Gentlemen in Glass

Gentlemen in Glass

 

“It must be peaceful, just swimming around like that day after day,” said the man with a wistful look. 

“I bet it is,” Owen replied. 

The two acquaintances gazed at a fish tank that stretched from the floor to the lofty ceiling, towering thirty feet above their heads. In it swam a school of entirely white arowanas, glinting with iridescence in the light. They seemed to jabber amongst each other like gleeful tea party attendees, their weblike tails propelling them from group to group with gusto. Owen wondered what all the gossip could possibly be about. 

The white of their scales looked shocking against the rest of the capacious room, which had fully committed to the theme of a uniform sage green. A floor-to-ceiling window expanded across the wall adjacent to the tank, soaking the space in sunlight. The hub of activity was a rectangular conversation pit with plush green pillows against which guests leaned, chatting merrily between sips of cocktails. Very little furniture could be found in the room, other than the a few coffee tables and three swiveling stools attached to a small bar. Owen’s interest was piqued by the bartender wearing a crisp green suit and looking lovingly at the concoction he was preparing. He took a seat on one of the fuzzy green stools, which reminded him of moss he had seen overtaking knobby tree roots outside of his childhood home.

“Good afternoon, sir!” the bartender chirped in a cheery Australian accent. He was a ruddy-cheeked blonde who looked to be in his forties, making him older than all the party guests Owen had seen so far. Like the other staff members, his skin was astoundingly tight and gleamed with vitality; he was clearly no stranger to moisture regimens, modest doses of sunlight, or perhaps trips to the sauna. 

“Hey, buddy,” Owen replied. “How’s it going?”

“On a day like this, I can’t complain,” he said, adding a spoonful of beige powder to the shaker in which the drink was being assembled.

“Whatcha got there?” 

Fragrant steam omitted from the shaker, whistling. “This,” the bartender said, “is the Sour Grasshopper. It’s a favorite around here. You’ll be the first to try it today, my man.” 

Owen nodded in appreciation. He learned that the bartender’s name was George and he had just moved to the States from Australia a year before. Owen almost asked which part of Australia he was from but thought better of it. Bringing up the tragic fate of that once-marvelous continent would be uncouth. 

George dumped another spoonful of beige powder into the drink, which he explained was a protein additive. He added a few more touches and finally poured the viridescent liquid into a glass, adding a green straw to its frothy top. Owen looked in wonder at the creation, which bubbled happily like a babbling brook. 

“Go ahead, try it,” George said, dividing the remainder of the drink among a few glasses. He immediately began working on a new one, operating with speed and dexterity. Owen sipped gingerly and then with enthusiasm. The taste did not match its minty aroma, which enveloped Owen’s olfactory senses in a refreshing vapor. It was neither savory nor sweet, and its citrus quality shared the stage with a delightful flavor that Owen had never encountered before. Owen complimented George’s work before spotting his wife, Piper. He could see her through one of the orbitual shapes that had been cut out of the walls, offering shelf spaces and glimpses into the rooms beyond.

She and her friend Skye had just wandered into the room when Owen beckoned them over. 

“Honey, you’ve just got to try this. It’s called the Sour Grasshopper,” Owen said, placing the drink in her hand. Piper’s eyes widened into dark brown discs as she sipped. “That’s delicious! You better keep this away from me, or I’ll start chugging like it’s juice.” 

“Well, it’s partly that,” George replied with a grin. The women watched him prepare the next drink. He put on a show like a hibachi chef.   

Owen slipped his hand into Piper’s and felt her squeeze back. He wrapped his arm around the small of her back, the sensation of her tweed dress feeling strange against his skin. Tweed was basically impossible to come by these days for the average folk, but this room was filled with it. Women milled about in rigid, artfully fitted minidresses that came in all shades of green. Piper wore a collared shift dress in chartreuse that complimented her terracotta skin. Next to her, Skye leaned against the bar in a short sleeve olive number that hugged her waist nicely. Owen looked at the sleeve of his tailored suit. Hunter green, a few shades darker than George’s. Not every party he and Piper had attended over the last few years had such specific dress criteria, but the trend of homogeneous attire was becoming increasingly popular. It made for great photographs. He said nothing about it, but he thought it a bit childish. Distinctions between those invited and those disregarded were already clear enough. 

