AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a fun piece that I've been toying with on and off for years. What would happen if the characters in a story got to critique the author's work? And what would their private life be like, when the writer isn't writing? The only way to find out is with another story-within-a-story, as you'll see. This tale won't give you any orgasms, but it might call forth a smile. Let me know what you think of it.
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Bruce trembled as the fierce winds tore at the plane, tossing it about like the ball in a tennis match. This looked like the end. Although he couldn't see into the cockpit, he knew enough about flying to be sure there was no way the pilots could get them out of this predicament. If only he'd had a few more hours with Clare. Did she know where he kept the life insurance policies? Had he told her he loved her just before he left? Somewhere above his head a rivet popped as the metal was tortured beyond its ability to resist the tornado's fury. The window by the seat ahead of his cracked with a sound like a gunshot. Startled, he looked out his own window and saw tree limbs flashing past in a blur, stripped of their leaves.
Charlie stopped typing, momentarily breathless from the excitement as his story built to a climax. His stomach rumbled. It was that damned tequila! Why had he let himself be lured into drinking margaritas? They always did this to him. And now he was throwing away Bruce, after he had spent five whole novels plus twelve chapters of this one, building him up into a heroic figure. And all because his stomach couldn't handle tequila!
Bruce got to the end of the paragraph and grimaced. He didn't want to die, at least not this soon. It just wasn't fair. He had done everything that Charlie had demanded of him, and to be lost in a plane crash in the middle of nowhere seemed like a monstrous injustice. Damn that Charlie anyway! Next time he'd have to hook up with a different novelist, one with regular habits who didn't drink at lunch.
Just then there was a stir in the pile of papers and Clare stuck her head out from under page 214. "How's it going in the storm? Did you get hurt?"
"Hurt? That'd be trivial compared to what he's got me into now! I'm about to get splattered all over a mountainside out on some lonely Pacific island, and the rain is pelting down so hard you can't even see which way is up!"
"Oh, that's just awful. Well, obviously it's the end for you, but at least it's sudden, without a lot of pain and suffering. But I'll be a widow, too old to find another man before the final chapter and yet with a long, lonely life ahead of me. Is there anything we can do? Can't you stop him somehow before he ruins our lives?"
Charlie sat with his head in his hands. The room was slowly spinning and he felt as if the bottom was dropping out of his stomach. Look at this mess! He scanned his last paragraph and glanced to his left to check the exact location of the big wastebasket that had harbored so many would-be literary masterpieces. If he started to barf he could just lean over and hit the basket without even getting up out of his chair. Reassured on that point, he turned his attention back to the plane bouncing around on the perimeter of a class 3 tornado. Or was it category 3? Or maybe grade 3? Better just let it go at 100 mile-per-hour winds. The damned readers these days knew all this technical stuff from watching CNN. Vicious bastards! They were just waiting for him to scatter Bruce in small pieces among the Bougainvillea. Well, he'd fix 'em!
In the cockpit Gordon and Terry wrestled with the controls, desperate to regain at least partial command of their storm-tossed craft. "Terry, there's only one chance to get back out over the water, away from that mountain, and that's in a spin. Give me hard right rudder!"
As the huge airliner shuddered, the storm gradually tilted and changed direction outside the windshield, and the altimeter became a blur as they sank lower, closer and closer to the beach, no, the ocean, no, the beach, no, the ocean, and suddenly broke into clear air where they could see the shoreline spinning before them. "Now, Terry! Help me correct or we're done for!"
Terry added his muscles to Gordon's and together they managed to stop the rotation, gradually easing into a long, flat dive that leveled off just below 1000 feet. Swinging the nose back out over the water, Gordon manually set a new course away from the island, and then returned full control authority to the autopilot. The passenger cabin erupted into cheers, and Gordon tried to get his breathing back to near-normal so he could turn on the intercom and speak reassuringly to the passengers. Terry was already on the radio with air traffic control. In less than an hour they would be sitting on the tarmac and the local TV news crews would be jostling to interview the passengers and flight crew. But better reporters and cameramen than search crews and bloodhounds.
Clare was every bit as happy as Bruce over the thrilling rescue. "Oh, honey, you're safe! I'm so glad! And I'm not a widow! Oh, I can't wait to tell George."
"George! Who's George?"
