Catharsis

“Well, what are you going to do now?”

I’ve been getting this question or variations of it for some time now. I made the mistake of telling people that I finished my first novel over the last holiday, and now they all keep wondering the same thing. I struggled with the answer, so more often than not, I just have to give them the same old responses.

“Well, I’m looking into getting it published now.”

“Checking my options and talking to my agent.”

“Might have to find a job until the book sells and takes off, I guess.”

Usually, that’s enough. Sometimes people won’t like those answers and keep pressing, but I didn’t have the heart to tell them what’s going on. They would never understand. I had never done this before. I just finished writing a sci-fi book. I have been living, breathing, and fighting in a completely different galaxy than our own. How do I explain that now that the book has finished, I have to destroy that galaxy and come back to this mundane world? How do I explain that my main character, Captain Callen Bridger, speaks to me and essentially told me his whole story? What would they think of me if I told them he still comes around and talks for a bit? That he doesn’t understand I finished the novel and I need to move on?

In every novel, a writer will add portions of themselves and their experiences into what they write. Callen is very much my father. He’s headstrong and decisive, he pushes me to be a better man, and stand my ground for what I believe. He’s become everything I knew my father would be if he had survived going to war the second time. Callen became a mentor I never knew I wanted or needed, but I can’t keep it up. I have to let him go. How do people do this with every novel they write?

Since finishing my novel, Bridge too Far, Callen has made my office into his own. He hangs out there trying to use my computer to talk to his ship, the Redemption (I know too on the nose, my editor said the same thing, but Callen didn’t want me to change it.) and generally makes my life, weird.

I was in my office, sending some emails to my editor and my agent when Callen showed up again. He saw me sitting down and began, “Ah, Ensign Jacobs, you’re back. I have more for you to add to the log. It’s a good thing you’re already on the comm.” An undesirable trait of my father, anyone who was not explicitly above him, was automatically below him. Callen believed I was an ensign assigned to his ship as the recorder, not a writer who just made him up.

I stopped and turned my chair to face him. “Captain Bridger, for the last time, I’m not an ensign, my name is just Sam. And I told you, the book is finished, we wrapped it up with a nice tight bow, and we’re good. We don’t have to keep going.” I turned back to my laptop and continued sending emails while Callen started pacing my office.

“I don’t know half of what you just said, but the Redemption still has more enemies to fight to keep the Alliance of Planets running. The insurgents on Karnluk VII alone—”

This is what I get for building a world with so many intricate parts. To Callen, there are a lot of other conflicts going on. And I could easily write four more novels with all of those plot points, but I have to sell this one first. My agent thinks I might need to look at a different genre for my next book as well. So, I may never actually write about the Redemption again unless it does well, and my agent gets me a deal to make it into a full series.

I turned and faced him directly. “Again, Callen, can I call you Callen?”

He did not take that well. “Absolutely not, I am a captain of the Alliance. Captain Bridger or sir.”

I shrugged and said, “Okay—well, Captain Bridger, the story is done. You and the Redemption defeated the Leader of the Stone Conglomerate and stopped them from destroying Capital City. I hit all the right beats, all the right story conflicts, and the insane plot twist you didn’t even see coming—”

He interrupted me with a nod and said, “—My father being the leader of the conglomerate, yes, it was quite the blow.”

I nodded back at him. “Yes, that one. All that to say, the story has ended. I need to move on, I have other things I need to take care of, and I think you do too. You do not belong here in my home office. You need to go.”

He walked to the other end of the office in a huff. “Are you dismissing me, ensign? Me, a captain, being dismissed by a lowly ensign?” A sad trait of my father as well; the man had pride that was wounded easily.

“I’m not an ensign. I’m trying really hard to become a writer. I made you up.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “I do love it when you joke Ensign Jacobs, but now is not the time.”

I had finished my emails, so I closed the laptop and stood up. “I’m not joking, Captain Bridger. I’m being completely serious. It’s time for you to go. Especially now, since I promised Ella, I’d take her to that farmers market downtown. So, I’ll be leaving, and I hope you’ll be gone by the time I get back.”

