How LOST Fanfiction Taught Me How To Write
It’s funny to look back on a story you’ve written – one that you’ve been writing for years and years and years – and remind yourself where it began. For me, my longest standing piece of writing began because I was obsessed with the hit TV series LOST.
Now, if you’re going, “oh no, LOST smut?” let me stop you there. I never wrote smut fanfiction (though I have deep respect for the genre!). I wrote a combination of all my favorite books, TV shows, and movies – it was LOST, but it was also Avatar (the blue people, not the incredible cartoon), Warriors (the cats), and very specifically, Toadette from Mario Party. Smut may have been more grounded than what I was up to at the age of 10.
My best friend and I passed this pastiche of a story back and forth between one another for over a decade. We’ve had pauses due to life getting busy, but we always return to it – though it features Toadette much less often now. Our estimated page count is around 5000. My mom once commented, “that’s longer than Moby Dick!” My dad countered, “No, no, no, it’s far more impressive. It’s more than the entirety of the Magic Tree House series.”
I learned not just to love writing fiction, but to need it. It is no surprise that I’ve become the Dungeon Master for my group of friends. When I’m having a rough time, I write fiction. And while I’m lucky to have gotten the chance to share my fiction with others on more than one occasion, I know that publication, press, or an audience won’t change what drives me to do it. So, below are a few samples of work that will never scratch the surface of my deep love for this medium, because my best work is the work I do just for me.
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2500 Words a Day Keeps the Writer's Block Away
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My DND players have a well rounded, diverse news intake.
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Making the Most of My Scary Dreams
Fiction Writing Samples
EXCERPT 1
NaNoWriMo Project
The scholars of the Shrouded Sanctum found the original manuscript of this tale buried deep within Mt. Gya in the generation of the fourth eclipse, bound in the leather of an unknown creature. It was deemed a telling by Averna the Founder herself, as there are numerous overlapping events between this text and the common origin story of the founding of Atenasec that is shared and celebrated amongst all Atenasii. As any learned reader will be well aware, that story is referred to as The Tale of the Volcanic Protector. However, given the archaic nature of the language and the fragility of the document, the original manuscript has remained in the most protected vaults of The Shrouded Sanctum, where it is seldom seen or read by the lay people of the city. It has thus become a relic of symbolic importance that many scholars in the past have deemed unnecessary for the studies of the future of Atenasec.
I, Archivist Oslac Pelinti, disagree with this assessment. The manuscript first came to my attention during my second year as a student at the Sanctum, when I asked Professor Mezzeron Furthwait about the historical documentation on the creature that The Volcanic Protector refers to as “The Ghost Walrus.” Well, Professor Furthwait just about laughed in my face, telling me that I was a great fool for taking such allegorical statements so literally. But, (as Professor Furthwait summarily dismissed without reason afterward) I sought the answer to this question because I found not three, but four references to this “Ghost Walrus” in documents of differing origin and time period brought into our archives by visiting scholars from the south.
Thus, I have to conclude that this “Ghost Walrus” may, in fact, be a creature of flesh and blood, whether it be from our time or one long past! Now, of course, this is an academic theory, and I don’t deign to suggest that I know more than our esteemed professors. I may be “overenthusiastic” and “reaching” as Professor Furthwait suggests. However, even though I may be young, I refuse to believe that there is nothing new to learn from our incredible archive. The others may laugh at my endeavors and snicker and sneer and call me some names that I have not heard before, but I will not give up hope that there are some incredible discoveries to be made just under our own noses.
So, that brings me to some of my academic research regarding the founding members of Atenasec. As I previously mentioned, I have spent some time researching the “Ghost Walrus” phenomenon. Well, that inquiry did not quite go as far as I hoped when I initially undertook it, but it has been quite fruitful in other ways. After spending many nights digging through the W section of the archive, I found myself repeatedly exposed to documents regarding the “Wielder,” a term I had not heard before I began my research. “Wielder'' comes up occasionally when referring to Averna. However, it also refers to many individuals around her, with little consistency: her brother, her uncle, and even her famous lover, Morrow, all find themselves tied to the title of wielder at some point. I must say - at that point, I found myself a bit distracted from walruses of the specterly sort.
