The Story©

 

By Richard A. Falb

 

 

As Shannon looked back at the whole idea, it was absolutely improbable. He really could tell no one, not even his literary agent. Everyone would think he was either lying or had flipped.

When he called his agent he said,

"I found a story my father had written years ago about his experiences as an espionage agent during the war. He wrote it as a novel. I just discovered it in an old trunk of his. I did some rewriting and some editing on it. I'm sending it to you. I think you'll love it. I remember him telling some stories to me when I was very young, but I hadn't known he wrote anything down."

"Great," said his literary agent, "I'll take a look at it as soon as I get it."

It all began one day when Shannon sat in front of his computer staring at the blank screen. This was the story he couldn't tell. He was a writer. Up to this moment, he had been a fairly successful writer. Not a best-selling writer. He never seemed to have the motivation to work really hard at it. It paid his living expenses. He was able to live fairly well. He was satisfied with that. He lived alone in a fairly nice house, which was mostly paid for now. The women he dated didn't seem to stay around very long. Maybe they thought he just wasn't ambitious enough. It really wasn't something he worried about.

At the moment he was suffering from the dreaded writer's block. The trouble is, this had been going on for over a week now. It was really beginning to worry him. He never had this problem this long before. Maybe a day or two, at the most. Then he would come out of it. This time it was different. He tried all the tricks he knew to break it including just writing nonsense. Even this had not helped.

As he sat staring at the screen helplessly, he was startled out of his thoughts. Words began appearing on his computer screen. He stared in amazement. This was impossible. His computer was not connected to any other computer. His computer was not connected to any network. The only thing it was connected to was his printer. He was not typing. There were no discs in any of the disc drives, and he knew he had not accidentally called up any files from the computer's memory.

Besides, what was appearing on the screen was not anything that could possibly be on his hard drive. It seemed to be the beginning of a story. It was a story he did not recall ever having seen before. He watched, fascinated, as it began to unfold on his computer screen. It was as if, someone was writing it on another keyboard and somehow it was appearing on his computer screen. But that, he knew, was impossible.

It became even more fascinating. It seemed to him, he began to vaguely remember a story something like it. As he watched fascinated, he vaguely remembered someone telling a story like this one. He somehow knew, he had never seen it in printed form before.

He became entranced by the story, as it unfolded. It was a story about espionage during the war. It was being written as fiction. It was obviously, being written by someone, who knew his subject very well. Then he began to remember.

His father had been an espionage agent during the war. He played the part of a double agent, a very dangerous assignment. His father had spent much of the war behind enemy lines. He had been lucky, or very good. He survived the war, although, not without problems. Those problems began to affect him after he returned home. He wasn't able to hang onto a job for any length of time. Luckily, he was getting a disability pension. Shannon remembered they never had a lot of money, although they always seemed to have just enough.

Shannon now began to recall his father spinning some tales of his experiences. Shannon had been very small and his father died when Shannon was still young. It had been a traumatic time for everyone, especially his mother. His mother now had to support two young children. It took a toll on his mother. She had however somehow helped he and his sister to get through college. It had left his mother somewhat bitter.

No one had ever written these stories down before his father died. Those stories had been forgotten. Now these tales, spun together in the form of a novel, were appearing on his computer screen. A chill ran down Shannon's spine. He heard of people who said they received messages from those who were dead. He never believed them. He had never heard of anyone receiving those messages on a computer screen.

But now, here was his father's tales, appearing on his screen as if his father was writing them down. He was becoming more sure as he watched, that these really were his father's stories. They were going into the computer memory of Shannon's computer. As the words continued to appear on his screen, they were even being divided into chapters just as he would have done, and the pages were even numbered.

He watched this happening, numbed by the very thought of what seemed to be happening. He wondered if it was really happening. He wondered if, when it was finished, he would be able to print it out on his printer. The words seem to continue to appear on his computer screen for hours. Finally the last page contained the words, 'the end'.

Shannon sat there numbly, waiting. He looked at his computer screen. The file had been named. It obviously had been saved to memory, or at least it appeared that way. He began to come out of his daze. He would have to back this up. He checked. It would fit on a 3.5 floppy disc. He put a disc into his machine and transferred the file to the disc.

As long as it did transfer to a floppy, he decided to try to see if he could print it. His printer was on line and paper was loaded. He would try to print one chapter at a time. As he started to print it, he noticed that his name was listed as the author. Shannon was in a quandary. He recognized it would make a very good novel with just a minimum of work on his part. It would be a novel his agent would be ecstatic about. But this was not his story. He remembered only bits and pieces. Even those bits and pieces, he only remembered very vaguely. He could have never written this story. Someone, who lived experiences, just like this, wrote this. Shannon had to think.

True, this story deserved to be published. It was one that should be told to the world. But how could he lay claim to it. As far as he knew, his father had never written any of his stories down. He just told them to Shannon and his sister. Shannon once asked his sister about what she remembered. She said she had forgotten them as soon as their dad finished telling them. The stories he told didn't seem to interest her. They were not the kind of stories a young girl would be interested in.