He smiled artificially but had difficulty feigning interest in either his wife or George’s flamboyant display of mixology. He hovered around for what felt like an appropriate amount of time before drifting over to the window. It overlooked a vast and unforgiving desert dyed ochre by the sun. The vegetation around the estate was manicured and prosperous, some of the hedges reaching confidently into the white sky. They became increasingly sparse, however, with every step further from the care of gardeners and landscapers. A few hundred yards out, and there would be no sign of life save for a few tufts of brittle grass and the occasional courageous cactus that dared defy the sun’s oppressive stare. Owen turned his attention to the conversation pit. He waved to his colleague Ezra and took a seat next to him. 

A woman with brassy red hair that had been stiffened into obedience with product was telling a story that everyone seemed to find amusing. Owen had only caught the end of it, but he didn’t see what was so funny. 

“It was just embarrassing! I had to feel bad for the poor thing. She stood there in some frumpy uniform with a crucifix around her neck looking like she’d seen a ghost! I told her she wasn’t in trouble, but she ought to put her palms together and say some Hail Mary’s and hope that the store isn’t out of octopops!”

“Oh, Mia, you’re so bad,” a woman across from her mockingly scolded in an unspecified African accent. 

Mia rolled her eyes. “Look, Maddox’s birthday party was sea-themed, and I had two hours to come up with some appetizers to wow the kids with. And, of course, gluten was completely off the table. Plus, I’d heard octopops are going to be big this summer.” 

Owen tuned the rest of the conversation out, bored and outnumbered in a gaggle of giggling, vapid women. He was displeased to find Ezra completely engaged. He gazed absentmindedly at the dress and drinks of his company. Everyone’s attire was beaded, buttoned, and boasting various shades of green. The women’s’ makeup was bright and sunny, nothing like the inky eyeliner (which he actually preferred) that Piper had worn on their first few dates when they had met in Tehran. They had dusted baby blues and optimistic yellows over their eyelids that matched the polish on their long nails, which wrapped around scintillating green mixed drinks. Owen noticed Ezra, who looked as polished as the women, had almost finished a Sour Grasshopper. Owen knew he would down a few more if he found out there was protein powder in it. Like most men of their cohort, Ezra was adamant about vitamins, dietary supplements, and intense workout routines, just about any kind of accessory to physical optimization. Owen had tried a few powders and taken some metabolism-boosting pills, but they seemed superfluous. He also couldn’t help asking what the constant march toward self-improvement so venerated by his peers was for. And where did it end? Owen left the conversation pit without a word. It would appear rude, but he didn’t care. He wandered beyond the fish tank and into the next room over. 

This one was entirely purple and resembled the interior of a gypsy caravan. Owen winced at the heavy presence of incense, which he hadn’t smelled since his trip to Taiwan. Its floor and walls were covered with velvet rugs and diaphanous canopies that hung like willow trees from the ceiling. An enormous bed crowded by tasseled throw pillows sat in the middle of it, looking like it hadn’t been slept in in years. Unlike the green room, there was nothing to suggest the designer had even the slightest penchant for modernism or natural light. What a bizarre house! Owen had attended several daytime parties at other sprawling mansions with their own degrees of grandiose peculiarity, but none had committed to stark contrast quite like this one. 

Owen noticed an attached bathroom and darted in to relieve himself. He was suddenly surrounded by pink marble and standing on a fluffy pink rug. A sweet perfume confronted him. The heart-shaped bathtub and seashell-shaped sink were accented by sparkly gold faucets and an array of feminine soaps, creams, and powders. He dried his hands on fluffy towels devoid of wrinkles from usage. The room looked as if it had been designed for a movie star one hundred years ago. A mauve curtain hanging behind the tub obscured a sliding door that led to the outdoor pool. Owen stepped through it, immediately met with the sound of soft jazz.

Everything from the lounge chairs to the bathing suits had committed to the theme of optic white. The bottom and sides of the pool itself were lighter than eggshells, so the Caribbean blue of the water must have been the product of an artificial tint. The typically parched desert air had been aromatized with the smell of sea salt, and fans had been installed in the pots of the tropical plants that lined the area to simulate an ocean breeze. A man in a white suit sat at a grand piano, his mocha-colored fingers shifting around the keys with absentminded ease. The guests, most of whom were acquaintances and friends, looked bronzed and trim as they mingled about. Owen’s friend Xavier waved to him, and he had to remind himself to wave back. The more time he spent among these people, the less connected from them he felt. Familiar faces had become indiscernible, and he didn’t care to relearn. He had spent the last few years working and attending cocktail parties, dinners, and galas for vague philanthropic causes with this fabulous milieu and they had been kind. They had let him see the interiors of their hegemonic tech empires and their carefully managed lives. He’d found success and celebrated with them. And yet they appeared wholly unattractive to him. 