I walked out before he could say anything else. I met my wife, Ella, in the car, and we talked and shopped around. I hadn’t told her everything about Callen, but I broke down told her after this most recent experience. Ella had been in the business of writing and is a well-known author. While I was serving an enlistment contract in the military, she wrote three bestsellers and is the one who pushed me to write my first novel. She somewhat understood where I was coming from, but we didn’t talk too much about it until we were at the market.

When she brought it up again, we were looking at some vegetables, “So he’s alive?”

“Who, Callen? Yeah, I guess. I haven’t tried to touch him, though. That would be weird.”

“And he hangs out in our office?”

“Yeah.”

She stopped and looked directly at me. “Are you okay, Sam? Is writing someone so much like your father making it difficult to let him go and move on?”

I scoffed and shrugged. “No, I told you. I know I need to let him go, and I’m happy to, but I don’t know how to get rid of him. He’s like a ghost that hangs out and tells me cool things about the galaxy I started writing about.”

She started walking and looking at another stall. “If I had known you would get this invested in your work, I would never have told you to become a writer.”

“You’re right. It’s your fault. You told me the captain needed to be heroic and all that stuff. I didn’t think he would just show up and start trying to tell me what to do and how to write.”

“No, but I guess every author has their way of getting the story on the page. It seems like you created a manifestation of the actual man to help you tell it. For me, it was like a voice pulling me on, for you, it was Captain Callen Bridger of the Redemption. But now, you, like every other author, have to silence that voice and get back to reality. At least until the next book comes, which I’m sure it will.”

“So, what do you think I should do to get rid of him?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe treat him like a ghost. You have to exorcise him and get rid of what’s keeping him here. You know, like the shows we used to watch with those people who go through haunted houses?”

“You mean those ridiculous ones, with people who kept thinking an air vent was a ghost?”

She laughed at the thought, “Hey, don’t knock it; you don’t know.”

I shrugged. I didn’t have anything better. “Sure—Yeah, okay. But what’s keeping him? My manuscript? I can’t get rid of that.”

“Well, you are due for an upgrade from that old laptop of yours. Why not that? We can salt and burn it and bury it in the backyard. In my research for one of the books, “Witches of Mason View,” that was how they used to deal with ghosts back in the day.”

“We can’t burn it. It’s all plastic. That would be super toxic.”

She shrugged and kept looking at the nearest stall. “Okay, then just salt it and beat the hell out of it until it’s in pieces and then bury that. Then get a nice MacBook or something.”

I hit the jackpot when I found my wife. “Alright, I’ll do it. I should probably do that sooner rather than later, though. You have a signing in New York this weekend, right?”

“Yeah, but if you need me, I can push it back a day.”

“No, I think I have to do this myself.”

Our time at the farmers market was thankfully a Friday so I could get to work the next day after I dropped Ella off at the Airport for her signing. After I dropped Ella off, I went to the hardware store and picked up an ax, a sledgehammer, and a shovel. I already had a chainsaw, but I wasn’t sure if that would be the best way to destroy a laptop, and Ella would never forgive me if left holes in the floor because I chainsawed through them. I stopped at an electronics store and also got a big enough hard drive to hold all my documents for the new laptop. I also stopped at the closest catholic church for some holy water. The father didn’t understand, so I told him I was going to bless my house and he didn’t need to come. Once I had all my supplies, it was time to get to work.

I started by finding the right spot in our backyard where I could dig a deep enough hole. We had about half an acre of land, so I walked out toward our fence, where we had some trees to shield us from the neighbors and the noise. I dug a deep hole of about six feet, at least I hoped, then went back inside and spent some time saving and transferring all my documents to the new hard drive. While I did that, I spoke with my agent and got the good news that I was offered a contract for a new series. They were hoping for a more fantasy setting, though, so I still needed to follow through and get rid of my laptop. Suspiciously enough, Callen yet hadn’t made an appearance. Right as I was beginning to think maybe it was all in my head, Callen made his appearance as I walked the laptop to my garage.