This led me to my initial inquiries into the great goddess of the flames herself, Averna the Sundered. Any school child knows the legends of Averna - a great and powerful sorceress who harnessed the strength of the volcano to bring prosperity and growth to the exiled community of Atenasec. Her life in Atenasec is documented extensively, and scholars have long since abandoned any attempts to breathe new insights into her history. However, I think that this reluctance in analysis may have left a gap in knowledge that could be critical in understanding many biological inconsistencies in our vicinity!
Averna is not often referred to in personable terms - her status as a mythological figure begins contemporaneously with her lifespan. This rings rather strange to me - we have firsthand accounts from Averna herself, yet they do not make much of an impact in our scholarly work. In fact, I found that almost no contemporary analytical texts directly reference anything written by Averna firsthand. Rather, most references to Averna are cited from the work of her court scholar, Aegious the Learned. Thus why I thought that this may be where the most fruitful accounts of Ghost Walruses might be tucked away. Both fortunately and unfortunately, this was not the case.
As it turns out, “Wielder” is not a term that should be so easily dismissed in our greater lore! Rather than appearing simply as a general term, with more examination, it seems that it is used as a moniker of great prestige. Morrow the Founder, may his salvation yield everlasting flame, is referred to numerous times as Morrow the Sun Wielder by the writer of this text, Averna herself! But, I get ahead of myself. I have not even explained the incredible find that I have made - one that has allowed me to begin this thesis.
For, reader, what I have uncovered in my inquiries is possibly the most valuable find in the history of Atenasec. I am quite confident that I have located a genuine diary of Averna herself, preserved deep in the archive for centuries.
Averna was born in Settlement Five, a penal colony created by the Aurelian Empire, which broke up in the wake of The Undoing. She was a second generation Outbounder - the term used to describe individuals in the Settlements. There, she successfully launched a campaign against Empire oppression, leading her people northward to the base of the volcano Mu Gya. During her time in the Empire, she crossed paths with, and possibly influenced or was influenced by, Alouette, Eloura, and Cyrus themselves, who brought down the Empire and founded the Kingdom of Aurelia in its place. Averna’s story is known only as legend, with many details lost to time. The Kingdom of Aurelia barely mentions her in any of their histories, though the timing of her activities in the Empire coincides with the revolutionaries that were beginning to operate. This is pure speculation, of course. It would not be scholarly to make any hypotheses just yet.
Everything I have read about the Settlements makes me a bit queasy. They were not positive places to live, to be certain. I can only imagine the conditions that could drive a person to flee the place they called home.
The relevant passages I have found describe this aspect of the Empire as “heinous” and “unconscionable, almost unimaginable.” So… yikes. I suppose we must consider that as a consequence of the Empire’s policies. This is the risk of allowing the lower classes influence on the political structure of the city!
Anyways, I am expecting that elements of this translation and analysis will be somewhat difficult politically - the Empire may not have any strong influences, but I have a deep respect for the economic and social structures it gave us historically!
Averna the Sundered clearly didn’t intend us to read this narrative in a conventional storytelling method.
Thus, I have determined that the popularized version of the tale is both not wholly accurate, and also, far more accurate than we ever could have expected. While the players are the same, their relationships may differ greatly from our previous understanding. And, conversely, while many of the environmental and biological discrepancies between our current geographical region and those of the ancient tale have been written off as allegorical or a lack of science, it seems that many of the megaflora and fauna mentioned may have actually existed. This could merit a great archaeological undertaking deeper into the tundra, which I would happily lead myself if given the proper resources.
It is my hope that this scholarly pursuit will convince my peers that an archaeological dig such as that would be worth their time. I have spent the last two years studying Old Aurelian to accomplish this task, though I must admit that my translations may at times require some embellishment. I have sought to pull together the most accurate account of the events that led to the founding of Atenasec, based on Averna’s own account.
