A man wearing the life jacket he retrieved from under his seat stands in the open door of the airplane looking out serenely. He is in his thirties, perhaps, neatly, but comfortably, dressed—a perfect “casual (but not too casual) Friday” outfit. The look on his face brings to mind Juliet telling Romeo “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” Yes, he must leave the plane soon, but first, he’s taking a moment to appreciate the beautiful sunrise. We can deduce that he’s looking at a sunrise from the warm, yellow-orange light that illuminates him. He’s not in any hurry—there’s no one inside the plane behind him screaming or pushing to get out, and the plane isn’t heaving or rocking—not in the least—the waters of this ocean (we assume it’s the North Atlantic) must be remarkably calm this morning. He’s got all the time in the world—why not take in the view before plunging into the icy waters?

There’s no telling what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s wondering about the three other passengers on the plane. There was a young woman and a little girl—no doubt mother and daughter. Where was the father? Was the mother taking her daughter back to him—or fleeing him? Probably not fleeing him—she looked too happy—both of them looked too happy—to be having that kind of trauma in their lives. Yes, he’s certain they were going home—probably had a wonderful visit with grandma (too bad daddy had to work!) and now they’re going home. When he saw them at gate, he smiled and waved at the little girl, and she smiled and waved back.

How remarkably calm those two were when the cabin depressurized and the oxygen bags fell from the ceiling! The young woman pulled the mask downward sharply, then placed it over her own face. The little girl, who couldn’t be more than five or six, clearly took after her mother—showed no fear whatsoever—even smiled up at her mother as her mother helped her with her own mask.

Where were they now? Possibly floating off into the sunrise on one of the emergency slides that could be detached and used as a life raft. Maybe the one other passenger on the plane—the flight attendant—was with them. What a sharp-looking blue uniform she wore! How impressed the little girl was when the flight attendant walked by them at the gate. Maybe that encounter will inspire the little girl (if she survives) to become a flight attendant one day!

It’s time to go. He pulls the cord on the life jacket, but as far as we can tell, nothing happens. He blows on the tubes, but that seems to have no effect either. Is that a problem? It doesn’t seem to bother him. The life jacket might already be inflated—maybe he already inflated it, and forgot. It’s really hard to tell.

As he stands there, perhaps wondering whether or not his life jacket is inflated, darkness slowly falls and he fades from view. Maybe it was a sunset he was looking at, and not a sunrise.

(A description of “The Man in the Life Jacket” scene from the animated short “In Case of Emergency” shown to passengers by Condor Airlines prior to departing Frankfort airport for Portland International.)

“There is a queftion in natural hiftory that has, in efpecial

manner, folicited from me thefe obfervations. I mean the

queftion concerning the fafcinating faculty, which has been

afcribed to different kinds of American ferpents. It is my

intention to examine this queftion, in the memoir which I now

prefent to the Philofophical Society”

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.

–Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, & the Arts (1804)

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.

People fascinate me. It seems to me that the most ordinary-seeming person, if pressed (and if they were being honest) would soon reveal themselves to be composed of thousands of odd little stories, and despite the fact the each of these stories has its own idiosyncratic shape, at once elbowy and intestinal, they are all interwoven and fitted so seemlessly as to construct the singular one we see standing before us. People are like Dr. Who’s “Tardis”: bigger on the inside than the outside.

Cats fascinate me. If a human were a very complex sort of soup, a cat would be a spoonful of that soup. Everything in that spoon contains a little bit of what’s in the pot. One generally does not drink soup straight out of the pot—one consumes it a spoonful of time (I’m not suggesting you eat your cat—this is a metaphor, okay?) Why? I guess you could say soup by the spoonful is a little less “in your face” than by the potful. So I can look at (and get to know) a cat, and feel like I’ve had a taste of the near-infinite complexity of what humanity is made of.

Since I call myself a novelist, you may find it strange that novels don’t fascinate me. Don’t get me wrong—I’ve read novels that interested me, that awed me, that inspired me, that changed my life. But I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel that fascinated me—it’s a different sort of engagement. For me, reading a great novel is like watching a trainwreck in slow motion—truly, I can’t look away—but I’m too immersed in it to engage with it intellectually in the way that defines “fascination” for me.

On the other hand, short stories (good ones) do fascinate me. A great short story (Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Feathertop” or “The Black Veil”, Guy de Maupassant’s “Butterball”, Isak Dinesen’s “Babette’s Feast” (or just about any of the stories in 7 Gothic Tales) to name just a few). To read a great short story is to see the world in a grain of sand. Yet another “Tardis” of sorts. I guess it’s the oddly pleasurable necessity of pulling so much out of myself to fill in the blanks that makes reading a great short story such a different experience than reading a great novel.

