Nico’s a junkie.

Sometimes it’s all about the first line. Most times I’m writing, getting that first line is like trying to knock through a brick wall with your bare fists. Other times, that first line is delivered straight from God. That was my experience for the opener for Junkie, my short story just published by GossamerWight Press.

It came. It was there. It’s simple and clear and sets up two characters (Nico and the speaker) and the situation. And it’s provocative. Junkie is a loaded word. Junkie can be considered a statement of fact. It can also be a judgment. Sure, some editors might have scoffed at my story because of that first line (and the title), but I did not care. This was the story I was telling.

Junkie is about Scott, a youngish man who is suffering from a syndrome termed TDS, time displacement syndrome. He frequently finds himself reliving scenes from his past, not just in his thoughts, but in his reality. For this loop, he’s caught in a relationship with his ex, Darya. It’s a doomed relationship. He knows where it’s headed, and despite this looping into the past, nothing he does can ever materially change it.

It’s not revealing anything to say that I love all things speculative when it comes to literature, movies and television. As a fan, I think it’s fun, simple as that. As a writer, it gives me more room to play. Metaphors can do a lot of the heavy lifting in storytelling. Metaphors such as…having a man be caught re-living scenes from a failed relationship in real time.

On the most basic non-speculative level, Junkie is basically about how we can sometimes get caught in mental loops from the past, obsessing over things we cannot change, wondering if only. We all do it. Sure, I could have had Scott thinking about all this. But where’s the fun in that?

Instead I made it real. I made it tangible. I also took another literary risk: I told the story in second person.

Second  person is the most controversial of all storytelling modes. First and third are easy and familiar. You, however, is not. You unsettles people. They ask, is it me? Am I implicated? Who is this you?

I chose second person for a couple of reasons. First, I did want to immerse the reader into this emotional tilt-a-whirl. But I also wanted Scott to distance himself from his own emotions. Rather than saying I feel, he says you feel. He’s putting those feelings on you (or the proverbial you).

With Junkie I also wanted to play with foreign languages. Darya and Scott can’t communicate very well to begin with. Now throw in a little Farsi, and some high school Spanish. I am a writer. It is my role to find the right words to communicate. But in my real life? Just like all 7 billion humans on the planet, I struggle all the time with finding the right words, not only in terms of relaying them to others, but in identifying them for myself. Scott fails at this as well, but not for lack of trying.

Technically this was a challenging story, between the timelines and point of view, not to mention the challenge of writing about a generic failed relationship. It was work but I’m glad I took it on.

Another thing I am glad about is the fact that I ignored my first decision to NOT submit to the magazine’s call for submissions. The theme was unstable realities, and I told myself that my story didn’t quite fit, so why waste my time? Then I reconsidered, my thinking being, let the EDITOR decide that. And I am glad I did. Turns out, the editors thought I nailed the theme.

So the moral of that story is, when in doubt, submit!