by Eric Smith
STORY TWO
Roger and Marie
Roger Walker worked as a columnist for the local paper. It wasn’t a huge paper since it wasn’t a huge town. The population of the town was actually only about twenty five thousand and that was counting most of the outlying areas as far away as anyone could without someone starting to call foul. Like most small towns in Iowa there were lots of farmers and/or people who worked in the agricultural industry in some way, and like one might suspect, there were more than a few conservatives in there.
Roger had graduated from the University of Iowa in 1991. He wasn’t at the top of his class, but he wasn’t at the bottom either. Roger’s degree was in English and he prided himself on his ability to speak and write properly, something that somewhat irritated his wife, Marie, and many of his friends and co workers. No one really enjoys being interrupted in the middle of stories and corrected as to the proper verb choice after all.
Roger had come home from college and found a job right away with the local paper. It probably didn’t hurt his chances for employment any that his father was good friends with the owner of the paper and they went drinking every Thursday.
That was about the time that Roger had met Marie. Although perhaps “met” isn’t the appropriate word since they had gone to school together for over a decade. But they had never been more than acquaintances as children and they had not seen each other for the entire four years that Roger had been away at college. So, in a very real way it was like they were meeting each other for the first time.
Marie had turned into someone that men wanted to be with. That’s an understatement actually but it is very to the point. Marie was never a bad looking girl, but in the four years since she had graduated high school Marie had blossomed and then some. She was very shy though and men who were too outgoing and too forward tended to frighten her away. She had plenty of men coming on to her at the supermarket where she worked but she always found a way to say no.
That is, until Roger same home from college. Most of the people she knew who went away from college didn’t come back to their small town and that made Roger something of an unusual person. A bachelor’s degree was actually pretty well educated for their town since there were only a few people in bunch who could claim higher.
Looking back a decade later Marie wished that she could have said Roger came into town and swept her off her feet. But she couldn’t say that or anything close to it in truth. Roger had a manner about him, something that was less intimidating than to her than most other men.
And so Marie said yes when Roger Walker asked her if she would like to go out to dinner. Marie worked at the supermarket for the next two years until the day that Roger asked her to marry him to which she also said yes. They had a traditional ceremony and since Roger didn’t have the money for a honeymoon he promised her one for their one year anniversary.
One year came and went, then two, then three, and finally ten. By their tenth anniversary, which was the year 2003 and the year that they would both turn thirty four years old, Roger had two regular columns at the paper. One of his columns was dedicated to reviewing books. From the day he took over the column he was inundated with poems, short stories, and essays from hundreds of people asking for his advice.
Privately Roger reveled in it all; publicly he did a poor job of putting on an air of humility. He loved that people asked him for advice. It made him feel powerful. Every once in a while Roger actually ran a part of one of the things that were mailed into him in his column, only the good ones though. The bad ones went to his desk and went straight into the trash can. Roger really was good at what he did; he was just so damn hard to work with that no one wanted to. Roger’s boss disliked him and most of Marie’s friends did too. Marie was still very shy. Roger often chastised her about her lack of self esteem. Marie’s closest friend, Sara, saw it and knew that it only made Marie’s confidence issues that much worse. Marie made her promise not to say anything to Roger though.
Marie had gotten pregnant in their fifth year of marriage but sometime around the end of the second trimester she miscarried. It was very hard on her. Roger did and said everything that he was supposed to in public, but when they were all alone Marie could tell his attitude changed. Some part of Roger believed that it was her fault. So when the doctor told Marie that she wouldn’t be able to have any more children because of the damage that was done, her relationship with Roger deteriorated farther.
Marie had given up work when she was pregnant at Roger’s insistence, but afterwards she just couldn’t seem to get motivated. She never quite lost all of the weight that she gained when she was pregnant. Marie was far from fat, but Roger could tell a difference and he made sure that she knew. There were many nights that played out along the lines of Marie making desert and then Roger saying “Are you sure you should be having any of this?”
Sitting home all day alone and taking care of the house gave Marie time to think and that wasn’t always a good thing. She tried Yoga for a while. She would go for long walks in the summer time. She read a lot of science fiction and fantasy. Nothing seemed to really make her happy though. Even though she loved all those things there was still a hole inside somewhere that she couldn’t fill no matter what she did.
