“Where are we?” I asked.  “This isn’t the city at all.  It shouldn’t be dark already.”

We looked around, and saw nothing but a meadow full of grass and wildflowers, scattered with a few trees, extending all around us into the darkness.

“Tony!  You led us out the wrong tunnel!” Cleo meowed.  She batted him in the face with her paw.  “Goodness only knows where we are now, or how we’ll ever get back!”

A squirrel popped up out of the tall grass and startled all three of us, though we all tried to hide it from each other.  “If you’re wondering where you are,” he said, “you’re in Lexiana’s Meadow, in the Kingdom of Wales.”

“Whales?  Don’t Whales live in the ocean?” I asked.

The squirrel looked surprised and a little annoyed.  “Not, the animal, you silly dog.  The country.  Wales?  South of England?  Across the Atlantic Ocean from North America?  You must be from America if you’re so ignorant of geography.”

“Oh, lovely,” Cleo said.

Worry and panic filled my body.  “We have to go back.”

“We can’t,” Tony said.  “The entrance closes once you exit.  We’ll have to wait until the next full moon to get back.”

I turned around and looked for the tunnel, but it was nowhere to be seen.  I dug frantically at the spot it had been, but all I found was dirt and a few small rocks.  I gave up, and let despair take over.  “We have to wait a whole month?” I asked, panting heavily.

“That’s no way to talk about a royal country like Wales,” the squirrel cut in, puffing out his chest.  “You should tour the country, enjoy your stay.”

Cleo eyed up the squirrel the way I imagined she eyed up her dinner.  “You’re annoying,” she said right before she pounced on him.

Somehow he escaped her claws and bounded away into the meadow.  None of us felt like giving chase, so instead we lay down in the grass near where the tunnel had been.

“Now what are we going to do?” I cried, feeling very little and very foolish, the Moon’s words of warning echoing around in my head, teasing me.

Enter Metafiction Week!

Welcome to Metafiction Week!  I am excited to be celebrating all things meta, and I hope you are too!

New directions

Things are changing around here—a little bit anyway.  In addition to blogging about metafiction, I’ll also be talking about storytelling in general, works that bend and blend genres and interesting structures in fiction and nonfiction.

Why?  Because I think all of these things are closely linked to metafiction.  Since metafiction often offers commentary on the story itself, storytelling is an important aspect.  Structure is also important, as many stories rely on nontraditional structures to support commentary.

Genre bending/blending is a bit of a different topic, but I feel it fits nicely with metafiction. In some books the metafictional qualities help the author bend genres (as in The Things They Carried), while in others structure is used (as in Woman Warrior).

I will also drop in some discussions on experimental fiction as I see fit.  With changes in technology, the way we experience stories is starting to change.  I’m very interested in the direction novels, ebooks, choose-your-own-adventure, cell phone novels and serialized fiction will take from here.

Even if those things aren’t metafictional, they are important to the art of storytelling.  So, at its heart, this is a blog about storytelling.  It’s a blog about the way we look at storytelling, the way we experience stories, and how we can use storytelling for a variety of purposes.  I think metafiction is an important part of that.

For that reason, I’m keeping my tag line: “Original fiction and commentary on everything meta.”  Now, it might be more accurate to use something like, “Original fiction and commentary on the art of storytelling,” but meta is commentary on the art of storytelling.

Goals

I have four ultimate goals for this blog.  The first and most important is:

• To expand readers’ and writers’ knowledge of and appreciation for metafiction.

Think of me as like a metafiction pastor, spreading the good word.  Only I won’t shake hell in your face to convert you, I’ll convert you with damn good stories!

The other three are:

• To become the go-to resource for metafiction. (A lofty goal, I know.)
• To (eventually) showcase the best new metafiction by established and new authors, both here online and in print.
• To explore and master storytelling in my own writing.

In the near future I hope to start interviewing important authors who write metafiction, and I also hope to be able to take submissions of short stories and short creative nonfiction (and be able to offer payment for this content).

In the not so near future I hope to offer a printed companion to this blog, with in-depth critical articles as well as great metafiction, metanonfiction, and meta-art.

