a story from my TEEN years
An unfinished demented mess, bruh
You know what I just realized?
I’ve had this Substack for two years, and have talked plenty about the craft of fiction, but I’ve never shared a single page from my fiction. My goodness! I’m insulted for you, my dear readers! The audacity!
Anywho.
Let’s talk about…
DEMENTED
I wrote this bad boy when I was sixteen, not long after watching Memento by Christopher Nolan. So, 2010? 2011?
The plot? Simple. An unhappy thirty-five-year-old man living a repetitive life in Los Angeles wakes up in the middle of a crime scene with no memory of how it happened.
I only wrote 3,000 words.
The plan was to write from 3 perspectives—our amnesiac man (the victim, so to speak), the real killer behind a murder spree spanning all over the United States, and the detective on the case with a dark secret tied to our two characters.
The victim and the real killer were going to be written in the first-person tense. That means you’re getting an extremely subjective and personal experience.
The detective, third-person limited, since he’s distant, strategic, and has a secret he’s great at keeping.
I don’t intend to…
Finish this bad boy.
Well, who knows, right? Nevertheless, looking back, it’s fascinating to see where the victim’s mind was at the time—a judgmental mentality mainly due to isolation. I also noticed the victims’ quite materialistic, giving a similar but different vibe to Patrick Bateman. It’s due to unhappiness. Gotta put your joy into something, que no? But it’s also his environment: friends and family, or lack thereof; a culture stuck in the hustle and grind mindset, forgetting balance, nature, and spirituality; and too much emphasis and responsibility on the individual, and not enough on the collective.
Yes, yes, we are the masters of our fate, the captains of our souls, but… we’re also the by-products of our environment. And we live in a cruel, judgmental, superficial, and unforgiving environment with no time to look inward.
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens — C.G. Jung
Anywho.
I polished the writing just a tad bit for clarity, but I kept the spirit, experience, and mentality of that sixteen-year-old alive.
Also, I was tempted to change all the characters’ names into something Hispanic, but I left it as is, which is predominantly white American names. Says a lot about my mentality, que no? Well, not just me, but the Hispanic community, since I know a lot of other people of my generation who had a phase where they were ashamed about their origins.
And if there was no shame, then there was no awareness. The majority of the books, and films I saw, and video games I played growing up had white people with American names. That’s all I saw. All I knew. So, therefore, without thinking, these are the characters I created in my stories.
Fucked up, que no? The silent erasure of a beautiful culture.
No worries, the times are-a-changin.
And I’m doing my part for that change.
Fictional Reality
I remember connecting with Julian Carax’s words on the inspiration for his fictional characters, saying something along the lines of, “They’re me. They’re all me.”
For my stories, it’s 50%.
50% is a real emotion from me, the individual.
The other 50% is the collective, which I’m slowly piecing together in my own words. If you’re familiar with Carl Jung’s collective unconscious concept, or the Dream of the Planet concept (somewhat similar to Carl Jung’s observations), by Don Miguel Ruiz, who based it on Toltec wisdom, then you’ll have an idea of what I’m talking about.
Anywho.
Just felt the need to put this out there—the need to remind ya’ll that, bruh, this story, and all my stories, are fiction, not a memoir. Sure, some stories have more real parts of me, but it’s still fiction: dramatic, exaggerated, spicy. Gotta get the people going, que no?
Without further ado, let’s roll.
DEMENTED
Awake.
I slowly open my eyes, managing to only get them half open. My vision’s completely blurry, unfocused, oblivious to my surroundings, and the only thing going on in my mind is how incredibly early it is.
I cuss at my phone’s alarm for going off. “Too early for work, for god’s sake,” I mutter to myself. I close my eyes and once again cuss at my phone for waking me up. There was nothing more I despised than having to wake up earlier than needed to on a workday… fuck, any day for that matter. The one thing that prompted me over the edge to be the biggest asshole ever was being woken up when not needed.
