Unamed original short story

[FaxModem1]

Enjoy, don't have a name for it yet, tell me what you think.



Fred was woken up at 6:30 AM by a large buzzing coming from his small alarm clock next to his bed. With a quick reflex, he hit the snooze button, and was back to sleep. At 6:35 he was woken up by a pint of water pouring on his face. He looked up to see his father there hold an empty glass upside down over his head.

“Get up and get ready for school.”

Fred sat up and mumbled something as he got out of bed and headed for the shower. He quickly got out and dressed and went to the kitchen to grab his car keys. As he entered his parents were there on the kitchen table eating some Cheerios and reading the newspaper. Fred grabbed his keys from the rack and headed out the door.

Two steps away from his car, he realized he forgot his backpack and runs back into the house. He runs into house to the kitchen table to his parents who are holding the backpack in front of him. He quickly grabs it as they continue eating their waffles.

Fred is puzzled for a moment,” Weren’t ya’ll just eating Cheerios?”

His mom finishes chewing,” What are you talking about? We were eating waffles and were not done. We are out of cereal anyway.”

Fred decided to give up on it and runs back out to his car with backpack and keys in hand. He gets in his Honda civic and is driving to school wondering if he was still dreaming, but he quickly tosses it out of his mind. When he reaches the school, he quickly hops out of the car.

As he enters the school, he runs through the crowded area and just barely makes it before the bell rings. He sits down for Government where the teacher is leaning against the podium, marking in the attendance sheet. She quickly looked up at Fred and marked something in her sheet.

“Cutting it a little close, aren’t we Fred?” She said with a wry smile, his teacher was one of those who liked the squirming of students. This was the one teacher Fred hated, but he knew when to pick his battles, so he said nothing and simply let her continue on the attendance. When she finally finished, she went over to the computer to prepare the computer. Many of the students prepared to enjoy the show, for she was technologically impaired. Ms. Griddle started using the mouse, and clicked on an icon, and quickly clicked again, and again. The computer began making a lot of noise as nothing happened on the monitor; Ms. Griddle got annoyed and started banging the monitor with her left hand, almost looking apelike with her grunts and beating. When finally the computer replied and showed the PowerPoint she wanted to show, she turned on the TV hooked up to the computer and began lecturing, the students quickly began copying down her notes, for she went fast on lectures. After everything was done, she gave out the homework that was due next class period and the bell then rang.

The students then ran to their second periods. Fred was running and saw Jill, his old friend from middle school and joined her on the way to their Calculus class. When they made it a few minutes early, they began talking about the upcoming Halloween dance.

“You thinking of going to the dance?” Jill asked as she was unpacking their books, she acted as if she wanted him to say something, but she didn’t reveal what. Fred was hesitant to answer, sensing some sort of trap from his friend, wondering what she could want. He decided to give her a grey answer.

“Haven’t given it much thought actually.” Fred said, which he knew was a lie, hopefully she couldn’t tell. But there are things that leak through about a person if you know them long enough. Jill looked him in the eyes, she knew he was lying, but didn’t know about what.

“Well, if you were going to go to the dance, who would you take?” She asked innocently.

Fred’s mind spun in circles. RED ALERT He thought. Is she asking what I think she is asking? He was thinking of an answer when the bell rang and Mr. Barding began talking.

Saved by the bell Fred thought as he started writing in his spiral. Jill also began writing and looked at him, almost mad at his luck.

Calculus came and went, with many of the student’s eyes fully glazed at what the teacher was talking about. Fred kept on transcribing what she said, not understanding a word of it, but Jill was finding it easy and was able to answer any questions that were asked by the teacher. It’s always been that way with Jill, Fred thought. Ever since they knew each other, Jill was the one who could comprehend the most complex of things and concepts, while Fred had always been the dreamer who could never focus on the task at hand. She would be able to finish the quiz in a short amount of time while he would be staring at it thinking about a movie he watched a few days ago. But Fred had always been able to pass, and here they were, their senior year, in Calculus, copying notes as fast as they could.

Fred came back to reality after visiting nostalgia and finished his notes when the teacher wrote the homework on the overhead. He quickly copied them down in his spiral and put it away in his backpack as did the rest of the class. Fred looked up at the clock, just a minute left.

Jill had finished packing her things and looked at him.

“So, have you thought about it yet?”

Fred decided to play it dumb for time,” About what?”

“You know what, Homecoming.”

“Oh yeah, I think I’ll know all my marching positions by then.” While he knew she was referring to the dance, he switched the topic to their marching in the band at the Homecoming game.

“NOT THAT, THE DANCE”

“Umm, yeah, the thing about that is…” before Fred could continue the bell rang and all the students ran out of the door. Fred stood to join them and escape the situation. But before Fred could make his escape, someone had gripped his collar, making him gag and stop.

“You’re not moving until I get an answer.” Jill declared.

Fred sighed and his shoulders fell, he turned to face Jill, “Well, I was thinking about, you know, inviting a friend.”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know, maybe”, Fred sighed once again, “maybe you?”