My reading list

These are only a small portion of the books on my reading (or to-buy) list, but they are the ones that contain metafictional elements.  I am particularly looking forward to The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loanna, The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris (which is translated from the French, and I definitely need more translations in my life), and, of course, Don Quixote in English!

• The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris by Leila Marouane
• The House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
• The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
• The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loanna by Umberto Eco
• Don Quixote by Cervantes (I’m reading this again, because I’ve only ever read it in Spanish, and it’s a difficult text to read in a second language.)

Please take the time to comment and let me know who you’d like me to interview, or what books you’d like me to review.  What’s on your reading list?

‘Meta’ defined

When I tell people I blog about metafiction, I often hear “What’s metafiction?”  So I thought rather than examine a particular work this week, I’d discuss metafiction and perhaps arrive at a working definition for the purposes of this blog.

According to the dictionary…

Metafiction is “fiction in which the author self-consciously alludes to the artificiality or literariness of a work by parodying or departing from novelistic conventions (esp. naturalism) and traditional narrative techniques.” (That’s from my computer’s built-in dictionary.)

Merriam-Webster’s definition: “fiction which refers to or takes as its subject fictional writing and its conventions.”

Wikipedia’s definition: “a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion. It is the literary term describing fictional writing that self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in posing questions about the relationship between fiction and reality, usually irony and self-reflection.”

Which definition is better?

They all are.  Personally, I take a very broad view of metafiction.  My “meta generosity,” if you want to call it that, stems from my background as a student of fiction, nonfiction, travel writing and journalism.  I like to think I’m a writer who takes risks in her work, whether structural or by mixing genres you probably shouldn’t mix (such as travel memoir with short story—that’s my big project right now).

By necessity, structure dovetails with metafiction, and is something that I will more than likely discuss here in the context of a work that has an interesting structure but perhaps isn’t quite metafiction.  In the same vein, I think genre-bending or juxtaposing two genres together (not blending them as in a sci-fi western, but using them side-by-side) dovetails with metafiction.

Both structure and genre exist in a fuzzy area between metafiction and “normal” fiction, and depending on the interpretation and the context, I think works that walk that line can go either way, as metafiction relies heavily on structure and often on genre blending/genre juxtaposition to deliver its message.

The writing becomes metafictional (in my mind) when the reader is taken outside of the story and is forced by the author to look in on it from the outside, normally to comment on the craft of writing, society at large, or some other issue, but commentary is not strictly necessary.

What about stories-within-stories?

The story-within-a-story is perhaps the most recognizable form of metafiction.  Don Quixote is an early and excellent example.  This form of story is inherently metafictional, because to tell a story about telling a story must in some way comment on the storytelling process.  How stories-within-stories comment on storytelling is another post, though.

Notice I used the word “tell” rather than “write” up there.  If you’ve read any of my entries on metajournalism or metamusic, you probably realize that I do not restrict metafiction to writing, nor to fiction.  Because of that, the distinction between “write” and “tell” is important.  You can tell a story in an infinite number of ways.  Writing is only one of those ways, albeit an incredibly powerful one.

“Meta” as defined by The Narrative in the Blog

I think it’s necessary to define meta in terms of a broader context than fiction for this blog, since I discuss more than fiction.  That being said…

A work of any genre or style is “meta” if the author of the work purposefully and self-consciously draws attention to the work’s structure, genre or existence as fiction/nonfiction for any purpose, or if the author of the work unintentionally uses a structure or other technique that draws attention to the work’s structure, genre or existence as fiction/nonfiction.

Hopefully this brief discussion helps you put my articles and commentary (and fiction!) in context.  Please feel free to add your own definitions, thoughts, or reactions to this in the comments!  I’m sure this is a topic I’ll return to innumerable times over the life of this blog, because metafiction can be such a shady area.  But that’s why I love it!

Ruby and the Moon: Lexitron and Rubicon, Dog Robots

Illustration by Julian Betkowski

It took me about a month to get settled in with my new People.  They bought me a big, comfortable bed and lots of toys, and took me on long walks every day.  By then I’d figured out what had almost killed me—chronic kidney failure.

My old People had let a simple kidney infection turn into an incurable disease.  My new People couldn’t make my kidneys work again, but they did everything they needed to keep me as healthy as I could be.