There, silence at last. I can feel the tenderness of sleep creeping its way in, so soothing, so… ring, ring!
I groan and take a long, deep, unsatisfied sigh. Today just wasn’t going to let me have a nice, fully rested sleep. Sleep, I desperately needed. Eyes still plastered closed by the wonderful sleep flooding my eyelashes, I reach for my phone to the side of me with my left hand, which is usually where I keep my smartphone, within arm’s reach for the daily working routine of the alarm shutoff.
As I reach for it, I notice something peculiar. Instead of the usual feel of my arm making its way to its destination, across my luxurious bed and finally to the hard, polished feel of my new desk, my hand feels a rough, scratchy one. It feels like... like old, beat-up tile floors.
What in the world? This-this isn't the soft, newly waxed wooden floors I have in my apartment? Where the hell am I?
The sudden bewilderment of the situation quickly perished every inch of drowsiness and awoke all of my senses.
I open my eyes.
It’s funny how, for a second, my mind and my eyes deceived me; they made me believe that I was waking up to my good old, thousand-dollar, one-room apartment. Waking up to my enchanting bed that always calls to me when I leave it, saying, “come back, sleeeep.” Waking up to my exquisite room that still contains my identity that my job has taken from me, that contains a whole cabinet full of the most precious, badass music and movies one could ever find—the cabinet that always got attention when I brought someone to visit. Waking up to my antique, exquisite record player given on my twentieth birthday from my father…oh, how I missed him.
Posters from a variety of comics, movies, and music all hung around my apartment in a neat yet chaotic pattern. Last but not least was my most prized possession, protected by a two-thousand-dollar antique, faded brown cabinet, which was all fourteen studio albums by Pink Floyd signed by all five members, located in my cozy living room next to the antique record player. My dad was the one to pull off this magnificent task since he was Mr. Connection. He knew an arsenal of people from all over the place, and managed to have Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Richard Wright, David Gilmour, and even Syd Barrett himself sign them. It still astonishes me today how he did it, but that's my dad for you, always finds a way to do something and never quits. It was his gift to me after the antique record player at my twenty-first birthday, and it's been the most amazing gift I've ever had.
Unfortunately, I’m nowhere near my oasis I call apartment 304. That second of false pretension is over, and I’m slowly realizing where I am.
I take a look at my surroundings.
Okay, I’m in a god awful bathroom, easily one of the worst I've ever been in. I'm sitting on the nastiest toilet ever, the once probably shining white toilet now colored a vile black throughout most of it. The whole bathroom is painted a faded white, and stains from all sorts of chemicals, beverages, food, whatever it is, are plastered randomly on the walls. The bathtub’s probably the most repulsive since there was some dead animal in there, its limbs staining the whole floor with its dried up blood, flies swarming all over it, claiming it as their own. The stench was unbearable; I’ve always had a lousy smell, but even I had to hold myself back from puking all over myself. There was a small window above the bathtub, the outside breeze providing some relief from the god awful stench. The window was a good size to be able to squeeze through if I wanted to. From the looks of it, my best guess would be I’m in a motel room…but why? How the hell did I wind up here?
I’m nobody important, why me?
Yesterday was Friday. I had gone through a surprisingly better day at work at the Gemini Bank. My colleagues were tolerable, they didn't bother me with their god awful stories they've repeated again and again. Like Teddy, the supposed 'class clown' in my workplace, whom I despise so greatly. Every single morning at the beginning of the working day, Teddy, a slightly overweight idiot standing at only five feet five with a big mouth that ought to get him punched in the face, comes barging into the office and creates the biggest uproar. He comes in and starts high-fiving everyone, saying hello, talking in his annoying loud voice that could be heard miles away, that no-good pompous. Thankfully, the blob had called in sick on Friday; that alone made my day great. Teddy, the epitome of a 'fake person', trying too hard in every aspect of his life that he just isn’t suited for; trying too hard to be admired by everyone. I loathe people like him.