Entry One
The Exiled
Nobody asked me if I wanted to be an Aurelian. I never thought that was very fair. I was born on the outskirts, into exile, away from the Empire my parents once called home. I was raised understanding best what I was not - not a citizen, not accepted, and not able to return. I never liked that the bulk of my identity centered around a place I had never been, nor ever wanted to go. The adults in our community drank and yelled in bitter remorse about the injustice and tyranny of a forsaken realm, but I could see in my father’s weaker moments the longing for a home I’d never know.
We were never told what led to the exile so severe that it extended five generations. We were the second, safe from the anguish of expulsion but immeasurably distant from the hope of return. But maybe I am being too harsh with the perspective of time. I do not remember if I yearned for the acceptance of the Empire, but that doesn’t mean I never did. The recollections of my peers suggest that I probably felt the same zealotry for an imagined home that they did, but the fractures in our exiled nation have long since rendered us distinct from one another. I dictate the complications of my very long life here only because I have been burdened with the gift of an interminable memory - a gift that haunts my days and will serve only as a disregarded warning to my blissfully unaware descendents.
Now, I hope that I have presented myself as a harrowing enough narrator to discourage my troublesome grandchildren from prying too eagerly. My daughter insists that I put together a memoir of some sort for posterity - should I take that as a sign she doubts my ongoing longevity? Ah, well, a new age in Atenasec has begun, and I have little to offer but the past. So, please excuse an old woman’s yearning reminiscence, which will surely color the truth of the following pages.
Archivist and Scholar Oslac Pelinti - Annotation One
Isn’t that just fascinating? I must say, I get chills reading it. Now, I must point out that my translation is not perfect. I have chosen the word “gift,” but it could just as easily translate to “curse.” And the word “memory” has many corresponding instances to the term for - well, I won’t mince words - flatulence, but I believe my interpretation is likely correct.
Entry One Continued
I will begin by including pages from my diary in the early days. I was rather good at documenting my experiences back then - I fancied myself a revolutionary of great import, with ideas of grandeur and gravity. I suppose, in some ways, I was correct, though not in the way I envisioned. I started documenting the day of my older brother’s execution - the day we decided the Empire had nothing more to offer us.
EXCERPT TWO
Faux Newspapers for TTRPG
EXCERPT 3
DOLL: A HORROR NOVEL
My mother is a murderer. I had to accept that truth at a very young age. She has been locked behind bars for twenty long years, and she will never get out. I don’t tell many people in my life about her current address, but when I do, they always extend their sympathies. I then try to explain to them that, no, we were not close, I was quite young when the murders occurred, I grew up with a loving, adoptive family, and, finally, it didn’t really seem to instill any long-lasting trauma. I grew up to become a relatively well-adjusted, functioning adult. I always feel like a bit of a disappointment at that point in the conversation - as if the fact I didn’t become a true crime podcaster solving other people’s murders to deal with my own painful history was a personal failure. But that’s the truth of it. My mother is a murderer, and I am simply… normal.
I don’t have any firsthand memories of my mother - not really. I suppose I remember being locked in the basement all those years - or at least, I remembered at one point. I have the documentation of the interviews I did with police when they finally pulled me out. It is an otherworldly experience to read back a transcript of your own tortured past - as told by yourself - without being able to recall a single moment. For all I knew, it could have happened to a complete stranger, or a character on an episode of SVU. If it weren’t for the drawings, I might be able to convince myself of that.
Because when I say that I don’t have firsthand memories of my mother, I am not being completely truthful. My therapist might disagree with that statement, but I know my own memory. I don’t remember my mother’s face, or the degradation of her mental state in those last few months, and I don’t remember the horrific things that she did to my three older siblings. I was only four years old, so I couldn’t read or write. But that time period isn’t a completely blank slate. I have my drawings. They are crude - as expected from a four year old who had never interacted with the outside world in any form. But to me, they are visceral. Rather than a four year old’s depiction of messy feelings and unstructured thought, my drawings from that time serve as the visual representation of my experiences. If I were to try capturing my early childhood in detail, I would recreate those exact drawings, even to this day.