The Moon kept telling me stories late at night after my People went to sleep, or sometimes, if she rose early, in the afternoon before they came home from work.

All her stories about brave, adventurous dogs made me want to go on my own adventure.  But I was just a puppy, where could I even go?

“Moon?” I asked one fall night.  “I want to go on an adventure, but I don’t know where to go.”

The Moon made a sound like she was thinking, but as always her face never changed.  I’d gotten used to sometimes not being able to see her when she told me stories, like if clouds covered her up.

“If you were to leave your house to go on an adventure, your People would be very worried about you.  And there are many dangers to dogs in the world of man, cars not least among them.  Your people walk you every day, is that right?”

I ruffed a yes.  Something in her tone made me feel embarrassed for asking the question in the first place.

“The world of man is no place for a lone puppy, dear Ruby.  Let me tell you a story, perhaps that will sate your appetite for wandering.”

I looked away from her.  Before I had a chance to say anything, she started.

“I can see into the future as well as the past,” she said.  “So I will tell you a story from the year 2984.  By that year, People will create robots of all sorts, and many of them will be sentient.  Dog robots begin as protectors, companions and caretakers for young children, but many are so good at their duties they take on more and more responsibility.

“Their ability to transform into a humanoid shape make them ideally suited for this role.

“One of the protectors, Lexitron, a Corgi-style dog robot, is so good at her job her city makes her their official watchdog. Her superbark can strike fear into the heart of any foe, and her tail whip can knock an opponent twenty feet in the air.”

The Moon’s voice fell. “Corgi robots don’t have to worry about burrs, you know,” she whispered before continuing the story.  “So, Lexitron becomes the most famous and well-loved watchdog of all.

“She keeps her city safe from all sorts of evil, including renegade robots, terrorists, would-be murderers and regular thieves.  As an added bonus, she easily herds large crowds when they get too unruly at concerts, parades or protests.

“She spends most of her free time gardening, which truth be told, consists mostly of her digging holes in the yard behind her house.”

“Gardening?” I asked.

The Moon laughed.  Usually her laughter at my questions seemed good-natured.  I expected her to know more than me; she was the Moon after all!  Today it sounded brash and superior.

“Gardening is when you plant flowers, vegetables, or other green things,” she said.

“Well I know that. I was born in the country. But why would a dog robot who protects a whole city want to plant green things? It’s not like they taste good.”

The Moon laughed again.  “Why does anyone want to do anything? Lexitron enjoys digging holes, and gardening is one of few practical uses for such a task, at least for a city dog.”

I snorted under my breath, hoping the Moon couldn’t hear.

“One day Lexitron hears a loud CRASH,” she continued.  “She dashes outside to see what danger has befallen her city.  But instead of danger, Lexitron finds a large dog robot that had collided with a nearby building.

“Lexitron instantly recognizes the dog robot as Rubicon, a farm dog robot who regularly escapes from her farm and causes problems.  She shakes her head and trudges her short legs over to see if Rubicon—and more importantly everyone around Rubicon—is alright.

“‘Rubicon, what happened?’ Lexitron asks.

“The German Shepherd dog robot puts her ears back. ‘I lost my balance and fell…’  She looks at the ground as she speaks.

“‘Well, obviously,’ Lexitron says. ‘What are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay on the farm!’ She pulled herself up to her full six inches of height, but was still a good foot and a half shorter than Rubicon.

“‘Sorry…it was boring there.’ Rubicon looks around her. All the people have cleared the street, and nothing is left but a bit of concrete that fell off the building. ‘No one wanted to play with me.’

“Lexitron rolls her eyes. She knows what she has to do, so she transforms into her humanoid form.  Rubicon stands straight up and starts wagging her tail ‘Are we going to play?’

“Even in her humanoid form, Lexitron is barely eye-level with Rubicon. She pulls a metal tug rope from a storage compartment in her hip and waves it in front of the escaped farm dog robot. “Rubicon stretches down on her front paws and then springs up to grab the rope, which Lexitron pulls back before the other dog robot’s teeth can sink into it.

“‘We can only play if you leave the city and promise not to come back,’ Lexitron says.

“Rubicon pauses, and her eyes dart from the rope to Lexitron to the buildings around her. ‘I would rather not play, then,’ she replies. ‘I would rather explore the city.’

