Characters

Where do our unused Characters go?

 

The wind swept him up into its embrace. It kissed his cheeks and propelled him to the cliff. He had to get there in time! There was so much depending on it! He didn’t dare to think about what would happen if he didn’t get there in time.

Above him the sky rumbled with gray intentions.

Lightning struck the ground before him but he managed dodged it. The sky cackled.

And then there it was! The edge of an unfinished painting, rough, jagged, riddled with mistakes.

Suddenly he felt the edge of the cliff as his feet jumped from it. He hovered in the air held by invisible hands before they let go and his ears were filled with the sound of air rushing passed him.

He closed his eyes and listened. Then it was silent.

He opened his eyes.

He was sitting on a couch in the center of a brightly lit stage surrounded by a forgotten set with props lying on the ground as if their actors had suddenly disappeared mid scene.

Uncomfortable on the couch, he wondered where he was. He stood up and walked to the edge of the stage and looked out at a sea of empty seats. Where had his cliff gone? He felt incredibly lonely in the bright lights and was belittled by the presence of the large space around him.

He studied the stage. There was the couch he appeared on, a table, and scattered chairs. He wished the couch on the stage would talk and tell him how he got here. The thought of a couch talking amused him. What kind of things would it say? How it came to be there, gray and worn in the bright glow of the stage light? Where it was made?

“A couch could live forever. Unless it fell of a cliff,” he said. His voice sounded sharp and abrasive amongst the sounds and silence. He had not been there long but already his voice seemed strange and the thought of other people talking seemed almost impossible.

A part of him felt the need to do something productive. His cliff was gone. He couldn’t run to it. He didn’t know where it was. What else was there to do? What could you do with a stage and a sea of empty chairs? One could go on stage and do something, he supposed. But he wasn’t much good at anything. Not that he could think of anyway. He only began to excel when�"He couldn’t remember. Almost startled he realized he couldn’t remember much of his life before his journey to reach the cliff.

The need to do something hadn’t left his mind. He stared at the stage. What could he do? Pretend to act? Pretend to sing? All the while, not really pretending but wishing some part of him excelled at something, even if it weren’t singing or acting. Just something.

Above his head dangled microphones. He turned them on in his mind and spoke, mentally projecting across the room.

“Why am I here?” he called out, the he paused and corrected himself, “How did I get here?” he waved his hand across the empty space in front of him.

“Why is it so lonely?”

His voice echoed. He was talking louder than he expected to. He turned the mental microphone’s volume down.

“I’m supposed to be doing something. Something great. Something that would leave a piece of me behind, forever,” he said hesitantly to his chairs. “I know I’ll technically still have bits of me behind… my body and all, but I mean, me as in…” he trailed off.

Suddenly there was a chuckle from the back of the theater. He caught a glimpse of an old man in a golfing cap before he disappeared. He turned around and searched the back of the stage and the wings for the figure. Then he heard the click of a door opening in the back of the theater. He whirled back around, his heart pounding like a frightened snare drum. The empty chairs were now filled. Old faces. Young faces. Beautiful faces. Ugly faces. Forgettable faces. He stared.

“Well, get on with it,” said an old man in a golf cap. “We only have forever.”

“Who are you?” Daniel exclaimed.

“Characters. Who are you?” said a young woman in a feathered cap.

“I’m… I’m Daniel.” He stuttered, confused and suddenly very embarrassed.

“Oh? I’m a Daniel as well!” shouted one with an English accent. “Daniel Clemintine, the Third!”

“I’m a Daniel also!” said one reading the back of a blank piece of paper. “Never got a last name. Or a ‘the Third’ for that matter.”

A few others joined in claiming that they were also Daniels.

A woman in front of the stage snorted. “That isn’t even a decent name!” she said to the first Daniel who still stood on the stage becoming more perplexed.

“Oh yeah?” called out a another Daniel. “And what is yours?”

“Lienanel Sibel,” she said making a rude gesture toward the new Daniel.