Jill smiled; this was clearly what she had been looking for,” Great, I’ll see ya then.” And with that, she released his collar and Fred rushed to the Band Hall.

As he rushed through the Fine Arts Hall, he looked at the decorations on the wall for the Homecoming. Blue and gold, the schools colors, and Ben’s favorite personally. He had heard about how most of the seniors who decorated the hallways had worked on the place for days, even until late at night. Fred was glad he wasn’t one of those guys, he’d probably get frustrated and quit the second he quit, he hated decorating.

As Fred ran into the Band Hall, he quickly got out his trombone case out of his slot and started assembling the his horn. He sat down in his seat and relaxed. It was a detention if you were late even once. Stupid new policies, Fred thought, why do they always make it harder for us? Fred continued pondering on this until the band director got on the podium and made everyone get out their show piece. And they were going to play it until they met the director’s perfect expectations. So the band played and played and played until it was 5 minutes till the bell, giving them enough time to scramble to pack up their horns and music, as well as get the roomed cleaned up for next period.

Fred walked slowly out of the band hall as the bell rang; he now had ample time to get to his next class, for once. Fred again admired the Homecoming decorations with their yellow and black as the school colors. He hated them personally, but hey, whatcha gonna do?

Fred went through the 200 hall, the heaviest-traffic area in the entire school. Fred often had a thought when going through them, “Whoever has the cattle prod has the advantage.” And boy did he wish he had on now. He finally made it to the Library, where he was an aide, the easiest period of the whole day. He had been an aide in the library since his freshman year and always loved doing it, all he had to do was the occasional delivery and shelve a few books, and he could relax the entire rest of the period.

Mrs. Jones, the head Librarian, was typing something on her computer and Mrs. Roberts was absent, so he currently had nothing to do. He turned on the circulation computer and began surfing the net. 10 minutes later, he realized something was wrong, the school colors had changed, his parents were eating Cheerios, and he had been lucky with the bell escaping him out of facing Jill. Something was going on here. Fred got out of his seat when he heard a small pounding and clicking noise. He looked out of the window and saw outside that the world was changing. The hallways would change from white to red to blue. From empty to crowded in a snap of the fingers. Fred wondered for a moment if maybe he was having a seizure.

Fred then noticed everything disappearing, the entire world around him turned black, as if it had never existed. He was floating in a void, and wondering what was going on. He couldn’t even remember his last name, only first, which was Fre. Fre? What is Fr? Now there was only an F, and then there was nothing.






John removed his finger from the backspace key. Writing a story about high school would be harder than he thought. For one thing, he would have to keep consistent with what he previously wrote. John exited out of Word and yawned. He had deleted the entire file, better to start off tomorrow with a whole new universe than try and fix this one. Universe, he thought, its not that, its just fiction, a world I made up and can change it to be anyway I want it to be. And with that, John turned the computer off and went to bed. It was going to be a long day tomorrow, or his name wasn’t Joh, Joh? What is Jo?



Ted let go of the backspace key…

[Agent Fisher]

um...So Fred was a character in a story about a story about a story??? On one hand weird but on the other hand kinda cool. I was a libary aid last semester it was the easiest class I ever had.

[Ace Pace]

okey it was all fine, actully I was looking forward to what was happenening to Fred, but the end, left me hanging.

[Peregrin Toker]

Is it just me, or does this simultaneously resemble the "Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole" books and "eXistenZ" ???

[FaxModem1]

Sorry, never heard of those two stories, this was my own creation.

[Mitth`raw`nuruodo]

Interesting, I love the the idea your life could be someone else's fiction, dreamed up and typed out. And then the fact that they can change it at their will... It's like, what happens when you edit a story, from the story character's POV. Nice.

[Falkenhorst]

That was damned cool, it reminded me of an episode of The Twilight Zone where there's a graphic artist dude and he draws a dream girl and she comes to life and shit, but then it turns out SHE's the graphic artist and SHE drew HIM and when he gets uppity about it she erases him, hehehehehe

[FaxModem1]

What would be an appropriate title for this? Something that doesn't give away the ending but makes sense when you read the end?

[Singular Quartet]

"The Problems with Writing."

[FaxModem1]

Any other suggestions?(no offense Singular Quartet, but that one sounds like an english essay title.)

[Chardok]

Interesting, I love the the idea your life could be someone else's fiction, dreamed up and typed out. And then the fact that they can change it at their will... It's like, what happens when you edit a story, from the story character's POV. Nice.

Wasn't that the whole plotline to The Neverending Story?

as for a title...
Keep it simple...
"Backspace blues" or

"Perfectionist"

something like that neat story though...

[victorhadin]

I like pretentious titles. How about: Recursion.

[Peregrin Toker]

What about "The Story About A Story" ????

[Singular Quartet]

Any other suggestions?(no offense Singular Quartet, but that one sounds like an english essay title.)

Yeah... but it just gives the feel of one.