My fascination with stories isn’t limited to those that are written down. Stories people tell me fascinate me. People probably wouldn’t tell me their stories, if they had any idea how much I read into them.

Dreams fascinate me. Analyzing a dream is like planting and watering a strange, gem-like seed that inevitably blooms into an even stranger flower. I’ve had dreams I’ve thought about for nearly my whole life. When I was little (5? 6?), I dreamt I was attacked by a skeleton wearing army boots. My father saved me by tying the skeleton’s shoelaces together. That image of my father—so deft and fearless—has stayed with me my whole life. No question it is an image that is infinitely bigger on the inside than the outside.

Love fascinates me. If anything is bigger on the inside than the outside, it’s love.

Hate doesn’t fascinate me. If anything is smaller on the inside than it is on the outside it’s hate. Hate is nearly the ultimate simplifier. I say nearly, because I suppose the prize would have to go to the black hole—a thing that pulls everything in and squeezes it down to  a “nothing” that, somehow, makes the black hole ever more powerful. Now that I think about it, maybe hate is even better at that.

Gosh, I feel like I’m done, but I don’t want to end on that note. What else fascinates me? There’s gotta be one more thing. I don’t know—Sumo wrestling, maybe.

Then Come, in Order of Decreasing Frequency

Then come, in order of decreasing frequency

The beating of the pulse,

The chirping of crickets or cicadas,

The rustling of leaves,

The crackling noises of the telephone,

The measured tread of a troop of soldiers, and

Various strange noises, which patients have likened to

The meeting of railway trains under a roof on which

Heavy rain was falling,

The rumbling of a receding cart,

The shuffling of a pack of cards,

And the rolling of thunder.

–Adapted from an article about tinnitus in the Scientific American magazine

Volume 104 (March 25, 1911)

I believe there are two types of great writers in this world: those who seem to have been born with an inexplicable knack for it (Jane Austen, Isaak Dinesen, Yukio Mishima, Mark Twain, to name a very few), and the rest of us.

If you are human, and your eyes are open, and your heart is open, and you have the temerity to write honestly about your experience, you can write something well worth reading.

About thirty years ago, I was judge of a short story contest sponsored by a community college. The record will show (if the record still exists) that there were three persons on the panel, and I was none of them. The reality is, I was all three (and that’s a story for another time). I awarded the first-place prize to a woman who wrote a story about a woman who was so envious of the love and attention the family dog got from her husband and her children, that she began turning into a dog herself.

I heard that at the awards ceremony, she said she hadn’t submitted the story with any hope of winning—in fact, she had only submitted it because submitting a story to the contest was the assignment of the week for her English class. She said getting the award changed the way she felt about herself—that for the first time in her adult life, she felt like what she had to say—how she saw the world—was significant. I don’t know if she continued to write (or if she even wanted to), but I hope that feeling of pride in her own voice stayed with her for as long as my memory of her remarkable short story has.

Those of us who want to write, but weren’t born with the inexplicable knack, can still be great. We all have something no one else has: our own experience and our own voice.

I’m not encouraging everyone to write. I’m not one of those who believes that everyone should write, just like everyone should brush their teeth. But if you do want to write, and what’s holding you back is that you don’t think you’re any good at it, or you don’t have anything to say, I beg to differ.

Here’s some tips for the beginner, which you can trust absolutely as having come directly to you from a beginner:

If you can’t think of anything else to write, try writing yourself a letter. Write as if you were your own BFF, and hadn’t seen or heard from yourself in a year, and you want to catch you up on everything that has happened in your life. Remember that honesty is key here.

If you want to write a story: Explain nothing, just tell the story. Don’t make your characters explain anything, just let them speak. For the advanced beginner: Try coming at things sideways, just for grins.

If you want to write a scene: Get the scene in general in your head, then imagine that somewhere in your scene, you have hidden a beautiful gem for your readers. Take a long walk and think about what that gem might be, and where it might be. Keep walking until you find it.

If you want to write a novel: Join a writers group. Don’t think of your fellow writers as critics of your work, think of them as people who will show you how your writing affects people. Remember that the first priority of a writers group is to encourage people to write. Take criticism humbly and with an open mind. It’s bound to hurt a little bit, sometimes, but you can handle it. Give criticism kindly. Perhaps the best advice I can give concerning criticism in a writers group is, it’s often less hurtful and more productive to say “Tell me what you were going for here” than “This doesn’t work.”

One last piece of advice: Read Isaak Dinesen’s “Seven Gothic Tales”, and Freud’s “Psychopathology of Everyday Life”, and Vonnegut’s “Long Walk to Forever.”

Finally, what some might say in anger or frustration, I say with love: If you’ve got something to say, say it.