Fourth Wall

“I will make money from writing, you'll see!”, I insisted, "To start with, I will win fifty dollars in the Reedsy writing contest!”

“What a fortune!”, dad laughed, “I tell you what! I will bet you another fifty bucks that you won’t win but if you somehow do, I won't mention law school anymore and you will be free to become a screw up!”, dad said.

“Deal!”

***

"It was autumn and it was cold and dark. Leaves were falling out from the trees. Cold wind blew some of the leaves around. Birds were very cold and besides there almost weren’t any birds left cause their went south. Maybe just some crows flying and walking around on the ground, covered with fallen leaves. It was very sad…"

“Spare me, dear God!”, Judy said into her coffee mug.

She called her dear friend, Martha.

“Hey. Martha! Listen to this!”

She read some of the story over the phone.

“What’s with the trees and birds!”, Martha said laughing.

“Right? And have you ever seen a crow covered with leaves before?”

"Ha ha ha ha! Please... stop... And those repetitions? This could be taken care of with just one sentence!”

“Writing is hard and yet everybody thinks they are a Hemingway these days!”, Judy observed.

“Well at least they’re doing something that makes them grow as opposed to whatever stupid stuff kids do nowadays!”, said Martha with a slightly more serious tone.

“Good point…”

"What was the prompt for this one anyway?", asked Martha.

“Write a story about a character who has found something precious”.

“Looks like you just found it, ha ha!”

***

“Robert submitted his first story to a real writing competition!”, mom announced proudly at the table. I always resented her embarrassing me in front of people. She probably didn't mean it but somehow everything I did sounded childish or weak the way she described it.

“Robert, sit up straight, honey! You spend all your days at the computer and if you keep slouching, you will look like Quasimodo at a young age!”

She proceeded to scrubbing some imaginary schmutz off my forehead with her saliva moistened thumb.

“Mom, please…”

I wanted to run as far away from the table as possible.

“So what is the story about?”, uncle John rushed to my rescue.

I could barely break through my embarrassment.

“About a girl who lost a leaf and was trying to find it…”, I mumbled out finally.

“Why was she after a leaf?”, asked my cousin, Cody. It always felt like he was out to get me. Ice hockey was all he ever talked about.

“It was her lucky leaf…”, I explained.

“Couldn’t she just find another leaf and make it her new lucky leaf? I mean there’s plenty of leaves to go around!”

Uncle John gave Cody a warning stare.

“So did she find it?”, asked mom.

“Her friend who was a crow found it for her…”, I said.

“I don't get it!”, said Cody.

“Cody!”, uncle John interjected.

“Sorry…”

Dad was quiet. As far as he was concerned I was going to make a fine attorney.

“Well, I think it’s a great honor to have a budding writer sit with us at the table”, Aunt Lucy chimed in. “So when will the winner be announced?”

“In about a month or so…”, I said.

“I’m crossing all my fingers and toes!”, said aunt Lucy.

I always liked her.

***

“The sea was very stormy…”

“Oh, boy, here we go!”, Judy thought. “I think I know where this nautical wonder is going. Let me guess… It was dark as well?”

The story continued:


“… and very dark.”

“Bingo!”

“The mast broke on the boat and the sail was all torn in half. Captain was the only person left on the boat that was not dead. The boat was small and made of wood and it was lost at sea…”

The prompt was “Write a story about a character who overcame an ordeal”.

“That one is impossible to overcome...”, Judy thought.

She closed the internet browser and opened Candy Crash instead.

***

“What are you doing with your life, Robert!”, dad asked rhetorically. It was clear he meant to point out that I was wasting it.

“Dad, I’m trying real hard! My writing's getting much better! I even got a like on Reedsy for my new story about a sea captain who made a hot air balloon out of torn sail fabric…”

“That would never work!”, dad blurted out.

I wasn’t sure if he was referring to the balloon or my future plans.

“I'm just looking out for you, son! Don't you know that even the big shot writers out there are often struggling to make their ends meet? Writing doesn’t pay off, son!”

"Dad, we made a deal!”, I reminded him.

"All right! I'll be quiet until of course it's your time to pay up from your attorney salary..."

"Ugh!"

***

“Dorothy seated down on a chair and then took a deep breath and then exhaled and then she was trying to relax but she couldn't. She had a very hard day at work because her boss almost fired her because she was late from flat tire. She had lots of bad memories from childhood and she worried about what will happen next… ”

Judy cringed.

She wasn’t looking forward to reading through the entire story but she made it far enough to realize it won’t fly.

“Write a story about being in the moment” was this week's prompt.

Judy has been a Reedsy juror for quite a while now. One of her selections, a fictional story about cicadas, made it all the way to the top but the one she just tried to read would be in the hard rock bottom category.

***

There were two months left before my graduation and quite some time passed after I gave up on writing. Not only my stories failed to win the prize but they were ignored by other members of the blog. I submitted one, sometimes even two stories every week but I haven’t received a single like apart from some troll nick named ‘Brat’ who kept liking all my stories, probably just to mock me.

“You won, dad! Looks like your son is going to become a lawyer after all!”, I resigned.

“Don’t jump the gun, my son!”, Dad said with his head immersed under the open hood of his beloved Corvette. “You’ve got two more months before your time runs out. Submit another one, then you can pay me in cash... or in beer!”

“Fine!”

I just wanted to put it to bed once and for all.

***

Aunt Lucy handed me a mug of hot ginger lemon tea.