As a monied and somewhat public group, they all championed various social causes and spoke with feigned vexation about the natural disasters that had led to mass exoduses from most countries with arid climates. Places like Australia, where George came from, or Iran, where Owen had met Piper, had withered into sparsely populated wastelands. Owen had always known these concerns weren’t all that genuine; his parents had also donated to and promoted charities that they knew little about. It was a social grace to do one’s part, whether one was interested in improving Queens public schools or not. But his peers, a few being tech entrepreneurs but most the progeny of masters of industry, did not share this sentiment. They spoke at multinational charity events and considered their brief appearances as contributions. They were from all over the world and perpetually nomadic, taking up a summer cottage here, a skyline condo there; they were not beholden to the critique or concerns of any community. This had set the stage for a sneering nihilism to settle over the sprawling ensemble of jetsetters. Owen noticed it in their speech and their decadent behavior and had an increasingly difficult time looking away. It coated everything, from the glistening electric vehicles to the overstaffed luxury homes, in a repugnant slime, a spiritual rot. It had oozed into Owen’s conscience and made him feel foul to an extent that pleasing fragrances in the air and zesty flavors on his tongue could not compensate for. Hopelessness among the most blessed seemed absurd, but Owen understood where it was coming from. After all, they were at a desert mansion in what used to be Washington State. 

Owen felt disturbed by his thoughts and deemed it wise to remove himself from his company. He exited the pool area into a completely yellow sunroom and began taking a tour of the house. He strolled aimlessly from monochrome room to room, impressed by the bold aesthetic choices; he was used to palaces of sterility filled with geometric statues and nearly empty rooms that never strayed far from neutral tones. This home was an anomaly of maximalist decoration. He ran into several staff members and tipsy guests who reminded him that the party’s action had moved outside. He politely acknowledged his awareness of this and promise to return soon but had no desire to. His usual passive distaste for his peers had soured into something more pungent today. He grimaced at his inability to deny that he was one of them. His murky mentation was suddenly interrupted when he bumped into a glass wall. Startled, he put his hands in front of him and they met the translucent surface.  

He looked ahead and saw that he faced a leopard.

The glass cage housed a terrarium that simulated the creature’s natural habitat. The floors were covered in dusty brown clay and wispy grass. Bushes and shrubs endemic to an African savanna peppered the interior, blanketed by the harsh light emanating from the ceiling and shining through the windows. The leopard laid lackadaisically across the branches of a bushwillow tree in the center of the room, its majestic coat resembling a painting that had been left out to dry. It slowly raised its head at the sight of a visitor, hazel eyes resting on Owen with slight interest. Even though he knew they were separated by glass, Owen felt his heart skip a beat and anxiety rapidly heat his insides. He had never been threatened on such an instinctual level. 

He stood motionless and unsure of what to do. He studied the animal, marveling at its placid regality. It was a monarch alone on a timber throne and its very presence commanded veneration. Like all natural beauties, it inspired questions in the beholder that it refused to answer. Maybe because it was unable to, or maybe because that would betray its mystique. Owen wondered if there were beasts to be found in the house other than the yappy Pomeranian he had seen scampering around. Logistical inquiries about where and for how much the leopard had been purchased were irrelevant; Owen knew owners of zebras and functionally extinct tortoises and they spoke seldom about the complications of the exotic animal trade. He felt pity for the creature; such a wild being was not to be insulated. He was clearly bored with the day’s stillness and eager for stimulation but had learned not to expect any. Owen tapped on the glass, feeling like a dumb zoogoer. The leopard stretched, unimpressed. It had seen this before. 

Based on its size and square head shape, Owen concluded that the creature was male. It was silly and likely nothing more than an anthropomorphic impulse, but Owen wanted to assign a name and a personality to him. He wanted to know the innerworkings of his mind, which had been tragically stunted by his sedentary existence. It was ridiculous of Owen to even be making such a fuss over the animal; he had visited zoos in a dozen countries and attended grandiose parties with tigers on display in cages next to flaming tiki torches. He’d never cared much for animal rights causes and found their spearheads insufferable. Maybe it was just because he detested everyone else at the party and he was the only living thing in the building who wouldn’t subject Owen to unbearable prattle. He decided to call him Axel. He looked for something to entertain him with but came up empty-handed. 

