heroinE

by Jack Chaucer

A young woman named Evie desperately wants to be the heroine of her own life story, but heroin is a heartless killer. This free short story was inspired by one of the thousands of real-life tragedies playing out right now across America.

Here's the link:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...

5 pages, Nook

Published January 22, 2016

About the author

Jack penned the four-book Nikki Janicek novel series, a genre-bending, unpredictable ride from Lakes of the Clouds Hut in the White Mountains of New Hampshire ("Streaks of Blue," 2013) all the way to deep space ("Mars Colony Agatha: Nikki Red," 2019), with many interesting stops along the way ("Nikki Blue: Source of Trouble," 2015, and "Nikki White: Polar Extremes," 2017). Chaucer also has written the mythological tale "Revenge to the Tennth Power" (2018), the children's book "The Password Is Wishpers" (2017), the political sci-fi thriller "Queens are Wild" (2012) and the rock 'n roll novella "Freeway and the Vin Numbers" (2010), as well as the short stories "Afterlife University" (2023) and "heroinE" (2016). He lives in Litchfield, Connecticut, USA, with his wife and twin 14-year-olds.

Reviews

[the hundred-eyed human · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, now I have got to review this one!! Not because it's a story written by my GR friend, but because it deals with a very very important issue, like really important. It deals with drugs....

The story started of great and I was curious about the herionE, yes, you guessed it right the capital E. Ok, so now this a simple story of a drug addict and she she recovers from her past, and becomes clean. So though the story be 7 pages, it still deals with a very interesting problem, especially among teens and others.
How getting in to dugs is easy, but getting out of it? Well, that's not a piece of cake, is it? This book just reminded me how important it is to keep a sunny disposition of lives and and not get crushed by the big heavy boulder of worries, anxiety, depression and all those things that naturally haunts a human being. So, after reading it I promised myself to make my life as happy as possible, there are hurdles, but everyone wants to jump past it. So do I.
Thank you for a big message, Jack...
Another thing, please it was a marvelous idea, please just elaborate it, make a novella or something. It needs to be get elaborated. It's screaming to get elaborated. Make it long.

[Angela Auten · Rating 5 out of 5]

heroinE Review

Short Story Rating: 5 stars out 5

Story Line: 5 stars out of 5. This short story was to show the effects of heroin. It just proves how addictive a drug can be. Once you get hooked on it. There is no stopping it from taking over your life. This short story was amazingly written. I loved the twist at the end also. Didn't really expect it.

Characters: 5 stars out of 5. Evie was able to see that she was ruining her life with heroin. The reason she was able to throw it away was because of a cute little boy with blue eyes.

Writing Style: 5 stars out of 5. Your writing always impresses me Jack. Great read.

PS. Needed a five minute break from the Michael Jackson book. Was making me mad. Hate his father.

[Ɛɾιɳ ẞҽҽ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don’t feel sorry for me. Evie doesn’t want your pity. I knew the dangers. I had overdosed twice before and got brought back to life by the Wizard of Narcan.

This very short story has some elements that I like: wizards, flying, puppies, love, hugs, massages, unicorns, parties with glow sticks... and I believe the author had good intentions.

There is also some solid advice:

Don’t just hug trees. People need hugs, too.

That said, this didn't work for me. At all. The story and the writing style were both equally terrible and I'm wondering if it was written for a very young child. It was fluffy and silly and so over-the-top ridiculous that it felt like it was making light of the horrors of opiate addiction. It certainly wasn't an accurate portrayal.

It is partially a retelling of the Christian creation myth, which is where the flying, puppies, hugs, massages, manicures, pedicures, unicorns, and glow sticks come in. We are led to believe that the main character has died from an overdose. She evolves from being a dead heroin addict to become a goddess, skipping over the heroine stage. Why be a heroine when you can be a goddess?

In Goddess Evie's new and wonderful world, people can fly (without using drugs), hugs are mandatory, and puppies will shape-shift into snakes and terminate you if you're a bad person who tries to hurt them. But if you're nice to them, your bad deeds are instantly forgiven and you're released. It doesn't matter if you were a bully, a pedophile, or a terrorist, because being nice to puppies will cancel all of that out.

Those who get the urge to bully, fight, make war or terrorize people instantly fall through a trap door and are surrounded by a room full of puppies. If they act angrily to this arrangement or try to harm the puppies in any way, those puppies can shape-shift into venomous snakes and terminate the scum in an instant.

However, if the offenders pet and play nicely with the puppies, they are given a second chance to live above ground and fly again.

When you hit rock bottom, you have to take 10 other people with you, and those people will be bound to you, whether they want to be or not. If and when you tell them about your struggles and pain, you will own them and they'll be yours to keep, forever, unless they can fix you.

When a person is in pain, whether it be physical, mental or emotional, he or she must declare it verbally or non-verbally to 10 other people. After that, all 11 people "own” that pain and must work together to help the sufferer heal. If a medical professional is required, then so be it.

