This City

Everything Went Numb

This is a story I wrote in December of 2007. It’s morbid, has a lot of stupid layers of metafiction and shit, but I’m fond of the style I used in the core section, so I’m going to repost it here. Everything after this section in italics is a part of the story (except for one ed. note that will also be in italics and one bit at the end) - even the parts explaining the story are part of the story (again - stupid metafiction shit).

——

Everything Went Numb
By J. M. Bennett

This is a bad opening line.

Isn’t it? See, I knew it. Opening lines are…cumbersome. They can make or break a story. You strive for your “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” or your “Call me Ishmael,” or fuck, even your “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed,” but coming up with a good opening line is astonishingly difficult. It needs to be concise, it needs to draw the reader in, and, ideally, it needs to be memorable. You want your reader to remember that opening line for the rest of their life, because then they’ll remember your story for the rest of their life, and that’s a writer’s ultimate goal.

For example, there is one opening line I know I’ll never forget. That line? “This is not for you,” from Mr. Mark Z. Danielewski’s masterpiece House of Leaves. In those five words, Mr. Danielewski perfectly captured the atmosphere, tone, and theme of his book.

In those five words, Mr. Danielwski left an impression on me that would never fade.

—

I’m a writer, I guess. I don’t consider myself one, many people I know don’t consider me one, but in the end I am. Am I a good writer? Well, that’s up for debate. I don’t consider myself one, that’s for sure, but I know other people who would disagree.

I think, though, that the sheer amount of time I spent on that opening line shows that I am not, in fact, a good writer.

I considered “My name is James Bennett.” This is true. I considered “Despite what many of you will be inclined to think, this story is just that: a story. A work of fiction.” This is also true. I considered “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” While this is true, I quickly remembered that I was not, in fact, Mr. Charles Baudelaire, and that, indeed, stealing this line would make me no better than one Mr. Christopher McQuarrie, a man I find absolutely reprehensible for reasons I won’t go into here. And I considered paying a homage to Mr. Tomas Kalnoky, a man some of you may have heard of, with the line “Everybody’s going down tonight.” This line…this line isn’t really true, but, in context, it fit very well, and I used it as my opening line for several drafts. And it worked. It was memorable, it allowed me to jump directly into the story, but it wasn’t mine, and, as such, using it would have been a hollow victory.

I wracked and wracked my brain, trying to come up with something, anything, that would work as an opening line, and I wondered why I always had so much trouble with this. In my entire “career,” or lack thereof, as a writer, I have only once come up with an opening line that I was completely and entirely satisfied with. That line is actually two lines, and they are “Lucas Terrov is a sick man. Lucas Terrov is also the ruler of the world.” It’s simple, it sums up the entire story, it conveys the tone of what’s to follow. It’s fifteen words, and that’s a little long for what I strive for, but it works.

So why did I have success with this line? Why have I never been able to top it, or even match it?

For those who don’t know me, for those who haven’t made the connection, and for those who don’t recognize the name Terrov, let me enlighten you. Terrov is my masterpiece. When I manage to get it done, it will be my magnum opus. It’s the one story I’ve wanted to tell for years.

[Ed - this has changed since 2007 - Terrov has sort of been replaced with This City in my mind as the one story I want to tell but can’t.]

And just like that, I realized what my problem was.

You all know me; you know what I’ve done. All those stories have been stories that I wanted people to see, stories I wanted to get out there. But that’s exactly it. They’re stories I wanted to get out there. They weren’t stories I wanted to tell, they weren’t stories I wanted to work on constantly until they were absolutely perfect. They were stories I wanted to finish. And that makes all the difference.

And thus, I realized what my problem was: I didn’t want to tell this story. I didn’t want people to see it. I wanted to keep this bottled up inside, I wanted to keep this within me, because I was afraid.

And just like that, right when I knew what I had to do, and right when I realized that, I also realized that I did indeed want to show this to people; no, not even that, I need to show this to people.

At that very instance, I discovered I’d known what the perfect opening line was right from the start. I don’t think it’ll be memorable for you, I don’t think it’ll be memorable for most people, but it’s perfect for me, and, as such, I think it’s time to begin this story in earnest.

—

I am a writer. A terrible writer, to be sure, but I am a writer nonetheless. As such, when something big happens to me, and I assure you the events I intend to share with you today are indeed something big, at least to me, I am compelled to write it down, exactly as it happened. I am compelled to edit this, slowly but surely, fixing mistakes, but also creating mistakes; adding things that didn’t happen, changing names, so that it’s similar to the original story, and if I were to read it to someone who was there, it would appear to be a semi-incorrect account of the actual events. I cannot stop there, though, for you see I am compelled to edit this further, I am compelled to continue this process for as long as it takes until, eventually, I find that I have created a work which, while initially based upon actual events, has been warped and twisted to the point where it is my own work, to the point where that person who was there wouldn’t even realize it was based upon the original occurrence. This is the way I work, this is the way I write, this is the way I create, and while it’s not ideal, it’s a style of work that is decidedly mine, and, as such, I don’t intend to change.

But this is different, and I didn’t do that, and I’m going to tell these events exactly as they happened, because that’s the best way to do this, that’s the best way to put this forward, and while I usually don’t care about doing things the best way, this is different, this is a story I need to tell, and it’s a story I want to due justice to, so I’m doing this the best way, and that’s that.