“But, Lexitron knows that left to her own devices, Rubicon will only get into trouble, so she does what she has to do and lets out a loud superbark.  It echoes around the buildings and through the streets and captivates Rubicon’s attention entirely.

“The Corgi dog robot transforms back into dog form and starts running as fast as she’s able through the city and toward Rubicon’s farm.  Rubicon gives chase, and although she can run faster than the shorter dog robot, she doesn’t overtake her.

“They run and run and run until Rubicon suddenly finds herself at the farm doorstep, and her People are there, looking relieved to see her.

“‘Rubicon!’ the woman says, ‘We were so worried about you!  Did you get yourself into trouble again?’ She frowns, but it is the kind of frown born more out of anxiety than displeasure.

“Rubicon looks at Lexitron, then back at her Person. ‘Nah, I was just kind of bored so I went to visit Lexitron is all.’

“The People usher Rubicon into the house with admonitions not to leave again and she looks sheepishly back at Lexitron before the door shuts.  Lexitron sighs and begins the trek back into the city.”

As the Moon finishes her story an unsettled feeling comes over me.  The story did not, as she said it would, satiate my desire for adventure.  But I do not tell her this, and instead ruff my thanks.

I sense a smile in her voice when she says “You’re welcome.  Sleep tight, little one,” but it’s hard to tell with the Moon.

I curl up by the window and imagine running through the park without a leash, the wind blowing my ears back against my head, until I fall asleep.

Julian Betkowski is an artist in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area who makes wonderful organic-looking yarn things.  You can see some of them at his profile site, here.

Ruby and the Moon: The Legend of Corgi-san

Illustration by Emily Love

Once I discovered the Moon liked telling stories, I started asking for them, and they became a nightly routine for me.

After saving me from a family that neglected me, my rescuer found me a new family that actually took care of me and gave me lots of pets and love.  But the first night I spent with them was scary.  I knew they cared about me, but I felt lonely and everything around me was unfamiliar.

“Moon?” I asked after the People fell asleep.  She was the only other thing in the world I knew.

“Hello, little Ruby,” she replied.

I could barely see her out the window, but I could see her glow light up the dark outside.

“Would you like to hear another story?”

Somehow her voice floated through the window, even though it was closed and outside smells barely drifted through.  I ruffed quietly, glad to have someone, anyone, to talk to.

“Then let me tell you the legend of Corgi-san, the old Japanese dog spirit who was often mistaken for a fox because of her red coat and fox-like markings.”

I sat down by the window, looking out at the moonlight in the People’s yard, even though I couldn’t see the Moon’s face.

“Corgi-san, who loved good food and especially eggs, liked to sneak into a particular inn outside the city of Edo.  The inn sat on a main highway, so many travelers stopped in to refresh themselves on their long journeys into the capital.

“For Corgi-san, this meant many new opportunities to steal food each night.  On most nights, she waited until the patrons were well and intoxicated, and then she would tip-toe in and use her long tongue to steal fried eggs off the top of all the patrons’ dishes until she’d eaten her fill.  Her antics were well known among the inn’s proprietors, but no one had ever been able to catch her.

“One night, a samurai of some skill and renown who lived nearby came to the inn, as he was fond of the egg-topped soba noodles.

“Corgi-san had seen the samurai before and thought it would be a good challenge and good fun to steal food from him.  When he’d turned to talk to a particularly pretty waitress, she shot out her long, pink tongue, wrapped it around the samurai’s egg and swallowed it whole.

“She thought she had gotten away with it and was ready to sneak back out, satisfied with the night, but the samurai drew his katana and pointed it right at her corner hiding place.

“‘I see you, Corgi-san, and your thievery is well known in this inn!  It’s time you paid for all the eggs you’ve stolen from innocent travelers,’ the samurai declared.

“A wicked grin spread across Corgi-san’s face.  Although she was accustomed to an easy life, she was a dog spirit, and rising to a challenge was in her nature.

“‘Only if you can catch me, Samurai-san!’ she barked.”

I’d forgotten all about my new People and strange surroundings.  The Moon’s even voice calmed me the same way a Person could by gently petting my back.  If I hadn’t been so interested in the story, I might have felt sleepy.