I pause, giving myself a moment to arrange my thoughts.
To be honest, Teddy really isn’t that bad of a person. He’s a nice guy who tries to be friends with everyone; his only fault would be his big mouth that just keeps blabbering on. Thinking about it now, no one in the office is a bad person. Cynthia, Mike, Luke, Janet, Teddy, all of them, I would have been good friends had I known them ten years ago, but my job as an accountant at the Gemini bank had transformed me into a bitter, middle-aged man who hated everything and everyone.
Every now and then, I shock myself with these opinions, these cruel views I have of life, of people. I’m appalled by who I’ve become today, but I’m just too far gone from the man I used to be ten years ago. This person I am today has taken over my life. It’s like I have this little new voice in my head that just won’t go away; a voice that keeps filling my head with infinite prejudiced thoughts against everything.
I try to fight it, try to somehow transform back into that man I used to be, but I just… can’t. Living this life in which I currently reside—a miserable, lonely life—the old me that so desperately wants to break free of its dark abyss is simply no match for the unstoppable new force that currently resides. I can never have a full day, never mind a full day, a full hour where my mind doesn’t think of anything cruel towards something.
I may not be able to stop my excessive thoughts, but I never actually showed any of my good-old bitterness towards any of my colleagues.
No, in their eyes, I was the ideal candidate society looked for in an employee. I was a kind, respectful, attentive, reliable, and motivated individual when it came to work. I was the type of man who kept his opinion to himself, the type of person who didn’t 'rock the boat' at work.
I would always go along with a conversation when someone approached me at break, usually Luke—Teddy was all over the place, he was like an ecstatic dog, leaping from place to place.
Of all the people in the office, Luke would have to be my favorite. He was like me, very to himself, a relaxed guy—never in the ten years that I’ve worked with him have I seen a hint of anger during casual arguments. He was my type of person, a person whom I sincerely enjoyed his company. Whenever he approached me on break, he would just talk about the adventures he had on his weekend, and I would be fascinated by his stories. I was like a kindergartner sitting on the carpet floor, listening intently to an enchanting story the teacher was reading whenever Luke went on about his weekend.
Luke’s traveled to a vast amount of places: he’s tamed the fiercest tigers in India, tasted the finest food in Paris, ran for his life from the frantic bulls of Spain, learned the wisdom of the shaolin monks of China, and he has so much more he wants to do, more places to venture off to. Hearing all of that… it was the highlight of my week and was what made my Monday tolerable.
I chuckle. Now, that’s just sad.
I guess I like Luke so much because he reminds me of how I used to be before this job. Luke was my age, he graduated the same year I did, and like me at the time, he was a happy, hopeful, hard-working individual. What made us so different was the fact that Luke never gave up on his lifelong dream of traveling, no matter what happened. Like the inconvenient death of his older brother, and the soon-to-be financial rock bottom he hit not too far after. He still managed to hold on, and even through all that, Luke kept an upbeat, hopeful attitude. It just astonishes me whenever I think about Luke’s story. I went through pretty much the same thing he did, faced a lot of difficult obstacles life threw at me… but, in the end, I just wasn’t strong enough to rise from the darkness.
I was weak and chose the easy way out—chose simply to give up.
I never wanted this job. Fuck, never in my adolescent life would the job as an accountant cross my mind. I despised dull office jobs as a teen. I wanted to be a musician, composing and performing my own songs. I used to picture it so vividly in high school. I’d daydream in my third-period math class, lost in my little musical world, oblivious to the lecture that was at hand. It’s no mystery why I barely passed with a D in that class. I would bring my guitar every day to school, anxiously waiting until recess or lunch to begin so I could go to my quiet, peaceful spot and come up with great ideas for songs.
