The incarnation
Source
Deep in thought, Joaquín walks towards the subway station.
Like an automaton, he crosses the street and, now safe from the whistles of the cars, he gets ready to use the escalator that will take him to the subway.
He is still in shock at the proposal of Mister Fredman, as he calls him, director of the largest film company in the country, to transform his first novel, which has had only medium acceptance in bookstores, into a movie, so everything seems crazy to him.
He even thought it was a joke with a hidden camera, so he did not take it very seriously, but now, with a copy of the contract in his briefcase to be studied and signed, he is convinced that some environmental mutation has caused the famous businessman to be interested in his story, in which the protagonist, a being created by his imagination with all the characteristics to fill his existential voids, narrates her life, so similar to his own, that it seems an exercise of shared catharsis.
He always wrote poetry, that incursion into narrative hand in hand with poetic prose was only an experiment that in the end ended up being her first publication, thanks to the insistence of a friend, who ended up serving as editor and even collaborated monetarily to be able to shape the book on paper in her husband's printing house.
It was she who called him and indicated the appointment, which she could not attend to accompany him.
-Joaquin, promise me that you will only listen to Mr. Fredman, I'll take care of the rest later.
They have known each other since they were children and that is the reason for the request, since he knows their aversion to certain characters.
A knock brings him out of his thoughts.
He have bumped into someone.
-Excuse me.
It is a woman he sees out of the corner of his eye as he bends to pick up a book she was carrying in her hand that has rolled almost to the stairs.
Surprisingly, when he picks it up, he realizes that it is his novel.
From there you can see her legs sheathed in black nylon mesh stockings.
She gets up and when he sees her face to face, as if he has seen a ghost, he is perplexed into silence.
-It's my fault, because I was in a hurry to take the subway I didn't see it, I'm sorry.
His brain, like a state-of-the-art photographic developer, projects the image of someone so well known that it is impossible for it to be the same person.
In the same way she looks at him in amazement.
-Are you Joaquín Febres?
He shakes his head affirmatively at the resistance of his lips to move.
-What a coincidence!
His voice is the same one that projects his imagination when he creates the dialogues in which he participates.
Her figure sheathed in a dress composed of mini skirt jeans and V-neck blouse, which shows how generous her breasts are, is the same that she invented to be the favorite for her.
The fleshy lips painted in the unusual color of light brown and her light brown eyes, which turn yellow in the light, corroborate that the person standing in front of him is the incarnation of the protagonist of his novel.
Breaking the barrier of the prison of silence in which his vocal cords are located, he asks her.
-Your name is Sheila?
She looks into his eyes and can feel the sparkle emanating from his.
-How do you know? Do we know each other?
There is no way to explain so many coincidences or causalities; if I did, I would undoubtedly call him crazy.
-No.
He looks around to make sure that he is not dreaming or that he is a victim of the effect of some new generation of drugs that are absorbed through the skin and used by some of the modern antisocials whose territory is the subway stations.
Everything seems normal.
-Can I buy you a coffee or a juice?
Without thinking she tells her.
-As you wish.
They walk a few meters and sit at tables set up for this purpose in a bakery.
-Do you live in the city?
-I am visiting
He ventures to speak or rather to corroborate that the data she has invented for her character are precisely the same as hers, and as the minutes pass a strange sensation runs through her whole body.
While she, astonished, watches him.
In a few minutes he describes his house, tastes, loves, secrets and the one who is attacked by silence this time is her, who only affirms with her head what he is telling her.
Suddenly she stands up nervously.
-I have to go
-Where can I see her again?
-Surely you know better than I do, you know more about me than I do myself.
She leaves while he watches her until she is swallowed up by the subway stairs.
What she doesn't know is that the city he invented for him she to live in doesn't exist and therefore she will never know where he lives.
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The story is an exploration of the boundaries between imagination and 'reality'. The story is essentially an exploration of experience. You manage this exercise extremely well. You make the existential puzzle more layered in your last assertion:
This quote however, illustrates an issue that sometimes disrupts your narrative: a confusion of pronouns. This (likely due to translation) issue is minor in a story crafted with such skill.
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You always explore interesting perspectives on human nature, @joseph1956. In this case, many ideas came to mind while I read. There is, of course, Unamuno's classic, La Niebla. And then there hare actually movies that have explored this theme: the line between reality and unreality in an imagined world. (And the associated issue of autonomy.)
You do a great job and add meaningfully to other explorations of this theme.
A writer, like a god, creates a world and a woman inside him and then finds them in his wake. She is destined to be lost, begging her creator to look at her again... (a religious reading)
Well done @joseph1956
This is the first time if I do remember that I'll say "interesting" to a story. I don't understand but I love the every detail you stated. I wasn't expecting the end. I'm sorry if I can't fully give my thoughts about it.
Sorry if I'll say that "Sheila" is a protagonist of her novel? Will someone please clarifies it to me.
Brilliant story, @joseph1956. I love how the fictional world crosses over into the real world. (Well... the fictional real world.) One could get lost in such a house of mirrors! But seriously, this is a great concept, especially when the fictional character is so perplexed and upset by the knowledge her creator has of her. There are a few translation issues, but I was able to follow!
Wow... Is she a ghost, or something else? What a mystery, I want to know more :)