“Order! Order! I will have order in this court!” I yelled, banging my fist on the desk for emphasis.
“Are you kidding, there’s no such thing as order here,” Me scoffed.
“And we’re not professional enough to have a real court, legal or otherwise,” Myself chimed in.
“How about some quiet then, for just a minute, so I can get this meeting started?” I stared both of them down, and after trading a few glares, they each retreated to their respective corner of the room.
“Thank you. Now, the purpose of this meeting is to figure out content and scheduling for the new calendar year. I propose that Thursday is a good day on which to invade inboxes. Thoughts?”
“Thursday is random, but good,” Me piped up.
Myself simply nodded, and the others around the room followed suit.
“Wait, we agree?” I asked.
“There’s a first time for everything,” Myself said.
“But really, I’m more interested in hearing from our content advisors,” Me said in a way that made me think Me would be twirling the edge of a mustache if one was available.
Mustache twirling aside, Me was right. I scanned the small group amassed in the room. Mr. Cowboy Hat was sulking in a corner, his boots propped up on the furniture and his hat pulled low over his eyes. Not much content advice there. The other corner was a mess of shadows, and if I listened hard enough, I was pretty sure I could hear screaming coming from within. Best to steer clear of that corner for now, and probably the rest of time.
Clustered in the center of the room was a girl scribbling furiously in a small notepad, a man who looked like he owned a spaceship, and, surprisingly, Cupid. Cupid had a handful of arrows in his quiver, and I made a note of that for later. Spaceship man looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, and he would be, once he found the keys I’d stolen and sequestered in a locked drawer. The scribbling girl though, she was interesting.
As I had the thought, she thrust her notepad into the air, triumphant. It only lasted a moment though, before her face clouded and she decided to rip out the current page and shred it to pieces. She clearly wasn’t ready yet, but I would be keeping an eye on her progress in that notepad.
That brought me to the front of the room, where a magic wand waving being greeted me with a smile.
“Ah, my old friend. What do you have for me this year?” I asked.
“Let’s see,” Fantasy said, waving their wand. There was a small flash and a few errant sparkles went flying. Then nothing.
“Looks like I’m running a little low on the, how do you say, new ideas,” Fantasy said with a shrug.
“Come on, Fantasy. I’m sure you’ve got something up your sleeve. A spare wand perhaps?” I coaxed.
With a shake of each sleeve and then of their head, Fantasy began avoiding eye contact and set about tapping their wand against the palm of their hand.
That left the somewhat generic group of people loitering near the door. They didn’t seem to have a set purpose, and when I rested my gaze on them, they started laughing and pushing and shoving and yelling. And then, somewhere within all the yelling, I thought I heard something resembling an idea. Then another. And another.
I turned away, not wanting to believe it was true, and set about scanning the room a second time. Results were fairly inconclusive, so I turned to my right and left hands, Me and Myself for some clarity. They both cocked an eyebrow at me and gave noncommittal shrugs. How helpful.
A third sweep of the room helped to lessen the pain and make my future a little more clear. I couldn’t deny, at that point, that all the evidence pointed toward one thing, and one thing only. 2023 is going to be one huge genre mash-up of a year.
Happy New Year everyone! As we make our way into this new year, it’s only customary to reflect just a little on this past year, but first a little shoutout to
who writes amazing stories and has inspired me to write a handful of meta stories, similar to the one you just read. If you like my stories, definitely go give him a follow!As for 2022, I started this Substack as a way to escape Instagram and still have motivation to work on my writing. I posted my first story in April:
One of my most well received stories in August:
And one of my favorite stories ever in September:
I hit 100 subscribers a few weeks ago, and have interacted with some pretty awesome people this year, including
andI’ve loved my time on Substack so far, and I’m excited to continue sharing my stories here and meeting new people in 2023!
See you next Thursday, January 12, with a brand new story!
Nice meta narrative. I find it fun when a character is simultaneously an allegory in a short story since it makes it so overt
I am glad I am not the only one one with conversations going on continually in my head. 🤣