A Dream of Fortune/The Fate of Meteors

We are all assembled in ranks like a tray of chocolates. There are a table and a microphone at the stage end of the room. The stage is just high enough to keep the average man visible to all average men in the room who aren't seated behind anyone exceptionally tall. I say men, but there are women, too, and some of them are taller than the stage provides for.

A man walks in. He is of average height, perhaps a little shorter, well-built but not imposing. His hair, recently cut, is a bit short for its shape. We have seen pictures of it a bit long for its shape, thick and wavy like overgrown grass. The man smoothes it back absently as if it were too long. There is a sheepish crinkle in his tired eyes. He looks as if he has slept better recently than he had been accustomed to. There are a relief and wariness in his step that do not seem to clash, as if he had swapped one long struggle for a new one and was just making the transition, basking in the stillness before the surge.

He glances around the room as if he'd just stepped off a train and was looking for landmarks. He glances at me and I look away automatically, afraid to be seen studying him, as if a great statue of a very private man had suddenly stirred in its armour and noticed me gawking like a thief.

We are all looking away under that quick, lost gaze, then looking back. He has reached the microphone and is taking his seat.

He whistles the first bar of some made up tune. Half the room quiets. He looks at me, eyebrows arched inquiringly. They do not quite round. I nod. He smiles and nods.

He coughs. The room falls silent, like a threatened stretch of woods.

We do not know what to make of this man. A week ago, as far as most of us knew, he was a nobody, one of the silent, supple stalks of grass in the unevenly kept lawn of humanity, part of the background against which great events were played and our frantic columns were written. He may have read us, but we never read him, and in our arcane hierarchy, he hung low, a cog or a speck of dust in the machinery of our success. Suddenly he has outshone us all, risen higher, made himself known to millions more than any one of us in our local rags and border-busting megazines can dare to dream of reaching.

"I was supposed to be introduced by my publicist," he begins, "but the long flight back from London and the rapid change of cuisine have not improved his digestion, so I've elected to introduce myself. Since there's plenty on that note in the press kit and on my and the publisher's websites, I thought we could just get down to business and field your questions. I'm afraid I don't know many of your names, so I'll just point as you raise your hands. You keep your questions brief and I'll keep my responses interesting. If you need anything rephrased or condensed, just come up to me afterward and we'll work on it together. You help me sell books and I'll help you sell copy."

There is a pause. We are not used to such incisive patter. He has simultaneously reduced our relationship to the essential and glorified our part in it.

Hands are raised. He points. The woman in front of me, torso distressingly long, stands up. I crane around her to keep my view.

"Your rise to fame has been meteoric to say the least, " the woman intones. Her question rings of long, tense preparation. "How are you coping with the sudden success?"

The man smiles wryly, snorts faintly, gently, as though at a cherished but mistaken child.

"The fate of meteors is not to be envied," he replies. There is general laughter. "Nor is their rise to be accounted for in our first glimpse of them. They have circled and plunged for eons before our eyes pick them from the stars and dark. By the same token, my rise to notoriety cannot really be called sudden. I have been writing seriously since the fifth grade. I have risen quite slowly in the shadows and only just lately come to light. There has been no sudden rising here.

"As for how I'm coping–well, not much has changed. I have swapped professions, that is true, and my new profession, once the publicity end of it is taken care of, will leave me, at intervals, more time for writing, research and introspection than I have previously enjoyed, but I will not be embarking on a life of leisure. A meteor must fly."

There is laughter again. He points again.

"Well, then, how is your family coping?"

"Perhaps–no, definitely–the most important question that will be posed this afternoon. So far they have little to cope with. I have been absent more than I was wont to be, but we were prepared for that, both psychologically and technologically. One of the great advantages to this new job will be the long stretches of disposable time. As I have said, I will not be lazing about by any means, but I will have more time for my loved ones than I would have as a teacher."

He points again.

"Speaking of that–your old profession. Are you just going to give it up? You were quoted earlier this week as saying you hesitated to leave the arena that provided much of your inspiration and that writers who retired from real life were bound to write nothing but incest."

The man laughs, enjoying the corner he's been backed into.

"Did I say it that well?

"Almost verbatim."

"Well, and I meant it. It's a question I've been mulling for years, ever since I decided to make a serious bid for publication. I think I still have something to contribute in that field and I do wish to keep normal contact with people who see me as fallible and in no way to be venerated. At the same time, however, I am mindful that my place ought to be taken by someone who needs it. It's a tricky issue with many perspectives to be considered. Certainly I will keep up in the field and more than likely make the odd noise in it. There is a good chance I will make the metamorphosis from worker to employer, thereby killing several birds with one stone, although I suppose it will be nigh impossible to retain the same hold on reality.

"I might have preferred a less meteoric debut, but I will not sniff at the success I've been granted and I will not pray for its decline. I only hope that I will be allowed to maintain the friendships that have mattered so much to me over the years and that those friends, at least, will leave their hearts and homes open to me as they did before my name appeared in lights."

He points again.

"Which brings up another question. Can they really do that anymore? Where will draw your inspiration for characters and events if not from those closest to you? Will they not fear to be exposed?"

The man smiles ruefully.

"There is no doubt that my current good fortune will test and strain some of my relationships. I have made a point, however, of telling people how they've contributed to my work and asking their leave to share it. In one or two cases, that leave has been denied and I have respected that denial bye either putting aside the manuscript in question or reworking the sections in question. It is painful to have to undo good work, but it is essential if one wishes to remain human."

There is much scribbling throughout the discussion–and it feels like a discussion. We feel–respected, whatever our opinions of his work; he gives us credit for thinking and wanting to know, for contributing to his success even by bemoaning it.

I am pointed at. I stand.

"What do you say of your critics, those who say your views are too conservative, that you are not sufficiently accepting of alternative lifestyles?"

He smiles. It is a sad smile. The look in his eye is of bemusement and longing.

"I say that they and I are entitled to differ. It is a dangerous world in which everyone agrees with everyone else and in which disagreements are suppressed and swept under the rug. I wish all men–all beings–happiness and I realize that we are not all the same in terms of what makes us happy or in the degrees or tones of happiness we seek. I think that some behaviours seem harmless on a personal level, a mere matter of choice, but are in fact harmful on other levels and may cause the downfall or damage of so-called society, but I also consider that a society that categorically suppresses individual freedom has by its severity already sustained damage and may be in the course of a downfall. There's more than one way to skin a civilization, more than one road to destruction."

I have asked my question and received an answer. I must sit and listen. But I am not satisfied. Perhaps I can never be. I love his work–what I have seen of it, but I am wounded deeply by its undertones.

I have missed several questions. I will have to confer with some of the others. The man points once more and informs us this will be the last  question.

A bald man stands up, pudgy and poorly dressed, an eyesore and a brazen one. He looks down his angry nose at us, too old now to be teased, an independent survivor of high school and professional conformity.

"How has your success changed you the most?"

The man struggles but fails to suppress a yawn. He draws a hand down across his tired eyes, formless cheeks and present but inadequate chin.

"I'm sorry, that was not for you. It really was a long flight and it's past my bedtime in London. You're question is a good one.

"It's good to have choices," he says.

　

© 2006 Mark Penny