I grew up worshiping the classics: The Doors, Sabbath, Zeppelin, Scorpions, UFO, and the one band that transformed my life…. Pink Floyd. I remember my dad giving me my first Floyd album, Meddle, and when I had finished listening to that masterpiece, I knew what I wanted to be in life—I had envisioned what I would become. I had my life pictured, the steps it took to get to my dream were outlined, and all I needed to do was take action.
I worked my ass off in high school, unlike my elementary or middle school years, I knew that by doing great and getting the most out of high school, I would benefit crucially and further my chances of getting into the college that I dreamed of. I took music class for four years, learned everything there is needed to learn about music—its history, its principles, reading, and writing.
One of my greatest joys of my high school years was meeting the greatest friend I’ve ever had, Osiren Ryling. He was, is, by far the most unique, extravagant individual I’ve ever met. There is no one like him. He was an intelligent, kind, and caring man who always pushed me to be better, never let me quit. I’ve never had a friend like him after that. Once high school was over, like most friends usually do, we both went our separate ways. I went to pursue my lifelong musical career, while Osiren went to become a doctor… or so that’s what he said he was doing. After that, I never heard from him again. He was the mysterious type as well, and if Osiren didn’t want to be reached, there is no way you will reach him. No phone, no mail, no internet social site, he has nothing—he’s completely invisible.
Life didn’t seem to agree with my dream job as a musician, though.
Year after year, life after high school had just slowly torn that dream away until it finally won, and any fuel I had, any hope whatsoever, was abolished. Too many failures, not enough support from friends or family to help me through it, it all put an end to that happy, go-lucky man I used to be, so I chose the dull, miserable life of an accountant, and became a beautiful, miserable, bitter man. How dandy.
I am a loner; no need to beat around the bush. I know I’ve always been that way since this job; I’d hang around with people, sure, after work, but nothing special. I’d go on meaningless dates, not really trying to find that mythical ‘special someone’.
I don’t know why, but I’ve been a cynic about love, and it wasn’t because of this job— this attitude only began a couple of years ago. It occurred randomly, and poof, any romantic trait or passion was gone. I’ve never seen a woman and had that feeling I used to hear in my more youthful days of men falling head over heels over someone.
I’ve seen it all my life, the love my father had for my mother until she stabbed him in the back, figuratively of course, though it might as well have been literally: she left him for another man and it… broke my father’s heart. He never was the same jolly, optimistic, wise man he was in his final years, and he ultimately died of a sad, broken, beaten, and scarred heart two years ago.
Love is meaningless to me.
Friends and family aren’t in my life agenda.
I’m a lone wolf living an insignificant life.
I’ve worked in a dead-end job for almost seven years now. I only have my little apartment to look forward to—my identity made up of all the things I cherish and love that only worthless dates get to see. I’m nobody important, just an average thirty-five-year-old cruising on this ship called life. I came home from work yesterday immediately, ate a nice meal, listened to some Pink Floyd, then sat my fat ass on the couch, and watched some rather impressing movies I had rented a couple nights ago: a comedy and an action film.
When that was all over, it was an hour till midnight, so I had two scoops of cookies n’ cream ice cream, rinsed, flossed, rinsed again, and finally brushed my teeth. Then I jumped into bed and fell into an exquisite, deep sleep.
Nothing special about that, about me, so the question that keeps popping up in my head is: why the hell am I here in this fucking shit hole?
So many questions, so little time: why, who, what, how? It sent my brain into an everlasting spiral, causing my head to hurt.
I calmed myself down. I was going to get nowhere asking all the questions now. Now is not the time to try and figure this out; now is the time to simply get the hell out of here.
I’m finally wide awake, and I've already started to wish I weren’t.
Fully conscious of myself and my surroundings, I feel an unbearable pain throughout my body. It felt like it had been beaten for hours on end, my ribs felt like they were going to crumble any second, and a gruesome tightness in my chest that felt like it would implode. There was this never-ending ringing in my left ear that was deafening. I couldn't withstand the pain, it all came skyrocketing in a flash—I wanted to scream my lungs out, wanted to curse the heavens, find the person responsible for this... but I couldn't. I have no idea what's going on; nevertheless, if the person responsible is in fact still somewhere around this motel.