“With that,” the Moon continued, “Corgi-san leapt from the corner, farther than anyone would have guessed possible with her short legs.  The samurai gave chase, and the inn’s patrons cheered him on.  He deftly untied his horse outside the inn and hurried after the quickly retreating dog spirit.

“The samurai’s horse was strong and quick, and he caught up to the little dog spirit without problem.  Looking back, she saw the samurai, now on her heels, draw his bow.  She yelped and redoubled her efforts, feeling like she was in real trouble this time, but her best was not good enough.”

My legs twitched as the Moon told her story, I felt like I needed to run from the samurai too.

“The samurai aimed his shot and let his arrow fly.  It hit Corgi-san’s back right leg, and she rolled off the road and into the brush.  For a few moments, the samurai lost sight of her.

“When she emerged from the brush, she moved even faster than before.  The samurai was surprised to see her carrying the arrow in her mouth; she seemed completely unharmed.  He urged his horse on, and soon realized the dog spirit was headed straight for his house!

“As she approached the house, the samurai was even more surprised to see the arrow’s feathers burst into flames.  He realized what the corgi was doing, but he couldn’t get his horse to run fast enough to catch up with her; she must have been moving with the aid of some magic.

“Corgi-san reached the house a good while before the samurai. She ran around it in a circle, letting the flaming arrow touch the wood, setting it ablaze.  The samurai reached the house and stopped, his mouth agape.

“Once the dog spirit had done a full circle around the house, she disappeared back into the brush.  As she disappeared, the samurai heard her say, ‘Your punishment didn’t match my crime.  I only wanted something good to eat! Maybe you’ll think twice the next time you decide to exact your own judgment.

“Luckily for the samurai, his family was in the capital, because his house burned to ash.  From that day on, he did think before he decided to pass judgment, and often erred on the side of mercy.  Whenever he passed a shrine to the local gods, he always left a delicious treat in honor of Corgi-san.”

I laughed at the story and Corgi-san’s revenge.  I realized how tense I’d been waiting for the end of the story, and that made me laugh even more.  Suddenly, I became sleepy, and to this day I’m not sure if it was because of some Moon magic or if it was only because I used up all my energy listening to the story.

After I thanked the Moon, I curled up on the floor next to my sleeping People.  Right before I fell asleep, I thought I heard the Moon say, “Goodnight, Ruby.”

The argument for fiction that knows it’s fiction

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and sometimes fiction is truer than truth.  And sometimes, in order to tell a story the right way, you need to let the story know it’s a story.

Metafiction allows the reader to pull back the curtain on the author and see the nuts and bolts of the story laid bare.  And there are times that seeing how the fiction works makes it all the more true, such as in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried.

O’Brien inserts himself into the story as a character, and proceeds to continually remind the reader that none of this happened, but all of it is true.  He creates tension between Author-O’Brien, who wrote a book as a Vietnam War Vet, and Character-O’Brien, who is trying to write a book about being a Vietnam War Vet.

Seeing Character-O’Brien struggle to tell a coherent story—seeing how the story is put together and taken apart—makes the book all the more powerful.  It forces us to see events from several different perspectives, and it forces us to think about the difference between truth, reality and fiction.  And then it asks us to decide what is more important: truth or reality?

In Margaret Atwood’s short story “Happy Endings,” she tells several versions of a story about Mary and John.  The structure draws attention to the way writers write short stories and the way readers read them.  She starts off with scenario A, then moves on to scenario B, then C, etc.  We know next to nothing about this couple, only that Atwood can’t seem to find the right ending to fit their story.  At the end, she simply states:

“So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it’s the hardest to do anything with.

“That’s about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.

“Now try How and Why.”

This story forces us to look at structure, plot and motivation.  Here we have a plot in front of us, but we find it’s actually not very interesting.  So we learn—we literally see in front of us—that without the “how” and “why” the story is meaningless.  Not only that, but it asks us why we read.

So why do we read?

We read to be entertained, to learn more about the world around us, to relax.  But more than that, we read to learn more about ourselves—even if we don’t realize that is what we are doing.  And when we read fiction that knows it’s fiction, we not only are forced to think more deeply about the text itself, but about ourselves as readers.