“So, what did you write about lately? Did you win that contest yet?”, she inquired.

“My latest story was about a woman who discovered she could change her entire past with the power of her mind… but... I was hoping we could talk about something else…”, I said.

“Sure, Robby! What is it?”

“Dad has been a real pain. He keeps pressuring me about that law degree… and since you grew up with His Stubbornness, the King of Asses, I thought maybe you could give me some pointers or even talk some sense into him…”

“Oh, Robby, dear! That’s a tough one. As you pointed out correctly, your dad is as stubborn as a tree root! He’s always been a good brother to me but changing his mind about anything has never been easy…”

“Was he always like that?”, I asked.

“To a certain degree yes, but he became even more strict after he graduated from the military school”.

“Figures…”, I sighed.

Pause.

“Let me show you something…”, aunt Lucy said excitedly.

She took me to a spare room in her attic. It was filled with remnants of the past stashed away in boxes and plastic bags ‘just for when’ - the kind of room found in most old American houses.

She opened one of the boxes and handed me an old folder filled with some hand written texts.

“This is your father’s from when he was about your age…”, she said.

I started reading one of the pages:

"She opened the gates to the sacred temple of her mind and basked in the sunlight of the moment. Her lustrous thoughts freed themselves up from her tepid body. They meandered in and out like a flickering swarm of newly hatched butterflies. Lightweight, fragile and fleeting, just the way thoughts should be!”

“Dad wrote it?”, I asked with surprise.

“Yes, my dear! He used to be a budding writer just like yourself. His writing was beautiful, except…”

“Except, what?”

“His stories, though very well written, lacked a certain spark that would make them worth reading. His writing style was flawless but it always seemed like he was out of stories to tell…”

“Can I have these?”, I asked.

“You can borrow them for a while. Just don’t tell your father!”

“Don’t worry, auntie! I’ll be discrete”.

***

“When Chris woke up, he was turned into wolf but he didn’t notice anything for a long time when he was in bed. He noticed that something was different only when he got out of bed. He felt very hungry for raw meat and started crawling around the house on all fours. He also felt like going outside. It was very strange and scary…”

Frank kept reading his son’s next submission to Reedsy contest. This one was in response to the prompt “Write a story about a character experiencing a sudden change”. It was awkwardly written, there were redundancies and repetitions all over the place and it was almost impossible to go through except the story line and premise alone were very compelling. It was about a wolf who had a dream about being a human. He gave it a like.

“I must say, even though he can’t put a sentence together, that boy has a knack for storytelling”, Frank thought.

His chest started feeling heavy and achy out of the sudden...

***

They told us to come in a few hours once dad wakes up. He had to go into an emergency surgery right away. It was very fortunate that he was holding his phone when he felt something was wrong. It saved him precious seconds. Now it looked like, for the entire month before my graduation, he will have to be in recovery.

When we saw him at the hospital he seemed a little weak but it looked like he was going to be alright.

Aunt Lucy was already there.

“Robert, my son, I want to tell you something”, dad said with a slightly exaggerated tone of a dying father from Brazilian telenovelas.

“What is it, dad?”,

I inched closer. He glimpsed at aunt Lucy. She gave him a nod.

“Forget about that stupid bet. You don’t have to go to law school. I was wrong to pressure you…”

“That’s alright, dad. My mind is already made up. You were right, my writing stinks and I would never survive as a writer. Copyright law seems close enough to my interests and might prove quite useful...”

“Yes, your writing does stink but... your stories are wonderful…”, he said.

“Wait, what? You've read them?”

“Who do you think kept liking them on Reedsy?”, he asked.

“Wait! You’re the... ‘Brat’? I should have known that one…”, I said.

He chuckled.

“There is something I need to tell you too, dad…”

“Oh?”

“Aunt Lucy showed me the stories you wrote when you were young.”

“I know. Your aunt just told me...”

She smiled at me.

I continued...

“Your stories are very…”

“Let me guess…”, he interrupted, “They are beautifully written but they lack in storytelling…”, he said as if reciting a threadbare nursery rhyme, “Yeah... I've heard that one many times”.

I made a 'you said it' face.

Aunt Lucy approached the bed.

“Frank, I think you've been a little unfair to Robert. You were almost as insufferable as our dad was to you. At least you didn’t forcefully sign him up for the military school…”

“Grandpa did it to you?”, I asked.

“He wanted me to serve a cause greater than myself… He couldn’t stand the thought of me wasting my life as a weak writer…”

“That’s harsh!”, I said.

“I don’t hold any grudges and in the end I’ve been very pleased with my military career, but now I do think he should have let me choose...”

We sat in silence for a while.

“I have an idea”, aunt Lucy turned to dad, “Since Robert is a born storyteller and you are going to be in recovery for at least few more weeks, how about you two engage in a little father and son bonding project!”

“I think I know what you have in mind, Lucy but I don’t know… It’s been too long. I'm pretty sure I've lost my flare…”

“Nonsense!”, she protested. She grabbed a notepad and pen and threw it on dad’s bed. “Now! I don’t want to hear any more excuses! Get to work, you two!”

She kissed our foreheads and left.

***

“Write a story about two characters who solved a dilemma by working together”, was one of this week's prompts.

Judy finished reading a story by an anonymous writer nicknamed 'Robrat'.

She called her dear friend, Martha.

“Hey. Martha! Listen to this!”

She read the entire story over the phone.

“Looks like you’ve got a winner!”, said Martha.