Owen circled the glass cage and maintained eye contact with Axel, who gave nothing but a slight flick of his tail. He remained in a seemingly anesthetic haze with his intelligent eyes only half-open. After running his hand along the cage’s exterior, Owen felt an indentation. He looked down and realized that his fingers had settled upon a door that had no lock. It seemed fantastical. Who would leave an apex predator in such an accessible position? But then again, everything about this house had been ridiculous. Owen felt his knuckles wrap around the handle before stopping himself. What was he doing? This thing could tear him to shreds! What kind of person would step into a leopard habitat? Besides, he had an appointment with his personal trainer that night. He had spumescent drinks and ineffectual conversations to return to in the party. But his hesitation was eclipsed by a shameful vision. Owen pictured the partygoers’ horror upon seeing Axel emerge through the bathroom door. The carnage that could follow. He thought of his peers and their orthopedic smiles. Their cabinets of pills and potions for self-improvement and fabricated ailments, their pampered pets who took the place of children, the fleets of unacknowledged help hired to handle their every responsibility. Their exorbitant monthly expenditures on private plane rides and papery party décor followed by talk of sustainability. Their scorn for the vast and unrefined underclass with their silly religions and drab work uniforms. Disdain boiled in his stomach. He opened the door, still unsure why. 

Axel turned his attention to the door and stretched again. Muscles rippled beneath his fur as he inched down the tree. Halfway down, the animal stumbled and skidded to the floor like a drunk. Owen was taken aback at his lack of agility. What was wrong with him? Where was the elegant prowess he had seen big cats exhibit in nature documentaries? As Axel’s large paws padded across the habitat and closer to the open door, Owen felt his terror dissipate into pity. Axel yawned, revealing two rows of teeth but no sharp pincers. It was then that a realization settled over Owen. The beast had been defanged, declawed, and pumped with sedatives. That was why he languished and staggered about, likely relatively aware he was of his own impotency. Axel paused in front of the door, only a foot away. He looked up at Owen as if to ask, what now? Owen had the same thought. He supposed Axel hadn’t been out of the cage since he was first placed in it, and who knew how long ago that could have been. Had he been airlifted from a wild grassland or swaddled in a blanket by human hands moments after birth? Did he know of any life beyond those four walls? 

Axel brushed past Owen, who followed him into the adjacent room. Owen realized that on his walk he had circled his way back to the purple bedroom. He heard chatter and the pillowy sounds from the piano just outside. Axel poked around the room for a few minutes, pawing at the drapery, before laying down on the carpet. He must have been tired and disoriented by the effort. Owen relished in a vision of Axel plunging into the pool and marveling at his own weightlessness in the water. Letting out a triumphant roar. Bounding into the desert to reunite with wilderness. Conquering unsuspecting prey using claws that he still had. Tearing it apart with serrated teeth and feeling triumphant, far from caged or inert.  

Owen took a final look at the beast as it neared slumber. He left the door slightly ajar before returning to the party. 

Author's Note

I'm open to all feedback. Feel free to critique!

Reviews

[JayG]

Well, you did ask, so you have only yourself to blame for this. 😆

• "I don't have any formal training and am looking to improve, so I would appreciate your feedback."

Few who come here are smart enough to both recognize that, and take action. So you have the right attitude. But though most don't recognize that they need help, pretty much every hopeful fiction-writer faces the same basic problem: We all have made the natural assumption that the skill we were given in school, called, writing, is the one pointed to by that word in the profession: Fiction-Writing. But ALL professions are acquired IN ADDITION to our set of general school-day skills. And the purpose of that training is to ready us for employment.

Think about the kind of writing that most employers require from us. Nonfiction, right? Employers mostly need reports, papers, and letters. And what kind of writing made up the vast majority of our writing assignments in school? Essays, and reports.

And...the goal of nonfiction writing? It's to concisely and dispassionately INFORM the reader. The methodology is to have a single person, the narrator, report to, and explain things to the reader, who cannot hear or see the one performing, rendering the narrator's “voice” inherently dispassionate.

But…the goal of fiction? E. L. Doctorow put it perfectly with: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

No way in hell can a, “This happened…then that happened…and here’s what you need to know about that…” approach do that. And if we use nonfiction writing techniques to write fiction, the result will read a lot like a report. It will be told in synopsis and overview, by a dispassionate voice, and be as exciting as a history book, because there’s data, but no uncertainty to make the reader wonder, speculate, and, worry.