I had to do my best to keep calm and as quiet as possible.
I place my right hand on the sink counter, a bit hesitant at first because of all the filth there. Then, I place my left hand on the shower door. Finally, I push upwards and try to get up.
I failed.
Fuck!
I couldn't feel my legs at all; they've given up on me. Come on, I say to myself, move your legs. I close my eyes and focus all of my attention on my legs.
The roar of the Los Angeles traffic quiets, everything goes dark, and there is only me and my struggle to walk. I inhale and slowly exhale. Again. Inhale. Exhale. Atta boy, Drake, keep it up.
I open my eyes, half open, and stare at my feet. I take one last deep breath and whisper, “Move.” Nothing, no reaction. Inhale. Exhale. It’s OK, Drake, don’t get agitated, it’s only the first try. Try again.
Again, I try.
Nothing.
“Fuck!” I continue on a cussing streak, cursing my goddamn feet. “Why won’t you fucking move!”
The sound of glass breaking ends my little tantrum, and I grow as still and quiet as a statue. My heart starts to accelerate, so I force myself to control my breathing. Steady, Drake, steady, you don’t know exactly where the sound came from, it could have been outside in the parking lot, but not here…
I try to believe that lie of mine, but deep down, I know where I heard the glass break. It was in this precise room.
I sit patiently, listening for what lies on the other side of the bathroom door.
I know someone is in here.
Finally, I hear light footsteps. The footsteps are followed by another that sounds louder and heavier than the first.
“Amy!” a deep man’s voice whispers. “Amy, what the hell are you doing here? I told you to remain in my office. You weren’t supposed to see this.”
No response, wait… Amy, she’s quietly crying to herself.
What the hell did she just see? What lies behind those bathroom doors? Do I even want to know?
“Amy, my dear,” the man’s voice softens, “I’m truly sorry for this… for Daniel. But you can’t be here—we can’t be here. We have to leave now.”
“He’s dead, Jules!” Amy yells, beginning to cry hysterically, “My Danny…”
My heart sinks into an abyss, and I feel an overwhelming guilt, even if I had nothing to do with this.
Never in my whole life did I think I would somehow end up dealing with murder. Oh, yes, I’ve seen plenty of it in the news and in movies. Plenty of gosh awful gory scenes I loved to watch, but this… it was happening now, and I’m in the middle of it!
My hands start to tremble.
Why me?
Why’d I have to get involved in this?
WISH FOR THE STORY
After I finished To Tame a Dame, a novella I self-published in 2021. Or was it 2022? Anywho. I wanted to write a sequel to TTAD, an ensemble and noir set in Los Angeles during 1928, but baby, I was writing VOID at the time and had no extra, well, time, to finish the story. Time was the least of my worries, though—I had the spark, but no drive to finish a sequel. I wanted to finish it somehow, but how?
I thought it would be cool to give the reins to other up-and-coming writers. Give my story to different authors, and each author would write from the POV of one character. Since the ending of TTAD left many characters with open fates, each going on their journey, kind of like Game of Thrones, then the author would have total freedom to do whatever they want. Seriously, total freedom. TTAD is part of the VOID universe. VOID has infinite parallel universes, constants, and variables, as BioShock Infinite introduced.
It’d be so cool to see what each author does with their character: different writing styles, tones, setting, life experience, you know?
Anywho.
I want to share that idea here and apply it to DEMENTED. Three characters written by three different authors… what can happen with absolute freedom? The uncertainty leaves me anxious to find out as a fan of storytelling and creativity.
Again, just wanted to put the idea out into the universe because, in Kate Bush’s lyrics from “Cloudbusting”:
Oh, I just know that something good is gonna happen
I don't know when
But just saying it could even make it happen