Medium Specificity

Who are you? I don’t remember ever properly meeting you.  Then again, I did just get my first quest. You know, the quest every young person gets when it’s time to prove their years of hard work and study haven’t been in vain. Didn’t you go through one? No? That’s odd, you must not be from around here.

To be honest, I’m not really sure what happened before the ceremony. Wait… how do you know so much of my back story? Have you been spying on me? I swear I’ve never seen you before, but as long as I’m heading out for this quest, why don’t you come along? Everyone could do with a good partner. You seem brave enough. On the other hand it might be outright stupidity to embark on this one. I’m not exactly sure, but I want to make my village proud, you’ll understand.

Do you feel that shadow? It’s laying over us like some sort of capstone. Here we are, underneath living life, not even knowing that we haven’t truly seen what’s really out there above the stone. There’s always been that nagging feeling that I can’t remember anything from my past, but then a few minutes later someone only has to say one thing and suddenly it comes flooding back. Almost as if my history is fabricating itself at the same time as the present. You wouldn’t be worried about that, would you? You seem like you’ve got it all put together.  Why are you laughing? I promise that wasn’t supposed to be humorous or dirty. Oh, you’re laughing ironically… I see.  So you’re in the same boat as me, then. Well, I guess we’ll figure out our quests together. Among my village we have this saying, “When you don’t know where to go, take a step to make it so.” Preparing for that ceremony put me in two different states of mind: one in which I am completely capable of this new task and one in which I think I am. The only way I could make those two sides of me make peace was to make a decision and stick with it. So I chose to step  up when they needed someone to take on the thing everyone fears. What is the thing that everyone fears?

...

You’re back! You’re alive! I thought you had disappeared for good! Thank goodness my partner has returned to help me out on this quest. So what happened? I’m not sure I understand, but that’s alright, I am just glad you’re back here on this line with me. Right when you disappeared I came upon this forest and now I’m beginning to think I’m completely lost. All of these things look the same. It’s like staring at couples in love; I think I have figured out how they do it then suddenly I turn another direction and there’s something new to be learned. Have you ever noticed how hard learning is? I mean when I started I knew I was in for a learning curve, but do you ever notice how much mental and emotional strain it is to learn? That’s one of the reasons I’m so happy you’ve returned. It’s so much easier to learn from other people’s experiences than to live through all the mistakes yourself. What do you mean, “I have no idea?” Of course I do, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. We can help each other survive by imparting our hard earned wisdom. Now, let’s head for that clearing.

...

Why? Why did you leave me? And of all the moments to return, you picked the darkest of them all. Do you see him lying there, that pool is his own blood. And do you know what? I caused it. With this hand I stopped the life of another human being. I can claim self-defense, but can that really justify me stopping his heart? Why? Where were you? Of all the moments I could have used your friendship, you were nowhere to be found.  I… I’m so sorry. For everything. Why did this have to happen to me?  Tell me, dear one! Just stay until I can’t see straight from exhaustion, because I can promise you I will never sleep well again. What demon possesses me now! I can not move on from this, but I’m no longer in charge of my fate. Will you stay with me longer? We’ll have to rely on each other, or rather I’ll be relying on you to keep me going forward. You know, it’s almost as if I don’t exist when you’re not here. Is not that strange? We’re going to stick it through, you and I.

...

I did it! I defeated the great beast. I thought I would be lost without you, but I found the strength was in me the whole time. I couldn’t have done it without you. No, no, you were here in my heart. It’s another lesson I suppose I had to learn. Even though you may be parted, those you love never truly leave you. Am I in your heart? Do you feel that we are truly friends? Now that I’ve finished this quest, it’s on to a new beginning and the start of a new adventure. Don’t be silly, there are sure to be many more daring deeds you and I can accomplish together. The end? You mean you know I will die? How is that possible? Reality? What on earth are you talking about? This is reality. I’m real! You can talk to me, walk with me, you’ve been with me at some of the most crucial parts of this journey.  I’m only a character, something fabricated for entertainment? Well, I guess to be a hero is a comfort. So you’re telling me that you only are with me when you are reading? Each time you open that book I come back to life. I see now.

Please! I don’t want to die! I don’t want this life to come to an end. I don’t want to miss you. I want the two of us to go on more adventures. With books you can have millions of lifetimes in just one. Take me with you. Let’s go on living like there’s no death, because for us there isn’t! What do you mean it doesn’t work like that? So you can open up any book, just like me? Millions of stories, and I’m just one of them.  I know you care, and I care for you too. I guess you can have me with you always. I’ll still be here every time you flip the page. Will I know you when you come back? No… so I’ll have no memory of our adventure here together. This isn’t the first time we’ve met, is it? How many times have we had this… no, don’t answer that. It’ll only make it hurt more. Well, there’s only one solution here. You move on. That’s what you’re meant for. I was always meant to stay in this plot, this body… this mind frame. What’s that sound? Are your tears hitting the paper? Don’t be like that. I don’t want you to mourn for me. Celebrate my story! Tell more people about it so that I can live as many times as you do, just with a little less memory. It’s time. Go on, time to live your life again. Before you go, just remember that I will always be here for you in the best and worst of times. Granted, I may not remember you, but just know that at some points in our time together I knew who you really were. Go ahead, it’s okay, you can close the book now.

Don’t forget me … please… please don’t forget. 

ARTIST STATEMENT

This project has been by far my favorite so far. This idea came to me as I thought about my favorite way to creatively express myself. I grew up an avid reader and writer and thought about what aspects from these experiences were the most special to me. I remembered one of the times I pulled out a Clive Cussler novel and read about fifteen pages in and suddenly Dirk Pitt was introduced and I was overwhelmed with a flood of familiarity, respect, and love for that character. Only in reading can you really become intimate with your characters. The narration allows us to really get inside their heads, much more so than watching a play or a film. So for this project, I decided to highlight this special bond between the reader and the character. 

In class we discussed the importance of differences within the arts. If every art were the same then it would not be called “The Fine Arts” and life would be very bland indeed. I wanted to really make the unique characteristics of reading stand out. By having the character “miss” the reader, it represented when the story moved to another person’s view or another perspective. To begin it all I wanted to show that moment when the reader, “gets sucked into the character’s life,” that hook that immediately pulls us into the story. There are some books in which you sit on the fence the whole time you read, and others that hit a special chord within you that snaps you right into the world you are reading. Just like you started to walk alongside the characters, interact with them, bond with them, grow with them.

I used a very basic plot to be the setting of this piece. The call to action, the choice, the loss of innocence, then finding the power they didn’t know they had within themselves. All of these are very conventional, and that’s what I wanted. This enabled me to really work hard to developing that gossamer thread that connected the emotionally charged character to the emotionally receptive reader. The line “someone only has to say one thing and suddenly it comes flooding back,” especially highlights the convention that we go into the story in media res or in the middle of the action so the back story has to be filled in as we go. It’s not a sin to use convention, for me it helps prove my point.  

This subject is near to my heart. When I get attached to a character I really do feel as though I have gone on this emotional journey with them and sinned and learned and failed with them too. While I felt the McCloud piece was a constructive criticism of the graphic novel conventions, I believe it was done out of a passion for the medium. That’s what I tried to infuse into mine: a passion for reading. Every die hard reader’s fantasy was to just be noticed by the characters they so faithfully followed. They will never really leave them behind.