Marie read Roger’s column daily and an idea grew inside of her. She wanted to write. She was far too shy to be open about it, especially to Roger who read so many good things. But Marie wrote every day for over a year. Sometimes she would write from the time Roger left until the time that he got home, sometimes it was only for an hour or so a day. But every single day for over a year Marie sat in front of their desktop and poured her heart out.
After six months she felt that she had a few short stories she could be proud of. She had refined them over and over until she felt sure that they were at the very least mediocre. Marie decided on a Pen Name and drafted copies of them that she mailed from the Post Office after setting up a P.O. Box.
Months went by and she never heard anything but she kept sending them. Then one night, Marie was zoning him out as she often did. She had finished eating a few minutes ago since she wasn’t stopping to talk and was only waiting for Roger to finish so that she could clear the table. She had a glass of chardonnay in her hand and was more intent on swirling the wine around and watching it slowly run down the side of the glass again in uneven lines. There was an actual name for the lines that the wine made as it ran down the glass, but Marie couldn’t remember what that was for the life of her. She knew it had something to do with wine tasting and judging the quality of the wine by the way that they ran down.
Roger’s voice came back to her now. Something that he said grabbed her attention and held it fast. “What was that baby?”
“I said that I keep getting these manuscripts from some woman right here in our town. She’s using an obvious pseudonym and it’s a P.O. Box so there’s no way for me to tell who it is. They’re always signed as Emily D. Son. Seriously, I mean, what a horrible stupid pseudonym to boot. Emily Dickinson? How obvious and pathetic is that?”
“Oh.”
Roger made a face as if in disgust and then continued. “She’s mailed in about fifteen different short stories, whoever she is and all of them are absolute garbage. I mean the worst writing that I have ever seen. People can either write or they can’t and she’s hopeless.”
“Oh. Huh.”
“It’s all this romance drivel or fantasy stuff with elves and dragons. I’ve never published anything like that, no one above the age of fifteen wants to read that shit. I think I’m going to have to write back to her and tell her to stop or they’ll just keep coming. Either that or maybe I can talk Eric into letting me run one of them and use it as a half comedy kind of piece showing what doesn’t work in writing.”
Roger threw his head back in laughter. Marie stared at him for a moment and then stood, carrying her plate and glass into the kitchen. Roger we
nt on talking about things that happened at work and Marie went on appearing to listen.
Twenty four hours later
Roger breathed in the scent of Marie’s perfume and wondered at the tear drops on the page for a moment, maybe they weren’t tears? The scent of Marie’s perfume brought feelings of desire to him, it made him remember times from years past when they had both left each other notes and little love letters.
And then he read the letter.
Roger my love. I don’t know what to say except that I can’t deal with this. I could have handled such sharp criticism from anyone but you. I can’t have children and you barely notice me anymore. I don’t want to do anything. I thought I found a way out of my depression by writing. I knew that you don’t publish everything that you receive at the paper, only the good ones. So I thought that if I sent you what I had written, I would finally know when I had written something of quality because you, my husband, would publish it. Goodbye Roger.
Emily D. Son – Marie
Roger dropped the letter and called out for Marie. His voice echoed throughout the house, the house that suddenly seemed much larger in a way he couldn’t define. Roger walked through the house calling out for Marie and when he pushed open the door to their bedroom he saw her stretched out on the bed as if sleeping. The red stains pooling upon their white comforter and sheets, the stains that spread from both her wrists gave the lie to the image of her sleeping though.
Afterword: The inspiration for this story was actually a series of events over a period of time. Personally, I don’t feel that most of the people I know take my writing seriously at all and while I’ve never been ridiculed the way that Marie was in this story, little things over time hurt.
The other thing major thing that helped inspire this was that there is one particular reader on one particular website who pays money for everything that I write, and then rates it all one or two stars. Why does she continue to buy them if she hates them so much? The world may never know.
Since I have started putting things online for others to read I have become much more careful in my own reviews of other writers work though. I know that as writers it is nice to get constructive and well thought out criticism. No one likes to log in and see a review of one star that says simply “This sucks. Permanently deleted.” That doesn’t help the writer to develop; it doesn’t do anything or serve any purpose.
SNEAK PEAK OF THE NOVEL
BAYARD’S WILL
By Eric Smith
Rev 1.0
Copyright Eric Smith 2011
This is a work of fiction, and all names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
BAYARD’S WILL
Prologue
Spring, 1280 of the Salecian Calendar
Caer Draeth, Northern Border of the Kingdom of Salecia