Tag: fiction

Uncategorized, Writing and Blogging

A Light In An Abandoned House

I cruise by the yard of this old house now and again. I roll down my window and try to see through those windows.

I used to live there. It was my house after all. And the county tax office says that it still is mine, because I remember to keep paying for the lot, though they are telling me I should be doing maintenance on my property. I think about going back inside and seeing if the lights will still turn on. I wonder what I’ll find, and the thought makes me wince.

This time, I make myself keep driving. I don’t stop.

I don’t go cruising through that part of the neighborhood for a long time.

But one night, I dare myself to go back. It started as a flash of a whim, but after a half of a bottle of beer, I get to thinking that I need to see the state of the place. I need to know how that house is doing.

I drive my little grey car back to the shaggy, unkempt yard in the middle of the night when I think no one will see me.

I cut the engine and sit in my car for a long time, just watching the outside of the house. There is no movement that I can see, though that’s not saying much with how dirty the windows are. My hand rests on the car door handle for long moment, and then I make myself open the door.

My boots crunch on the gravel driveway, and my chest gets tighter as I walk around the house to the backdoor. I finger the key ring in my jacket pocket as I come up to the back step that leads into the house. The doorknob is kind of tarnished, with brass colored paint flaking off. Pulling the key out, I slide it into the lock and then turn the knob.

It’s a little sticky, but the door opens and lets me look into the house. I can smell dust, stale air, and something indefinable. A slight smell of mildew maybe.

The house is completely dark, and I can’t see anything. I step uneasily through the door, testing the floorboards with my boot before I take a step each time. Fear is coiled in my gut, and it’s threatening to claw its way out of my throat. I swallow, carefully making each timid baby step inside.

Sweat slicks my hands, and I compulsively wipe my hands on the front of my jeans. Logically, I know there shouldn’t be anything in this house. Nothing can hurt me here. I think.

I make my way slowly over to the light switch that I know is in the kitchen. With each step, I get a little closer, and my fear starts talking to me.

‘What if this place is falling apart entirely? What if there are rats in here and they swarm you? What if there’s a person who’s been living in here who is angry and surprised? What if your neighbor sees you and screams at you for being so neglectful?’

My resolve falters. My hand flinches away from the light switch, and fear becomes a yawning dread. The courage from the half bottle of beer I had earlier feels like it sank through the floor and into the foundations of the house. I squeeze my eyes shut and brace myself against the kitchen wall, breathing hard and fighting down the urge to vomit or sink onto the ground and cry.

I’m so scared of what I might see. I’m so scared of having left this place abandoned for so many years. If I don’t acknowledge it, I can pretend it didn’t happen and then I can forget about this stupid fucking house. I can forget about it and it can be swallowed up by the earth and neither I nor anyone else will have to remember it.

…But I want to remember it. A tiny little part of me in the back of my skull won’t let me leave this place without turning on the light in the kitchen. So instead of running out of the house and throwing myself in my car to drive away, I hold myself rigid, braced against the kitchen wall. My back is hunched and my head is lowered as I try to gather myself.

I stay still for a long time, just breathing, holding still and trying to bring my heart rate down.

Eventually, the dread rolls back. Just a little. Just enough.

I pull myself up right, and my hand goes back to the light switch. I hesitate again, feeling the same anxiety rise in my chest, threatening to cut off my air. So I take a long, slow breath in.

And then I flip the light switch.

To my surprise, the light flips on with ease. The electric light buzzes overhead, illuminating the kitchen its yellowy-orange glow. I flinch from what I see at first. The counters are covered in dust and dirt. The wall paper has warped, and is peeling in some places. The clean dishes that had been piled next to the sink are also dusty. A cockroach skitters under the dishwasher for safety.

My cheeks burn as I take in the sight, and I feel ashamed now. This place…was truly abandoned.

And yet, as I continue looking, I notice a few things. The floor boards remain intact. The walls are sturdy underneath the peeling wallpaper. And when I turn the cold tap on the sink, water sputters out of the sink spout.

I had been paying for the utilities for this place all this time, but I never expected them to actually work. I am surprised at that.