“What is it you think you’re doing, Ensign Jacobs?” He followed me closely.

“I’m getting rid of you once and for all.”

He tried to get in front of me and block my way to the garage. I was finally able to test if he was real as I barreled my way through him and into the garage. Surprisingly, he wasn’t wholly a ghost. There was some give as I pushed past him. Not entirely solid but not a spirit either. Still, I was able to get past him and drop the laptop onto my workbench. I took the holy oil and dumped it all over the computer. I then went and got a drill to make sure the laptop was dead.

He was standing behind me as I lifted the drill and set it on the laptop. “Ensign Jacobs, it is a capital offense to destroy Alliance property. If you do not stop this present course, I will be forced to stop you and hand you over to AP officials for a tribunal.” I started the drill and began to drill into the laptop. I made two holes before Callen spoke up again. “I warn you, Jacobs, I will stop you if you continue. That is my only way back to the Redemption.”

“No, it isn’t. The Redemption isn’t real. It’s just a figment of my imagination, and so are you.” I continued drilling until I could see completely through the laptop with four big holes. Then I grabbed the ax. To my great surprise, Callen picked up the sledgehammer.

“Ensign Samuel Jacobs, I find you guilty of destruction of Alliance property. I will stop you and take you before Alliance Police to be tried.” He held the sledgehammer up by his face like a sword. Instantly, I felt some of my training kick in, and I held the ax up, ready to strike. The ridiculousness of the situation was not lost on me. But thankfully, I created Callen, so I knew his moves before he made them.

I stepped to the left and kept my feet square to deliver a chop and hopefully put him out of commission. “Captain Bridger, you are my first true character. I have been thinking of you and what you’d be like since I was 18. You’re everything I knew my dad would become, but it’s time for you to go. I can’t keep living like this.”

He said nothing but charged forward and tried to deliver a hard swing to my head, but I ducked and sent a chop toward his knees. He jumped over the ax and sent another chop my way. I was able to get up quickly and send the ax into the hammers way before it could smack into me. For a strange ghost thing, Callen had some serious strength to his swing. But I was quick and knew that would be his weakness. Instead of trying to set up another attack, I turned and slammed the ax onto the laptop.

Callen cried out in pain and charged me once again with a hard-downward chop. I quickly dodged out of the way, and the hammer landed hard on the laptop. He cried out once more and dropped the hammer.

He fell to his knees before me. “You can’t do this. Samuel, please.”

“I have to. You don’t belong here anymore. You’re important to me, but I have to let you go.” I turned and slammed the ax once more onto the laptop, splitting it in two. He yelled once more, and I turned around to face him. He began to remind me more and more of my father. I hadn’t realized how much I missed him until I saw him there beaten before me. He collapsed, and I saw him struggling to breathe. I knelt beside him and watched him breathe raggedly, his life-ending.

He looked me in the eyes, eyes that looked so much like my own. His voice was ragged as he said, “Ensign Jacobs, forgive me. I did not realize it. You were always meant for more than the Redemption. I hope that I did my duty to you.”

I don’t know why, but my eyes were watering as I looked at him. “Of course, Captain Bridger. You did everything you were supposed to do. You helped me in so many ways. I look forward to the day you are known by far more.”

With that, he disappeared from my hands. I took the laptop’s pieces and went to the backyard where I had dug my hole. I buried the parts and buried the last vestiges of my issues with Captain Bridger and my father. I wept that night and called Ella, she comforted me on the phone and helped me get over the pain I didn’t know I would be feeling. The next day I went and bought a MacBook like Ella said I should, and began to think of what I write next.

It has been ten years since I wrote my first novel. Thankfully, I have not had any of them show up again and try to kill me. Sometimes, I look out my window, and for a moment, I think I see Callen once again. But then I remember what happened and know he’s in a better place now. Thanks to Callen, I always have an answer when I finish a novel.

“So, what are you going to do now?” They ask.

I respond, “Let go.”