New excerpt:
It’s 8:00, do you know where you children are?
And it’s 8:30 and it’s pitch black out and here you are… here I am…
…walking through the city at night… it’s never what I hope it will be. I have created a hundred characters forced to walk dark streets, the rain running off their long dark coats, soaking their feet, their very souls stained by the gritty urban landscape. They were all on quests, searching for something that might save them from whatever bleak fate I’d had in store for them. They were all free from petty worries, free to focus on whatever major problem I’d invented. These were heroes, true heroes to me. They thought their great thoughts and fought the good fight. And they were all some version of me projected onto the page and into imaginary cities always in the grip of some kind of storm.
And what do I get? This is me just running to catch the last express train so I can save twenty minutes on my commute. A brightly colored medium weight coat trying to keep out the cold. I don’t even own a long dark coat. How can I have a dramatic noir experience without a long dark coat? I just wish the weight on my shoulders was denser, not the product of a hundred little things. Something that would send me out into the night to search… for something.
I want to be a tragic figure. Not as pathetic as Holden Caulfield; not as terrifying as Beckett’s Unnameable. But something. Something that would justify this martyr complex that I seem to have.
But most of all, I want to walk the streets at night with my hands thrust into my pockets, my head bent forward, my footsteps confident and sure, never doubting my purpose, my resolve steadfast and true, the validity and honor of my quest unquestionable.
But they’re not handing out that sort of character at 7-11.