I stand in the lit kitchen for the first time in years. It is gross, it needs a hell of a lot of cleaning. But there was a time when this place was mine. Memories come flooding back as I run my finger over the dusty plates. The air has taken on a different quality.

No longer do I think of this place as ‘the house’. I think of it as my house.

And I have some work to do to fix it up. But it’s better than I thought.

Maybe I could even live here again.

Uncategorized

Fiction and Reality: Coping Mechanism or Not?

CN Warning: Mentions of non-consent as fiction discussed below

Today I had some complicated thoughts regarding fiction and its place in our lives. And how it can affect reality. My specific thoughts were regarding taboo topics like pornography with themes of non-consent and other taboo, illegal or violent themes. Honestly I ought to cut and paste from my FB chats with my boyfriend what exactly I think, but I’ll honestly try to reproduce my thoughts here in this blog post.

I think people broadly fall into two camps whose main axioms run thus: The first group believes that fiction is a safe place for individuals to explore things they would not do in reality. The second group believes that fiction can and often does affect reality and has consequences because of human interpretation and experience. Many arguments are made that because a work is ‘just fiction’ that it ought not to be taken as a guide or even and endorsement of the activities that take place therein. And that’s fair enough. Many who have suffered real life traumas also use fiction as a coping mechanism. For example, a survivor of rape might create a work of non-con erotica in order to re-contextualize and reclaim their experience that they suffered. I believe that this a valid strategy provided that the individual is, to the best of their knowledge, using this as a way to cope without re-traumatizing themselves. However, I also believe that same work could have drastically harmful effects on another survivor who sees their experience of rape being eroticized. Not to mention, people who would like to or are in reality rapists might find such erotic work validating and normalizing. A survivor’s attempt to cope with their experience could very easily damage another survivor and validate a rapist who takes the work of fiction to be an endorsement of their actions.

It’s not like I don’t understand the argument for fiction being an exploratory space. I totally and completely understand that someone might create a raw, violent and intensely emotional piece of fiction in order to cope with past traumatic events. I think having pieces of fiction that allow us to explore and work through traumatic events is incredibly valuable. Furthermore, there’s some evidence to suggest that survivors can ‘re-write’ their traumatic experiences by re-enacting them differently. But other evidence suggests that some people can be re-traumatized by the same material, so the situation remains sticky as ever.

The first solution most people argue to the problem is to tag such works with appropriate things that denote the content. I would agree that tagging things so that survivors who want to engage in catharsis via their preferred method can do so, while allowing those wish not to see it to avoid it by black-listing or otherwise avoiding that tag. However, you have to wonder if by flagging it, you’re also making the material easily searchable for rapists and pedophiles and what have you who find the work encouraging and validating. Now you have an easily searchable database full of your preferred taboo, and no one can criticize you if you claim to be a survivor. It’s so skull-splittingly hard to determine people’s motives and the truth online, and even in real life. Who knows why someone clicked on your non-con pornography? Maybe it was a survivor looking for catharsis? Or perhaps someone looking to indulge a kink they would never consider acting out in real life? Maybe it was a rapist looking for pornography to jack off to. It’s really impossible to know what someone behind the other end of your screen thinks.

One of my thoughts today was if there ought to be a website which is entirely run by survivors who would like to have their work accessible to others. It would need to be very explicitly run by survivors and have some kind of disclaimer on the front page that might read: “By clicking on this, you understand that the work hosted here is made by survivors who wish to create something by which they can reclaim and control their experiences. By consuming this content, you understand that the creator does not endorse the events depicted. Furthermore, by consuming this content, you agree that you will not use this content in such a way as to promote or perpetrate the acts or events that are depicted in these works. To re-post these works outside of this context constitutes a violation and a subsequent banning from this site, as removal of the context will vastly change the meaning of this work and make it a damaging force to survivors who wish not to interact with works of this nature.” I think such a disclaimer would adequately communicate the intent of a website, but as I stated it above, when you create a work and make it available to view, you invite anyone to view it for any reason.

Ultimately, I suppose that I believe people should be able to do as they like with their personal fiction. But I further believe that a lot of the works with the themes mentioned above might not be suitable for a wider viewing audience because of the potential for harm.

What are your thoughts on fiction that portrays violence or taboo themes?