Let it burn

 

Surging about in the back of my mind like flotsam and always just outof reach is My Big Idea. An idea for a novel. It tantalizes andteases, but never delivers.

That’s the oneindispensable thing about writing: the idea. It’s not enoughto throw words at a page. It has to be about something. It has to bea story. What do you want to say? Need to say? And why shouldanyone be bothered?

It starts with theidea. The thought. The few wisps of a scene. A character. Somethingthat happens. Something that will happen. You grab GentleReader by the throat and choke him with your brilliance. You make himsee. You tell him what’s going on. You convince him that heneeds – no, he must! -- keep reading, because if he doesn’t …

It’s the idea.

Andthis idea, thislittle torturer ofan idea:

First person.Present day. Man wakes up and … everyone is dead. Everyone.Everywhere. Spouse. Kids. Neighbors. The mayor. The homeless lady whospends her day sitting on the sidewalk near the filling station. Theyoung lady across the street who always walks her perfectly-manicuredpoodle in the mornings before she goes to work.

They’ve allgone to glory.

I’vetried to write it but itcomes out flat. Uninspired. I can’t find the rightwords. Manwalks around the city. Dead bus driver at the corner, still wearinghis Metro hat. Dead police officersat the Police Station. Everyone dead. Man walks around in disbelief.It can’t be happening. It can’t be real. But … it isreal. A daygoes by. Another day. The smell … oh goodness, the smell. Thousandsof bodies left to rot. The purplish faces. The bloating. Theindignity of it all. Theincomprehensibility. Thesheer impossibility.

Why?Man screams at sky. Sky has no answer. Apocalypse?Virus? Bird flu? Mother Nature hasa bee in her bonnet? Whatanswer could there possibly be? Doesan answer matter? Wouldcomprehensionnumb the horror?Would a complete and full understanding make the situation bearable?

And…

Nowthat everyone is dead, what is like to be alive? In a world ofcorpses and rotting flesh, ina graveyardof ghosts and yesterdays and what used to be, ina world irretrievably lost,what does it mean to be, to exist, to have breath? Whatdoes it feel like?What do you do? What canyou do? How long before you tire of walking around in a daze? Howlong before it becomes normal? How soon before you getback to the business of living? Whatdo you tell yourself about what happened and what it means and whyyou were spared? What is your purpose in life? Doesyour life even matter if no one else is there to witness it? Who doyou talk to? Where do youfind meaning? How does it change you? Will you go mad? How soonbefore the electricity dies? How long will water flow through thetaps? What happens if you getsick? And how do you pray? And what do you say to the God who letthis indescribable madnesshappen? Do you comfortyourself with the idea that this happened before during the GreatFlood when the entire world save Noah and his family were drowned?Howdo you square this thoughtwith the Biblical injunctionthat God is love?

Iwant to put this idea downon the page. I want to see it come to life. I want to know how thestory ends. But I get stuck. Each time I try to write it, I whip outa few pages, I’m offand running, the muse is dancing, the words are coming, and … I getstuck.

Wordsfail me.

I’mreminded of some of the charactersin my novels. I think Iknow who theyare and what they want tosay. I put words into their mouths. But theyinsist on speakingfor themselves. They makeit clear I was wrongabout them. They come alive. They say what theywant to say. They don’t care about my ideas. They don’t give atoss about my plot plans. They know who they are and aren’thappy until I go back andrewrite their scenesand getit right. They have their ownthoughts and motivations, their own ways of speaking and being in theworld, and they will settlefor no less.

Eachtime I try to wrestle MyBig Idea to the page, thecharacters sit there. Theydon’t like the words I’ve put into their mouths. Theyare silent.Like they don’t want theirstory told. Like I’m not theone who should tell it. Likethey’re waiting for someone better, someone with the right words,the right touch.

Andwhat’s with thisapocalyptic, let-it-burnfiction filling our book shelves and movie screens: TheWalking Dead, The Stand, Left Behind, The Hunger Games, ResidentEvil? What is this fascinationwith the end of the world, the collapse of civilization? Do we sensesomething in the wind? Is it some deep, primal intuition? Are wetrying to prepare ourselves for our own demise? Is it the outpouringof a generation raised during the Cold War when the possibility ofnuclear bombs raining down from the sky was very real? Are we tryingto say something about the ravaging of the natural world, the rape ofthe earth? Have we spent toomuch time pondering the Book of Revelations?

Whatis this darkness?

Whatsort of writer feelsfrustrated and torturedbecause he can’t find the words to write a novel about every singlehuman being on the face of the earth giving up the ghost?

Maybeit’s a story that can’t be told. Ought not to be. Maybe somethinginside me rebels at such a bleak depiction of human life.

Isit dark? Indeed it is. And maybeit says things about me that make me uncomfortable. But what is thejob of the writer if not to march into the darkness and tell thetruth about what’s there?

Maybethe only way to truly celebrate life is to consider its completeopposite. Maybe light has no meaning without darkness.

Butin the end, perhaps trying to imagine life without other human beingsis impossible.

Itlingers there. In the back of my mind.

Let it burn!

Yes,but … how?

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