"Oh, that's right, you don't know. Remember that guy we met at the art gallery in Chapter 5? He's been coming over once in a while when you've been away on business. He sort of keeps me company and makes sure I'm all right, all alone night after night. Charlie hasn't put that into the story yet. Well, he did, but when he re-wrote Chapter 8 it got tossed out. I think you'll learn all about George two chapters from now."
"That's a hell of a surprise. Here I am running all over the globe trying to provide a decent living for you and the kids, and you've got George coming over and patting you on the butt. Next you'll tell me that he's better in bed than I am.
"Hey, how do you know what's coming in two more chapters? Have you found a way to read Charlie's mind?"
"Oh, Bruce, don't get yourself all worked up. You've just had a narrow brush with death and you need to chill out, not work yourself into a heart attack. Now listen to me. I sneak out at night and read the manuscript and look at Charlie's outline. It's a mess, with stuff scratched out and notes penciled in the margins, and big black question marks scrawled right across some lines, but when the house is quiet I can spend hours trying to make sense of it. You're going to find out about George and get furious, and you'll throw that big Chinese vase that's worth five thousand dollars and smash it into a million pieces, but I'm going to come onto you very seductively and you'll see that you're the only one I can ever truly love. Or something like that. You'll see."
"We have a five thousand dollar vase?"
"Well, if you'd stay home some of the time you'd know about it. Come on over to the sofa and loosen your collar while I fix you a drink."
Charlie was furious. If the plane had crashed he would have lost his hero halfway though the story. Now he had a piece that was feel-good but bland, with nothing to hold the reader's attention. How could he get any real action, any breathless suspense, with these characters, anyway? They never did anything exciting! They were as dangerous as a bunch of Sunday school teachers. He'd never make the New York Times bestseller list with them aboard. Hell, he'd be lucky to get it published. He needed a gimmick! Instant excitement! Something that nobody had used in a long time. Somebody on the plane, a passenger or a stewardess, had to be doing something dangerous. Hiding something? Smuggling? Drugs would have been sniffed out at the airport. Never get a gun past the metal detector. Money! Paper money! Could it be sewn into their clothes? Behind a false bottom in a suitcase? How much could you carry? How heavy would a million dollars be? What about diamonds, could they get past the x-ray inspection? Okay, a passenger with a million dollars in diamonds in a carry-on bag. No, make that two million! The passenger wouldn't be likely to like to trust a fortune in diamonds to the baggage compartment, would he? Probably depend on the passenger. What kind of a person would be carrying a fortune around on an airplane? And Why?
Ruth, the Senior Cabin Attendant, walked through the cabin chatting with the passengers, carefully masking her own feelings and presenting a relaxed image, just as if she had flown through tornadoes hundreds of times. "All in a day's work," she commented to a nervous middle-aged lady, wondering as she did so if she sounded as calm as she was trying to. Their reactions to the close call were as varied as the passengers themselves. The elderly couple in 13 A and B were holding each other tightly, and might have been praying together. 20 D had produced a flask and was using the screw cap as a shot glass. Repeatedly. The girls in 25 D, E, and F were all chattering at once, and giggling after ever fifth word. But 32 A was different, staring out the window while he clutched his carry-on bag to his chest with trembling hands. Ruth's rhetorical "Everything all right now?" was answered with only a nervous nod of his head, showing where the violent maneuvers of the plane had dislodged some of his tight comb-over from his bald spot, leaving a patch of pink to peek prominently between the graying strands.
Bruce sipped his drink slowly, afraid that if he gulped it down too fast he might be half smashed when Charlie needed him. The Jack Daniel's tasted wonderful, and Clare had poured it generously. No shot glass for this one. That bottle of club soda would last as long as the whiskey at this rate. Clare sat next to him, her left arm propped on the pillows behind his neck while her fingers toyed with his hair.
"What's going to happen now? Was any of this in the outline?"
"No, I think he was making it up as he went along. Tomorrow morning he'll probably revise the outline and then I can find out what's coming next. I do hope you can get some rest before the next disaster. That was an awful scare for you, poor baby."
Bruce put his glass down, frowned at it, picked it up again for another quick sip, then carefully set it back on the coaster on the coffee table. He straightened up, turned, and took Clare in his arms. "I thought I'd never see you again. That's what had me panicked. The thought of dying barely entered my mind. What I kept thinking was that I'd never hold you in my arms again, and kiss you, and . . ."
"I know, I know. Just hold me close. Everything's all right now. I doubt that Charlie will need you any more this afternoon. Just rest here with me. It's all right now."