However, they were the kind of exciting stories a young boy would be fascinated with. The memory of them had dimmed over the years. There seemed to be nothing that had caused him to recall them, until now. Apparently he had been too young, and he had only a very vague recollection of them.

During the next several weeks, he struggled with what he would do with this novel. He searched through some old things he had, that he just filed away up until now. These included some letters his mother had sent Shannon just before she died. Reading his mother's letters over, he ran across mention of an old trunk. That trunk apparently contained some things of his dad's. His mother said she had given the trunk to his sister to keep. His mother said she gave it to his sister because she was married and was settled down. Shannon never married and had moved around quite a bit. He thought he'd write a letter to his sister and ask her about the old trunk.

Thinking it over, he decided to call his sister and ask about the trunk. All of a sudden, it seemed important to him, to find out where that trunk was. Perhaps he would go visit her and take a look at it. That is, if his sister still had it. When Shannon called, his sister at first didn't know what he was talking about.

Shannon was getting frustrated. He had hoped she would have it. Finally, as they talked, she recalled that she stuck an old trunk in the back of her attic and forgot about it. She had no idea what was in it. She had no interest in it. Shannon asked if he could come and get it, as long as she obviously didn't want it.

His sister said fine. She told him when he came he could go up in the attic and get it and take it with him. Obviously, his sister had no intention of searching her attic for it before he came. It still didn't seem to interest her. Shannon had a suspicion that his sister was still mad at their dad for dying and leaving them alone with their mother. She had always resented the fact that her dad was not there.

Shannon made arrangements to go visit his sister the following week. He hadn't visited his sister and her family for quite a few years. For some reason, he and his sister had never been close. Part of the reason was because his sister was always blaming their father for dying. She blamed him for their not having as much as she thought they should have. Their mother had done what she could. His sister was always griping about not having as many nice things as her friends. They had gone their own way and his sister had married relatively young.

His sister's two children seemed glad to see their uncle, when he arrived. It turned out to be a rather enjoyable visit. Shannon and his sister even sat down and reminisced a little. However, Shannon did not tell her why he was suddenly interested in the old trunk. She apparently still had no interest in it, because she didn't question him about it at all. Shannon figured that was because it was their dad's. When he left, he loaded up the small trunk into his car and set off for home.

When he arrived home, he found he had quite a few projects that had to be done immediately. He suddenly got very busy. The trunk was put in a corner and almost forgotten about. Shannon kind of blocked the problem, of what he should do about the novel, out of his mind. When he finally had the time to think about writing again, the novel popped back into his mind. It was then, he remembered the trunk he brought home.

He brought it out on his dining room table and opened it up. He began to sort through the things that it contained. There were a number of things from the war. Down in the bottom was a box that was all taped up. He carefully slit the tape and opened the box. It was filled with writing paper. The writing on the sheets was in his dad's handwriting. He pulled the top group of papers out and began to read. After several pages, he stopped and put them down. A chill again ran through him. This, in handwritten form, seemed to be the novel that appeared on his computer screen and which he now had in printed form. He went into his office to get the printed novel. He wanted to compare them. He didn't want to trust his memory. He found, on checking, the printed story was an almost exact copy of the handwritten material.

He did not know how it could be, but he knew it was. It was there before him. It would seem his father had written his story on his son's computer so his story would be told. Shannon's sister put away the trunk containing the written story. She had no intention of opening it to see what it contained. The story could have been lost. Apparently his father did not want his story to be lost. This was the only way he could make sure his son found the story and could then get it published.

These thoughts ran through Shannon's mind. But then he stopped and shivered. That would mean that his father had to come back from the dead and somehow put his story on his son's computer. It couldn't be, Shannon knew that. But there was no other explanation for it. He had the story. It had appeared on his computer. He was able to print it out. No one would believe him.

Shannon now knew what he must do. He had his father's original manuscript. He had his father's typed manuscript, although he could never tell that story. He would have to claim responsibility for putting the story into typed form, and for doing some editing of it. It could be his and his father's story. The stories his father had told him as a child, and which he just discovered in written form. His father would be the expert in espionage. Shannon now knew he could set about to edit and rewrite the story to make it a novel that would be published.

Shannon carefully put the manuscript back in the box and into the trunk. He carefully put everything back into the trunk. Then he put the trunk carefully away in a safe place. Next week he would begin to read the whole story. Then he could start on the rewriting of it and make it into a novel. It would be the best thing he had ever done. He wondered, if his mother knew about the story his father had written. His father must never have told his mother. Or his mother, like his sister, had no interest in those stories. Shannon would never know. What he did know was that his father's story would be published. He would write a prologue saying this was his father's story of his experiences as an secret agent during the war, but written as a novel.

 

THE END