Chapter 48 — The Identity of Ms. Smith
Rufus muses on how stories make us feel.
Followed by Chapter 48 —— The Identity of Ms. Smith, in which Sienna wrestles with her dead double that she just left behind.
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Hello Friends,
There are many reasons we read stories, and what resonates with one person does not always resonate with others. For me, as I think I’ve mentioned before, plot is among the most important elements, though, I also enjoy having my eyes opened to another point of view, whether it be a scientific tidbit or a new philosophical perspective.
A more squishy element that it took me a long time to appreciate, and which I still have more trouble properly delineating is how a novel might make me feel. For one thing, feelings are a lot more subjective, and thus slippery, and hard to keep in our hands, like a wriggling fish pulled from the water. Unlike elementary mathematics, which can be clearly understood without ambiguity, emotional content lives in the land of nuance.
An early brush with understanding this ineffable resonance came many years ago when I was first introduced to the idea that color can affect our moods. The theory, of course, does not have one-to-one correlations, but it is the sort of thing you can feel, especially if you don’t look at it head-on.
In any case, I later came to appreciate ways in which similar concepts pertain to writing. One of the core commonalities of such elements is their relationship to shared lived experiences.
When considered this way, it makes sense that objectivity is lost. For, the response of the reader depends, not just on the content they are being exposed to, but to a much greater extent their own histories that they bring to bear.
A consequence of this is that the truly connecting forces within literature are often synonymous with archetypal experiences: falling in love, falling out of love, loss and belonging, to name just a few. The funny thing is that these emotions can be elicited with very idiosyncratic circumstances and still connect. In fact, it is often the case that the more specific and unusual the circumstances, the more they resonate; as long as the emotional heart of the narrated experience is relatable.
The first time I was really hit in the face by this realization was on one of my earliest short films. The story was about the breakup of a young couple, relatable but not exactly groundbreaking. In any event, I got lucky. During casting it became clear that the women I was auditioning dramatically outshone the men. To such an extent that I elected to change the story to that of two women. That choice, born of pragmatism, lent a specificity to my film that made it curiously more universally relatable. Of course, it wasn’t until much later that I connected the dots about what had happened. In essence, I believe that the greater connection redounded to the fundamental truth that we all feel our own heartbreak is unique, so that when we see that reflected back in something with the same emotions packaged in specific details … well, those specific details make the emotions more real.
So, one critical job for authors is to find truths of the world and reflect them back in an exotic pool in such a way that the reader can really appreciate the mirror the author is painting for them, while getting lost in unique details that permit identification. Something to keep in mind at any rate.
Until next week, be kind to someone and keep an eye out for the ripples of joy you’ve seeded.
Cheerio
Rufus
PS. If you think of someone who might enjoy joining us on this experiment, please forward them this email. And if you are one of those someone’s and you’d like to read more
And now, without further ado, here’s chapter forty eight, in which Sienna wrestles with her dead double that she just left behind.
— 48 —
The Identity of Ms. Smith
If the version of herself that she’d left on the road in Carmel-by-the-Sea was a version she’d induced into being when she thwarted the thug in LA, then, had she had some weird duty to protect her? Whatever the case, in the moment there had been nothing to be done, that her was dead. And, though she’d felt awkward about it, there had been no point leaving the perfectly good phone with her double’s corpse. Sienna had picked it up from the gutter as she impressed on an onlooker to watch over her inert twin. “I’m going for help,” she’d said, with no intention of returning.
It was strange, that she hadn’t found her double when she’d searched for her on their train ride up the coast. But whatever had happened in that case, it felt unfair that she ought to, once again, be forced to disappear into another life. Especially if the double she’d just abandoned was now dead. They had been equally responsible for this new path, and she felt an ownership of it that she wasn’t ready to relinquish. At least not until she ran into further copies of herself.
Deeming it prudent to leave town, Sienna hustled to Highway 1 North. She situated herself at a traffic light where the highway intersected Ocean Ave about a mile from the center of town, and held out her thumb in search of a ride. With the light green a dozen cars whizzed by before she caught the eye of a young man in the outside lane. Up ahead, his indicator alighted, he switched lanes and hastily pulled off the road onto a side street. Sienna’s hope was dashed, though, as he disappeared out of sight.