This is why I cannot picture my mother without an upside down face. I know logically that her face cannot possibly look the way I’ve drawn it – my therapists have trotted out plenty of old courtroom photos and mugshots to prove this to me – but the image in my head is relentless. My mother, a thin, muscular woman with cropped brown hair and hazel eyes that seem perpetually filled with tears, simply has her mouth where her eyes should be and her eyes where her mouth should be. Her nostrils face the sky, and her grin appears as a sickening, ghostly grimace. I have grown to accept this truth. I pretend for the many therapists that I have had over the years that I have made progress, and that I understand this is a traumatic block for me. But I have learned that it is far healthier for me to accept my reality without feeling too anxious about it.
I suppose that is why I wasn’t taken aback when I met Ellary. I had recently begun a Masters program in journalism at Emerson – a transition away from the clerical work I’d done for a small publishing company in Chicago. I’d started there hoping one of the senior editors would find my writing so eye-catching that I’d become their new literary superstar. After a few years, the senior editors hadn’t yet learned my name. I applied for writing programs, and the only one that accepted me was Emerson. I packed up everything I owned and moved cross country to Boston, where I had no friends or personal connections. I found myself tucked in the corner of Sevens Ale House about five nights a week, nursing a whiskey sour and pouring over the crime section of the Boston Globe while bad karaoke blared in the periphery of my attention-span.
Sevens Ale House was far from high-end. I chose it –“choice” being a generous term in this situation – for two reasons: it was on the same block as my apartment, and it consistently had open seats at the bar. The first merit was merely convenience, but the second probably indicated the mediocrity of a bar that was neither trendy nor disreputable enough to draw a proper social scene. In order to remedy this, the bar made a few aesthetic choices that did little to change the unenthusiastic ambiance, but allowed it to raise prices to a point that said “hey, it’s steep, but at least we don’t charge $25 a cocktail.” One of these aesthetic choices was a floor to ceiling mirror behind the bar, partially concealed by shelves cluttered with mid-tier liquors and second-rate wines. That is how I first noticed her.
Ellary Larson was sitting with a small group of her friends at one of the few available booths in the bar when she first caught my eye. She was striking - her layered blonde hair tapered off to accentuate her sharp jawline, and her eyebrows managed to tell sagas with every mischievous chuckle. Her plump lips curled as if everything she spoke were a juicy secret, and from the moment I saw her, I longed to be in on the joke. But despite all of this, I probably would not have noticed her if not for the fact that those lips were perched where her eyes should have been.
I said I wasn’t taken aback when I first met Ellary. I fear I may have been a bit untruthful yet again. That first glimpse of her startled me so badly that I am still surprised I didn’t either faint or run right then. It was that exact moment of panic, though, that sent me spinning around on my stool, drawing the gaze of her entire table. My whiskey sour spilled slightly onto my old pair of jeans, and I was… paralyzed. My eyes fixated on Ellary immediately, expecting the sick upside-down smile I had drawn over and over again since my childhood. I thought my brief charade in normalcy had finally come crashing down, just as the therapists told me it would. But it didn’t. As I turned, her face appeared entirely normal. Beautiful, enigmatic, almost cruel in its knowledge of her own beauty, but… normal. Human. I breathed out sharply, unable to look away.
“Uh, are you ok?” One of her friends asked me. Her voice was raised to be heard over the acoustic rendition of Ice Ice Baby that played in the background, but the pitch increased with the volume and it came across as utterly disdainful. I shook my head.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. The mirror kinda plays tricks with the light in here, hah.” I turned back towards them again, lifting my drink to my mouth and gulping down a sip so fast I almost choked. I felt my cheeks flare up as I held down a cough. I took a deep breath, focusing my eyes on the paper in front of me. The words blurred slightly, and I barely processed what I was reading.