“Good Lord, is that an atrocious name!” called one.

“Atrocio�"what?” called another.

“Excuse me,” called the first Daniel.

“It's a beautiful name,” said another.

“Excuse me, ma’m, but I feel a hearing check is in order.”

“Excuse me?” said the first Daniel.

A woman started speaking a foreign language and suddenly a chorus of them erupted at once, smacking each other and the walls of the theater with their thoughts and opinions.

Daniel felt lost in the noise and called out several times only to be lost in their colorful uproar. Fed up, he blasted the volume of the microphones and cried out “Excuse me!”

His voice ate all the others and sucked the half said complains, thoughts, and opinions from their mouths. They all stared at him in silence. Then one said:

“Yes?”

“Who are you?!” he cried, his voice booming.

“We told you! We are characters.” Said a young girl in a bathing suit.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Look, kid,” said a boy not much older than the first Daniel. “Someone thought us up but never wrote us down. We are the ghosts that never lived so we never died.”

“We are the unborn in a sense,” said a girl with short black hair.

He looked around.

“I must be loosing my mind.”

“Maybe you are crazy!” cackled a woman in a janitor uniform.

“Oh, hush! Don’t put ideas into his head! That is the last thing we need!” said an old woman in a pink nightgown. “Look dear, we were thought up here but our creators never wrote us down. Sometimes they never get past the character idea. Half of us don’t even have stories! Some don’t have endings�"”

“Or beginnings,” piped up a small boy.

“Yes, yes. Any way. We were never bound to paper, so we leave their heads and go nowhere. And here we stay.”

He stared at them in disbelief. They returned his stare with one of impatience.

“Hey!” cried one, “Someone go fetch Margie!”

There was a shuffle of movement while they carried a beautiful woman down the isles in-between the seats.

“She is pretty, isn’t she?” Said the man who was holding her feet.

“Yeah… I guess…”

“Hell, she is just about as pretty as women come.”

The first Daniel nodded.

They repositioned her so her feet touched the ground and her head lolled to the side.

“Look here. Pretty face?” said the man who previously held her feet but was now holding her serene face. “See these pretty eyelids?” he opened them. Where her eyes should have been were green marbles. “This is what happens when metaphors go wrong.”

The first Daniel took a step back. Her previously beautiful face became alien with her eyelids pushed up.

“We have some even less savory characters but we keep them under the seats,” said a young man with a scruffy beard.

“Would you like to see them?” asked someone in the back.

“No!” he said quickly. “I’m all right! I believe you.”

“Oh, wonderful!”

He looked around at the faces and figures that filled the seats.

“Can normal�"real people see you?”

“Never! It is totally impossible!” said the man in the golf cap.

The first Daniel looked at the figures incredulously. He stepped back.

 “Did you think you were different than us?” asked a very effeminate looking man. “How else did you think you got here?”

The speakers blew out and the lights on the stage went out. In the darkness a figure stirred alone in the isles, quietly sweeping the floor.

 

Author's Note

One of my most beloved ideas. Came from an afternoon spent in an empty auditorium. It was written in the back of my U.S. History notebook.

Reviews

[Mary Evans]

Very abstract and surreal feel to the story i really like those types of writing. I really love the idea also.
Stylistically and grammatically there are a few typos and repetitions but overall its great. I don't know how much you edited it but compared to "Calla Lilly's Door" its a little bit more rough, still great, but there's room for perfection.
And as your other pieces visually it translated very well, i can see and feel every detail.
Very good job with this one.

[.quan.011.]

Wow, this is a beautifully written story. It has excellent flow and l enjoyed the main characters. I just wish it didn't end so quickly.

[Sam Severn]

This is so cinematic, n' so beautiful written n' profoundly moving, that it is truly breathtaking! I love the swift pace n' the shifting realities you've created, n' I truly love the ending......WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ㋡

[Nezetta]

This is an amazing piece, i feel like im there seeing it happen