Reportage

by Brian C. Short

When his friend Scooter commits suicide, a deeply unsettled man is made to recount the time when, shortly after his own divorce, adrift in an existential inner wasteland, the two of them became entangled in an ontological mystery that now seems more dream than actuality, more absurdist drama than the substance of memory. Yet he knows that something has happened, something deeply traumatic that is in some way responsible for his friend’s death – it just isn’t clear what it really was… Was it the ordinary madness of two persons lost in the ruins of their lives? Or truly, as it seemed, an abduction by a secret military unit in the middle of the night? Was this something beyond the ordinarily human, a UFO abduction in disguise? And to what end could the two of them have been exploited by their own country’s arcane spy network, because it seems they were both the victims of a covert mind control program, which neither were aware of? Is it possible that all of these are screen memories for something even more unsettling than they already seem? Inevitably, he must contend with the damage done to his friend, the damage to himself, and the inscrutable gifts these encounters have left him with – these and the derangements of the self they foretell, the shifting of dream and reality, the unraveled threads of meaning toward some ultimate joke, or some revelation of seeming truth always just around the next dim-lit corner.

39 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 6, 2013

About the author

The things that inspire me have usually been difficult things, books that take several readings and that I maybe still don’t understand. I love enigma and a well-placed ambiguity, and I want a book to make me ask questions, still, after several re-readings, because the more that I ask, the more deeply involved I become. This is all by way of explanation, or a challenge, or perhaps an apology, for what I try to write, because I don’t think books should be a disposable commodity, something consumed once and had done with. That has its place, but it’s not what I’m about. I’d much rather books be sticky and trap you in them. They should be a maze you get lost inside of, a deep cavern underground. I’m not trying to make a bestseller, but I do want to articulate the dizzy space in between the ground and the sky, and the vertigo of their relations, and if I do that well I’ve succeeded.
My home is in the Northwest, but I work sometimes in other places and never stay still for long. I’ve been around a bit, but I’ve certainly not gone everywhere, though I want to go everywhere before I’m finished. I’ve done a lot of things badly and a couple of things well, and had lasting success at none of them. But I’m still here, and that counts for something.
I love good coffee. I just love coffee, even if it’s no good. I stand in awe, and dread, of strong wind. Thunder is beauty, and lightning is bliss.