…Murder victim aged 28…Bridgewater…found in Braintree…Facing life in
“Hey Professor,” a silky voice piped up behind me after several minutes of non-reading. I ignored it at first (assuming an actual professor must be in the bar somewhere), until I felt a tap on my shoulder. I glimpsed up and back, where the beautiful blonde stood to my right. Her blue eyes were wide, with one hand on her hip. She smirked when I made eye contact with her.
“So scholarly and engrossed. Are you here alone? Do you want to come join us?”
“Me? I’m-” I cleared my throat and took a breath. “I’m fine. Thanks, though. Just grabbing a drink before I head home.” I didn’t dare glance back toward the mirror.
“Oh, come on. We ordered another bottle of wine, and it’s probably smarter if we had some help finishing it.” Her voice was buttery, but held an intensity that conveyed an almost unsettling earnestness. She was a woman who knew how to be soft enough not to threaten, but never censored her thoughts to cater to your feelings. I hesitated, gathering the courage to look sharply at the mirror in front of me. Normal. Her face was normal. I breathed out, turning back to her with a faint smile.
“Ok, then. That sounds good.” I stood up, rolling my newspaper up in my hand and turning to look at the other three.
“Perfect. Girls, she’s going to join us,” she announced, motioning with her hands for the three of them to rearrange themselves to make room.They glanced at each other - one rolled her eyes - but they begrudgingly started to shift down. One of them stood up to let Ellary take her former spot in the back right corner.
“I’m Ellary, and this is Evelyn, Erica, and Lucy,” Ellary gestured to each girl as she spoke.
“So many E’s,” I commented, and Ellary laughed. Her teeth were like a poster at an orthodontist. I wondered how a person could get teeth that straight.
“We always got teased for that growing up. Like it was some little club. Lucy always felt left out,” she grinned, and the woman she’d introduced as Lucy slapped a hand down on the table.
“I did not,” Lucy turned to me, “I absolutely did not. This one just loves to spin tales.”
“You literally went by Elizabeth for like, a month,” the woman to her right - Erica - chuckled.
“It’s my middle name!”
“Uh huh, right. Just a completely unrelated name change,” Ellary rolled her eyes, giving me a wink. Lucy shook her head, but she was smirking now.
“Don’t trust this one - all she does is make trouble.” She poured herself another glass of wine.
“So you’ve all known each other a long time?” I asked, receiving quick nods from the whole group in return.
“Oh, yeah, Ellary and I have known each other since like, birth,” the woman to Ellary’s right, closest to me, shrugged her shoulders up and down as she spoke. She was Evelyn, I remembered. Her smile was nice, too, but more reserved. She looked at Ellary when she talked, rather than me.
“And then the rest of us all met in Kindergarten,” Erica, who sat to my right, informed me.
“That’s cool that you all still live in the same city,” I mused, feeling a bit jealous. Childhood friends didn’t exactly come waltzing through the bars of the basement window my mother had installed in the midst of her breakdown. I finished my whiskey.
“Oh, no, only I live up here now. These three just like to come take advantage of my steal of an apartment,” Ellary giggled, bumping her shoulder into Evelyn’s.
“Her apartment’s insane,” Lucy told me from the back corner of the booth, a thick Bostonian accent making it sound more like a-pah-tment. Her hair was short, and her face was heavily freckled.
“It’s literally like the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. There’s art everywhere,” Erica agreed. Ellary chuckled, leaning back and taking a sip of red wine.
“That sounds nice-”
“It’s only cause her boyfriend’s some big tech artist or something,” Lucy continued. Ellary rolled her eyes, but continued to smile. She reached for the wine bottle and poured far more than a glass’s worth into my empty whiskey glass. I didn’t stop her.
“Anyone can buy art and put it on the walls.”
“You didn’t, not until Fletcher,” Lucy insisted, tilting her head and raising an eyebrow.
“That isn’t true.” Ellary kept grinning, but her eyes darted to the side as she spoke. Lucy leaned forward and let out a dry laugh.
“It’s absolutely true - he’s all over that place.” She scrunched up her nose, making eye contact with me and shrugging.