All the same, Sienna drifted forwards, towards the traffic lights. Perhaps he’d turn about and reappear on the frontage road. It was possible to return without backing up over the path he’d just traced. That thought felt like a metaphor, relevant to the accident she had fled in the center of town. Was it possible that the double she’d abandoned was no double at all? And no nameless Ms. Smith, either. What if it was her future self? Could she have just witnessed her own death, without realizing it?
It hadn’t occurred to her earlier, as she rolled back to LA, that to see her future death didn’t necessarily require her to skip forward in time; it could just as easily be that her future self slipped back into her earlier path.
The Subaru reappeared from behind the trees separating the frontage road from the highway. The driver had indeed circled back to pick Sienna up. He spotted her and waved. Sienna acknowledged him, waited for the lights to change and hustled over to his vehicle.
As they sped north out of town, Nate introduced himself and fiddled with the music app on his phone. Watching him made Sienna feel uneasy. It reminded her that she once again had her own phone in her possession, meaning a logical barrier to the dead woman being her future self had been removed. She considered ditching the device, but that seemed excessive, even if it underscored the thought that she might have witnessed her own death. Her future, the world’s past.
Nate burbled about a climbing trip he’d recently returned from. Under normal circumstances, she’d have engaged his conversation. Today, she let him prattle. She was preoccupied. Could she avoid being struck by the car in her receding past? It was kind of a forward-looking grandfather paradox. She could just not wind the clock back again. Equally effectively, she could avoid ever returning to Carmel-by-the Sea. There were so many dimensions at her disposal to avoid the fate of whoever she’d left half an hour south, time merely gave her another one to play with.
Then, out of nowhere, a police car roared into view behind them. Nate glanced nervously at his speedometer, and Sienna’s palms sweated. Was it possible someone had noticed her resemblance to the woman hit by the car? She might not deliberately return to Carmel-by-the-Sea, but what if she were induced to? No, that made no sense. Even if the police did suspect her, how would they have tracked her to this beat-up old car?
It mattered not, for the police car zoomed by.
Her gracious chauffeur released a nervous chuckle. “Don’t know why you looked so nervous, I was driving.”
∞
The police vehicle, it transpired, had been racing to another accident on the road up ahead, and the ensuing snarl in the traffic significantly extended the ride to Santa Cruz. Happily, Nate turned out to be a conversationalist with a diversity of philosophical musings.
His life as a dedicated climbing bum made Sienna’s own pastime feel like that of an uncommitted rank amateur. Of more significance to her current situation, though, were his insights into a life lived at the edge of society. He wasn’t unbanked, and the Affordable Care Act had given him healthcare of a fashion. Unfortunately, public healthcare would be a little more difficult for Sienna to obtain. Of course, if things got really bad——well, that might be a reason to break her promise to her double and return to LA.
For now, she was OK to experiment with a life akin to that of a dirtbag.
When he dropped her off, Nate scrawled his address and phone number on a blank page that he tore from a book he fished out of the storage pocket in his car door. Sienna smiled at the title: Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a book about the pursuit of freedom and transcendence. Made sense for a climbing bum. She pocketed the note, thanked him and wandered to find some food.
As she tucked into a veggie burger, she felt the empty loneliness that you sometimes experience right after a meaningful night out. The feeling was more pronounced than normal, for she had no one to call. Actually, she did have one new friend now, and she entered Nate’s contact details into her phone as she sat eating. He’d told her she was welcome to drop by anytime. Maybe she would after the meditation retreat. If he was about, he’d assured her that he was always good for a bowl of rice.
Strange though her situation was, she was not the first person to have to rebuild their life. Apart from a desire to avoid the prejudice that tainted one by a term in jail or a psych ward, it was not surprising that some of the inmates, when released, would also want to avoid the circumstances that sent them there in the first place. They, too, might elect to establish for themselves, a new community altogether. A meditation retreat seemed like a great place to start.
Across the street a woman in a hijab hurried along the sidewalk. Was this what it was like to be a refugee? There was freedom in anonymity, but living in the shadows came at a price.