Some of you out there, some of you who are reading this, well, you know me, and you know things about me. You know I consider myself a sociopath, you know I’m not the nicest person, and you know I’m a compulsive liar, so you’re reading this, and you’re going to yourself, “Jim, I have a feeling that you’re lying to me, and Jim, well, I think you did change this story around, I think you did edit it, and I think that this is fictional, Jim, because I know you, and I know how you work,” and to that I can only say that you can believe that if you want, and I’m not going to stop you, because nothing I say will change your mind, and I know that now the people who don’t know me are going “I best this isn’t true at all,” and, well, I don’t know what to say to that, because I only know what I know, and what I know is that this story is rooted entirely in fact, right down to the goddamned names… well, that’s not entirely true, I did change the names, but that’s it.

What I remember about that day is that we all sat there in silence, or so it looked, but it really wasn’t, because we were teenagers, and teenagers today generally have headphones on at all times, and we were no exception. Dave, that is, my good friend Mr. Dave Amez, was there, probably listening to Amon Amarth or Dethklok, as was Bill, that is, my slightly less good friend Mr. Bill Maxen, who, as far as I can remember, was a Johnny Cash fan. Bill sat behind me, Dave sat across from him, they were in the back row, and this was our normal seating configuration. I remember exactly what I was listening to, that being the Ska band Streetlight Manifesto, because I had just recently discovered them and I hadn’t managed to grow sick of them yet.

In any case, across from me sat Trish, that is, Ms. Trish [redacted], and I assure you there’s a humorous story behind that last name, but now is not the time for that. Trish and I had a history, and, well, we weren’t exactly talking today, so we both sat there in our faux silence, me listening to my Streetlight Manifesto, her listening to Rent or The Beatles or whatever else she was interested in at that point in time.

There were more of my friends on the bus, too. Trevor and Heather sat in front of me, Todd and Nick sat across from them, and so on and so forth, but I disliked most of the other people there, and I disliked most of them with a passion, because, as I mentioned earlier, I am a sociopath, and I cannot stand to see other people happy while I am not, and I was decidedly unhappy at that point in time, for reasons I will not go into but which I have hinted at already.

I looked up towards our bus driver, who shared a name with me, which was funny, because there were three different people named James on our bus, and I’m fairly certain that none of us liked each other even a little bit, or, at least, I know I didn’t like the other Jameses even a little bit, and I made no effort to hide that fact because, as I mentioned above, I am decidedly not a nice person.

So I looked at James in his mirror, and James looked at me in his mirror, and we sat like this for a while, him glancing at the road occasionally, and that was when the truck hit us. Now, I want you to understand that this was neither James nor my fault, the police report later stated that the man driving the truck was extremely drunk, and this wasn’t even at 4 PM, so I assume the man was also a lunatic, though I don’t know for sure, and I don’t want to know for sure, because I don’t think that knowledge would comfort me.

Our bus went careening out of control, because it was winter and it was icy and they hadn’t sanded the roads yet because our mayor is an idiot, and just like that I knew we were in trouble, because James was shouting, the other James was unconscious, then I realized that he wasn’t the only one and that Trevor and Heather were screaming, and Dave had fallen onto Bill, and they were unconscious, and that when I looked out my window I was looking at the ground and I realized I was leaning against the wall and I realized that the bus had tipped over and that we were still sliding and I screamed, and I looked up and Trish was holding on to her seat, trying not to fall, and not doing a very good job, and she was crying, and I looked forward and saw that something had caught on fire somehow up front, and I knew that we were fucked. And this thought kept repeating in my head, like it was a record and it was skipping, and I just kept thinking Shit, we’re fucked, Shit, we’re fucked, Shit, we’re fucked, Oh Shit, we’re going to die, Shit, we’re fucked, Shit, we’re fucked, Shit, we’re fucked, Oh Shit, we’re going to die, over and over again, and I realized I was still screaming and I forced myself to stop right at the same moment the bus came to a stop.

And then I got out. I used the emergency exit, got out real quick, heard Trish fall behind me, still crying, left everyone there, left them all there, screaming and crying and unconscious and I knew I was a terrible person but I didn’t care because I was out, oh thank god I was out.

And then the bus exploded.

Just like that. Maybe the engine caught fire and something inside blew, I don’t know, all I know is that the bus was burning and oh god I had left them all in there and that I could still save them but I knew, and I don’t know how I knew, but I knew it was too late, and I cried and I cried and I cried and I stayed in that spot till everything went numb and when the paramedics came they had to pull me away kicking and screaming and I was still crying and I wouldn’t move because I had killed my friends.

—

A good ending line is just as important as a good opening line, I think, but it’s an art that’s even harder to master. Stephen King, I think, wrote an excellent ending line to the Dark Tower when he simply repeated his opening line, “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” This, in my mind, is as close to perfect as any author has ever come, but even then, King managed to miss the mark quite a bit.

The problem, I think, is that authors tend to begin their novels with cumbersome forewords and end them with cumbersome afterwards, and I am no exception to this, but there are two things I wanted to say.

Firstly, this story is more complex than it appears, and no, I won’t tell you why that is unless you’re someone I talk to (or used to talk to) frequently; you’ll know who you are, and if you’re not sure, don’t be afraid to ask me.

Secondly, I wrote this for me, not for you, and while I would appreciate criticism, forgive me if I don’t take it to heart, because I am satisfied with it, and that’s something I haven’t been able to say for a long time.

——

So that was Everything Went Numb, a story I’m still proud of and a story almost no one read. I hope you enjoyed it.