“You haven’t even met him yet,” Erica muttered to Lucy, who scoffed.
“Yeah, case and point.” She crossed her arms across her chest.
“He had work tonight, Luce.” Ellary’s smile dropped, and her lips tightened into a thin line.
“God forbid there’s no one around to run the upside down PowerPoints. I mean, it’s not like he-”
Ellary dipped the tips of her fingers into a glass of water and flicked some at her. Lucy flinched.
“Shush. E-nough about Fletcher.”
Lucy sank into the corner, then drained her wine glass. Evelyn excused herself to the bathroom, and Erica started picking at her fingernails.
“Lucy never likes any of our boyfriends,” Ellary gave her a pointed look, then turned to me, propping her head up on a fist and resting her elbow on the table, “Anyway, do you live around here?”
I nodded, “Yeah, right around the-”
“Oh, GOOD - I’m over at Mount Vernon and Joy. Have you been around here long?” She waved at a waiter and called out, “Can we get like, a round of french fries or something? Thanks.”
“Not really, only a couple of months,” I replied, and her eyes opened wider in excitement. “Me too! Been here since April. Do you like the area?” She started to pull her hair into a tiny stub of a ponytail. I nodded.
“It’s beautiful. Makes me feel like I’m living in a period piece.” I told her, scooting over a bit as Evelyn made her way back into the booth.
“Oh, you have to come down to my family’s beach house sometime. It’s in this little town in the middle of nowhere basically and it’s like, all farmhouses and old colonials. You’ll love it.”
“Wow, that’s, uh, that’s a generous offer-”
“She means it; they invite everyone down there.” Lucy perked up again.
“Of course I mean it! Why would she think I didn’t mean it?” Ellary exclaimed, her voice getting a bit too loud. A few of the other patrons glanced over at her. The other three didn’t say anything.
“Because I’m a stranger?” I offered, smirking slightly at her. Ellary snorted, which quickly turned into a full blown laugh. She shook her head.
“Well, you’re not a stranger anymore; we’re gonna be friends now, right? We’re practically neighbors.” She tilted her head, pleadingly. I held back a grin, then shrugged.
“Of course. I’m down to hangout.”
She tapped her forefinger on the table. “See ladies, it’s only hard to make friends in the city if you never actually try. If you just make an effort to be friendly…”
“Ugh, can we please stop with this conversation - we get it, we’re unfriendly bitches,” Erica groaned, tipping the empty wine bottle out over her glass and shaking it for the few leftover drops.
“Ellary’s just a lot more outgoing than the rest of us.” Evelyn smiled at me. The waiter came over and slid a plate of french fries onto the table.
“Can I get you ladies anything else tonight?”
“You don’t have to be outgoing, you just have to be NICE,” Ellary continued, then picked up the wine bottle and looked at each one of us individually, “Another bottle?”
“Sure,” I answered, and Ellary smirked. She pointed at the bottle, then mouthed “another” to the waiter. As he walked off, she gestured toward me.
“See? New best friend.”
~
I spent the next two hours getting to know the four of them – their shared passion for Bikram yoga (Ellary was certified), their upcoming trip to the Adirondacks (Ellary’s godmother had a cabin), and their favorite spooky podcasts (that Ellary showed them). Ellary complained about the obnoxious driver who blasted his music while circling our block at 5 AM (she called the cops on him, and they were no help). I learned that her parents – the owners of the beach house I was now expected to visit – were both lawyers, and that she used the word totally with increasing frequency the drunker she got.
Her friends started to peel off around 11:30 – Evelyn and Erica left together to drive back to the South Shore, where they still lived with their parents. Lucy was headed back to a hotel by Back Bay Station, returning to New York early in the morning. Ellary kept talking to me, slowly draining what was left of the third bottle on the table. By the time the bar started to close up, it was just the two of us.
“You know, it sucks so much to not have friends around here,” Ellary leaned back, stretching her legs out onto the empty booth seat beside her. I was sitting opposite her now.
“Yeah, I can relate to that.”