Either way, all 11 will remain connected until the person in pain declares to the other 10 that he or she is healed. If the pain cannot be cured, the other 10 must take turns helping the ailing person for the rest of his or her life.

Also, divorced people are made extinct by a meteor strike, just like the dinosaurs. So if you chose to leave an unhealthy relationship, you were ANNIHILATED. My question is: how does the meteor, and the fallout from it, know to only destroy all divorced people? How can a meteor be selective?

Divorced people once existed, but a meteor crashed into the planet long ago and those people are now extinct. Only their fossils remain.

Alrighty, then.

Don't worry, as long as you don't get divorced, you may continue to exist, and there are perks for hitting your hug quota. But good luck, because you need to hug at least 100 people a day and it's all recorded with a Fitbit, so you can't lie and say that you hugged 100 people when you only hugged 50. GODDESS EVIE WILL FIND OUT and there will be NO PEDICURES FOR YOU.

Free massages, manicures and/or pedicures for all those who hug 100 people in a day out of genuine warmth, compassion and human companionship.

I hope you're at least required to get someone's consent before hugging them, but I'm not sure. I know I would HATE having hundreds of annoying people constantly chasing me to collect hugs on their Fitbit so they can trade them in for free massages. Just... no. If that were the new reality, I would pray for the comet and pray for the cleansing.

I've lost a friend as a result of an accidental opiate overdose. Opiate addiction devastates lives and is notoriously hard to beat. Overdoses are extremely common because of Fentanyl and Carfentanil. I now carry a Naloxone kit with me, just in case, even though I no longer know anyone with an opiate addiction. Someone in the throes of a heroin addiction doesn't walk out of a Dunkin' Donuts and throw away the drugs they've just bought because they happen to see a complete stranger's smiling child and suddenly realize that they want to be happy, too. Give me a break. Cute, but not realistic. If it were that easy, we wouldn't have a problem. Someone with an addiction would at least use up the stuff they've already paid for, to deal with the withdrawals. When someone is addicted to heroin and it has full control of them, the drug always comes first. Even if they're a great parent when they're sober, everything changes when they're high or trying to get high. They don't want to feel sick. They just want to feel okay. Their own child could be sitting right across from them and they'd barely notice, let alone ponder, the child's emotional state. They wouldn't have the capacity to care. Or maybe they're already unconscious or dead from an overdose. It's not pretty.

If people don't pay attention to their own kids in that scenario, then why would someone else's kid's dimples and smile and blueberry-size eyes be the catalyst for deciding to turn their life around?

That's right--they wouldn't.

One day, after emerging from a Dunkin’ Donuts bathroom with my daily dose of heroin secured in a bag, I looked directly into the beautiful, happy face of a little boy I didn’t even know. He was just sitting there with his dad and sister eating munchkins at a table.

His bright eyes as big as blueberries.

His dimpled, cheeky smile.

His infectious giggle.

That killed me … and my downward spiral.

I wanted to be that happy. Wasn’t I once?

More importantly, I wanted to have a son some day who would be that happy.

Somehow, in that paralyzing moment, I decided to betray my cravings and break out of my habit. I stumbled over to the trash bin and forced my trembling hand to shove the heroin bag through the flap.

While I appreciate that the main character of this story wasn't demonized for her addiction, I can't recommend it. Any other book or story about addiction would be a more worthwhile read. This absurdity does nothing to raise awareness. The only thing it has going for it is the message that drug addicts are people too, which any decent human being should already know.

I had always wanted to be a heroine, worthy of the lead character in a bestselling novel that got made into a movie.
But they don’t write stories and make movies like that about heroin addicts.
That’s too bad. Because we are people, too. People with dreams and desires and flaws just like everyone else.

It just so happens that my flaw proved fatal.

Last thing: the red-haired hippie "goddess" on the cover looks like she's getting hand-fasted, which doesn't seem fitting for a story about heroin addiction, unless she's supposed to be married to the drug. If she divorces heroin, will she be killed by a meteor? That sounds much worse.

[Katriann · Rating 3 out of 5]

"One extreme example that I now can identify with is heroine and her dangerous alter ego, heroin.

Drop an "e" and you go from the girl everyone cheers for to the girl who steals to get high; the girl who never dies to the girl most likely to die before age 25."

This short story sends an important message about drug addiction. It reminds the reader that it's possible to break the habit and stop using whatever it is that you're poisoning yourself with. It is difficult and it takes determination, but it is possible. This story encourages the reader to be the hero/heroine of their own story instead of being a slave to a drug or some other harmful substance.

This story is a super quick read (it's only 16 pages) and it discusses an important topic. I would recommend it to anyone interested in stories with positive messages and themes of struggle and survival. It's not a mind blowing story but it's not boring or bad either. I could easily see it being extended into a full length novel.

[goda · Rating 4 out of 5]

quick read (obviously), i think i’m getting more into jack chaucers work.