So it’s not a matter of your talent, or how well you currently write. In fact, you write with more skill than most of the people posting fiction here.

But here’s the thing that kills us: The story ALWAYS works for the author, because you have two things the reader lacks: context and intent. That interferes in two ways. First, is that because you do know the story, the setting, and the characters intimately, you’ll leave out things the reader needs as you write. Then, on reading your own work, you’ll automatically “fill in the blanks” as you read, and never notice a problem. Then, because we’ll never address the problem we don’t see as being one…

To better see how it relates to your work, look at a few lines, not as the all-knowing author, but as the reader, who has only the context you supply, hears a voice that’s dispassionate, and, takes the meaning the words suggest, based on their own life-experience, not your intent.

• It must be peaceful, just swimming around like that day after day.”

When you read this, the picture of the pair, and the setting appears in your mind. And the emotion in the voice is dictated by your knowledge of the scene. But, this could be someone poor, peering over the fence at a rich man’s pool, voice bitter. It could be many things, but without context…

• “I bet it is.”

So someone not introduced replied to someone unknown, in an unknown location. See how your pre-knowledge of where we are, who we are, and what’s going on shapes your own perception of the words?

• The two acquaintances gazed at a fish tank that stretched from the floor to the lofty ceiling, towering thirty feet above their heads.

So these people we know nothing about aren’t even friends? Do we know why they’re there; what caused the remark; what world we’re on? Nope.

My point? Two things: First, the reader requires context as-they-read. Second, you just placed effect: the remark, before cause; the fish. How can that make sense?

Of more importance, isn’t what I just said about the opening lines one of those, “But why didn’t I see that myself?” things? And that’s the key. All your writing reflexes are keyed to entering one piece of data and building on that. So, using that approach, you might say something like, “Fred heard something unusual, outside,” then, move on to describe what he heard and why it matters. But that thing could be benign or dangerous, so the statement, in and of itself, is meaningless. But in Fred’s viewpoint, using his perception it might be:

“The sound of what appeared to be a woodpecker, somewhere in the yard, got Fred out of his chair and moving…”

Or it might be:

“Fred frowned, senses brought to high alert by the unmistakable sound of a rifle chambering a round somewhere in the tiny yard below his room’s window.”

The "something unusual" line was data, reported by a dispassionate outside observer. The other examples are what Fred is about to react to, in real-time. Which approach will bring curiosity, and a need to know more, to your mind?

The first line of a story is the single most important one, because there is no second first impression. That applies to the first paragraph, page, and chapter. But, not knowing the three critical items we need to address on entering any scene if the reader is to have context (where are we, what’s going on, and whose skin do we wear?), will you provide that? Can you?

So, the first order of business is to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge: your professional education. As Mark Twain put it, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” And though we’re not aware of it, we leave our public education years precisely as ready to write fiction as to perform a successful appendectomy.

Remember, universities offer degree programs in Commercial Fiction Writing. Surely some of what they study is necessary. Right?

So, the solution? Simplicity itself. Add the tools the pros take for granted to your own writing tool kit, practice them till they’re as automatic to use as are the nonfiction skills you presently use, and there you are.

Of course, being a profession, there is a fair amount of study and practice involved, but that’s true of pretty much every field. And because you want to write, you’ll find it a lot like going backastage ia a theater for the first time, and filled with: “So THAT’S how they do it."

And if you begin with a few good books on the subject, there’s no pressure, you work when you have time, and at a pace good for you. And, there are no tests. What’s not to love?

The library’s fiction-writing section is a great resource. Personally? I’d suggest Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer, which recently came out of copyright protection. It's the best I've found to date at imparting and clarifying the "nuts-and-bolts" issues of creating a scene that will sing to the reader. The address of an archive site where you can read or download it free is just below. Copy/paste the address into the URL window of any Internet page and hit Return to get there.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

For a kind of overview of the differences between your current nonfiction skills and those of fiction, the articles in my WordPress writing blog are aimed at providing that.

Will that book I suggested make a pro of you? No. That’s your job. It will, though, give you the tools and knowledge with which to do that if it’s in you.


So…. I KNOW this wasn’t what you expected, or hoped to see. But since knowing the problem exists is the first step toward solving it, I thought you'd want to know.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Ella Simone]

I made changes to the opening lines in accordance with your advice; I think you're absolutely right and I had been unsure about those lines anyway. Thank you so much for your thorough review and I will definitely check out Techniques of the Selling Writer and your blog.