“You’re like, sssssuch a good listener. I wish I could sit and just listen, sometimes, ya know?” She slurred, and I just nodded in response.
“Fletch says I feel the need to ‘fill the silence’ or whatever. He just finished some Malcolm Gladwell shit that says that’s bad or something. We’re supposed to ‘sit’ in it,” Her words drifted off, and she stared blankly at the empty wine glass in her hand. She spun it around, reflecting light onto the table. She was quiet.
“Is that from his new book then?” I asked, a bit unsure of what to say next. Apparently, Fletcher was right - I hadn’t had to come up with conversation from my end the entire evening. Ellary put the wine glass down on the table, then looked up at me.
“Nah, he doesn’t really read. Jus’ listens to podcasts.”
“Oh.”
Ellary slid her feet down to touch the ground again, facing me. Her eyes were bloodshot from the alcohol, and they glowed an almost unearthly blue from the contrast. Her gaze bore into mine from across the table.
“You are a professor…right?” She asked, her eyes narrowing. I shook my head, giving her a sheepish grin.
“No, just a student. Journalism.”
“UGH, I thought I’d nailed it. Close enough. You know, the scarf and the glasses. Hey, if you’re into journalism and eventsy type shit, you should come see Fletcher’s show next week. It’s like, super weird going to his events alone.” She pulled up her phone and started scrolling through it frantically.
“Sure, I mean… what does he… do?”
“He does multimedia stuff. Big projections in interesting spaces. He’s done some major events. The others aren’t really into it, though.” She held up her phone in front of my face. On the screen was a graphic with big block letters that said “Ozone and Oligarchs,” with smaller print below that read, “An Exploration of Lightning and Vladimir Putin In Heightened Image Form by Fletcher Reid.” The date was next Thursday. I shrugged. There were less interesting ways to spend an evening.
“Sounds… cool. Yeah, I’ll go with you,” I told her, finishing off the last of the wine in my glass.
“Cool,” she grinned, then stuffed a cold french fry into her mouth. The waiter came over and left the check on the table.
“Take your time,” he murmured, though I doubted he meant it. We were the only two left in the bar. I reached for my wallet, but Ellary scooped up the check, shaking her hand out in front of her.
“No, no, no, I’ve got this,”
“Are you sure? It’s kinda a lot-”
“Totally sure. Totally.” She slapped her credit card down on the table, then motioned for the waiter. He returned swiftly, and I started to pull my jacket on. The sound of stools clanking onto tables echoed through the bar as the staff closed up around us. The waiter brought the check back, thanking us, and Ellary signed it with a swift motion. She started to pack up, tucking her credit card back into her wallet and rearranging it into an overstuffed Kate Spade purse. I slid a $20 bill under the check while her head was down – she hadn’t tipped.
“Are you OK to get home?” I asked.
“Yeah, totally – just around the corner. Give me your phone.” She reached for the phone in my hand before I could protest, standing up and moving away from the table. As Ellary slid out of the booth, I looked up at her. Either the alcohol or the effects of my first non-work social interaction in months made me forget why I’d noticed Ellary in the first place. I didn’t avoid the mirror. I didn’t think twice about it. I suppose I’d accepted the lie I told Ellary as my own truth. Trick of the light. Entire fun houses are created with the different shades of ourselves presented by mirrors. But my mind wasn’t playing a trick on me. Light can’t give a reflection a life of its own.
In the mirror was Ellary. Or, someone who looked a lot like Ellary. It couldn’t have been the real Ellary, who was facing towards me, typing a text to herself from my phone so we’d have each other’s number. The Ellary in the mirror didn’t have her back to me, as she should have. Instead, she was staring right at me, her face pulled into a vicious, upside down grimace. The real Ellary handed me back my phone.
“I’ll send you the info for the projection show thing-y tomorrow! You should totally come. Fletcher’s really cool – it’s gonna be interesting,” she squeezed my shoulder, winked, then turned to stumble out of the bar. The Ellary in the mirror did not move with her. The Ellary in the mirror only stared back at me.