Lest They Be Forgotten

Hemingway, Greene, Steinbeck and the Other Guy

(What happens when the writer gets stuck in his own story along with his heroes? This is a cautionary tale for aspiring writers who look for fame and fortune in today's literary landscape. This story was published in the anthology That Not Forgotten - Hidden Brook Press, in 2012)

Hemingway, Greene, Steinbeck and the Other Guy

It must have been a dream. I was on the ceiling looking down at my mortal remains, stiffening by the minute, finger poised to send out a broadcast message on Facebook to my 14,000-plus  faceless fans in cyberspace, announcing that my latest book was about to launch, while the paramedics were breaking into my study to take my body away in a gurney.

Then I was floating off somewhere else, in this barren space with no trees, just mist and wide open fields that promised nothing. Three old guys were sitting on the side of a narrow cart path. On nearing, I was shocked to recognize them as my three heroes: Hemingway, Greene and Steinbeck. They looked glum. But most writers do on the dust jackets of their books.

“Is this Heaven, or Facebook?” I asked

 “It’s Heaven,” said Greene the Catholic, a benign smile on his face. “I’ve tried hard to get here with no help from the Church. But the place falls below expectations.”

“It is fiction,” grunted Papa Hemingway. “I’m always thirsty in this joint. It’s dry.”

“It’s a movie set,” said Steinbeck. “For a low-budget movie. Not one of mine. What’s Facebook?”

I realized my predicament. “It came after your time,” I said, sitting down beside them.

“Are you a writer?” asked Greene.

“Yes...sort of.”

“How many books have you written?” asked Steinbeck eagerly. “I’ve written so many, I can’t even remember. Even my diaries and journals were published after I...er... died.”

“About three,” I said.

“What do you mean ‘about’?” growled Hemingway.

“Well, one was self-published, so that doesn’t count, does it?”

Hemingway’s eyes blazed. “Who says so? Every goddamn thing you write counts. When people could not get it anymore, I blew my brains out. I didn’t want to live with a bunch of morons.”

Greene sighed. “I couldn’t blow my brains out even when I tried—several times. You can’t trust the Russians when it comes to Roulette, you know.”

“I got the ‘two for one special’ with my writing,” said Steinbeck. “When I wrote novels, I turned them into screenplays and vice versa. But my stuff was so sad I had to exit the world. They even said that my book about Grapes was obscene.”

“You are all so prolific,” I said. “You must have written at least 20 books apiece.”

“What took you so long to write three books?” asked Hemingway. “You are not exactly a spring chicken.”

“I had to work—full time, to earn a living. Among other things...”

“We all worked,” Steinbeck said. “I worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter. Hem here was a journalist and Graham...what exactly did you do Graham, gadding off to all those foreign countries?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” whispered Greene. “Governments will fall, you know.”

“Well, I worked in software,” I said.

“Does that mean—women?’ grunted Hemingway. “Were you a pimp?”

“No—software came after your time too.”

“Well, what took you so long with the books?” Hemingway repeated.

Just then, a solitary cyclist came wobbling by. He had a long grey beard and narrow eyes. He accelerated his speed as he neared, as if he did not want to talk to us.

“You should speak to him,” Steinbeck motioned. “His oeuvre is about as thick as yours.”

I recognized the rider. “That’s not....”

“Yes,” Greene nodded solemnly.

 “S-------,” Hemingway said in his customary clipped style.

Something bubbled inside me. I recognized it by how I used to feel when those rejection slips arrived in the mail, some addressed to the wrong person by some clueless summer student who helped overburdened publishers eliminate their slush piles.

“I’ll be back,” I said to my three amigos and rushed after the cyclist.

“Hey—stop! Mr. S-------?”

The cyclist wobbled to a halt at the side of the cart path and looked back at me like a man caught by his wife while reading a porn book.

“Why the hell did you not publish all those books that you wrote in hiding?” I asked. “You deprived us from reading great masterpieces.”

“None of your business,” the venerable recluse answered and put his feet back on the pedals.

“No, wait. Do you want know why I could not publish more than the number of books you had out?”

“No.”

“I’m gonna tell you anyway,” I said, trying to keep pace with his cycling. Luckily, he was so frail he could not travel fast. I jogged beside him, giving him my story.

“It took me seven years to write my first book, seven more to find a publisher and seven afterwards to publicise it wherever I could. I was famous on Google but only sold a handful of copies, because there was so much choice. Besides, people were deferring retirement and working 24/7 to earn a living after the great crash of 2008 devoured their savings – they had no time to read.  On average, a guy my age read one book a year—non-fiction, especially after 9/11. And their kids—Gen Y’s—were Texting and Twittering – they did not read books. There were more damn writers than readers in my time. Every mother’s son and daughter was living long enough that they all thought they had a book in them. I had to repeat my 21-year cycle with every book I wrote. My heart finally gave out on the third round.”

The cyclist stopped. “You are giving me a headache with your foreign language. What does Google, Texting, Twittering, 24/7, 9/11 and Gen Y mean?”

“You didn’t get out much did you? Did you ever hear about the Internet? That’s what started it.” 

“Oh, that. I ignored it. And all I had to do was go underground and the silly buggers could not get enough of me. I think you tried too hard to get famous. Less is more, you know.”

“You had it damned lucky!” I stomped my feet.

“You writers have it tough these days, I think,” he said. His words of wisdom tripped off his tongue and hit the ground to bounce back and clobber me on the head.

“And you thought you had issues?” I screamed.

“Well, at least you won’t have to bother yourself with all that stuff here.” Mr S pushed off again.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because there are no readers here at all! This is a writer’s paradise. At least, for me.”

He left me standing in that limbo land, pretty much as I had been all my life as a writer. Like my heroes, I had finally created my own reality in Heaven, or Facebook or wherever this place was.