Identity [By Justinian]

[Banned]

Author: [user]Justinian[/user]

Identity

You know, hooks are a lot less satisfying than you might think. Sure, a hook draws the reader (you) to the author (me) like a lamb to the slaughter (the writing), but wouldn’t you be less satisfied with a good beginning and a thoroughly disappointing read than with a slow beginning and then a work which gradually picks up into sheer awesomeness? Nay, awesomeness so awesome we shall create our own word to describe it: awesasmic. Awesome so awesome it’s orgasmic. If you prefer, we could also use awesomality. Or both.

Yes, I thought so. Actually, no I didn’t, I don’t know whether you said ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but I’ll just assume that you’re thinking along the lines of the second because if you didn’t, well, why exactly are you still reading?

So, now that’s out of the way, let’s mention something before we begin. Authors don’t write because they desperately want to teach something, or send a message to a large group of people, or even for the sake of an agenda they might have — running for President, wanting to legalize marijuana, whatever. The real reason people write books is because when you write something, you have complete control over what the reader is reading. How awesasmic is that? The tradeoff is that to be read, to have this strange power, one must make people actually want to read what you have to say. Readers must want to enter your world, to be under your power (at least in brief sittings). So you’d better damn well make it worth their while.

Now, I’m not promising that this is going to be worth your while. You might be supremely frustrated after getting your hopes up. Or you could be pleasantly surprised — you take the same risk during sex, so consider my work to be like sex, but without the risk of disease or screaming, unwanted offspring.

So. Let’s begin.


* * *

At this exact point in time, Danny Tremaine thought, it had to be dark and stormy in some part of the world, but where he was it was depressingly sunny. Birds chirped happily, crickets made that incredibly annoying sound which prompts thoughts of murder-suicide, and not a drop of rain fell to the earth.

Normally, this kind of situation is just fantastic. People with nothing in common and nothing to talk about will fill the uncomfortable silence with “fine day, isn’t it?” “oh, it’s so beautiful today!” and so on. But in this situation, for Danny, it really sucked. Not because Danny didn’t have an appreciation for beautiful days, but because Danny was at this point in time extremely happy, and felt that he should be the only person in the vicinity with a good reason to be happy. The damned sun was stealing his thunder.

Danny didn’t think that it was at all strange that his happiness depended slightly on whether or not others were happy. In fact, he thought it was normal; who would rather be happy for someone else than for themself? Not Danny.

Danny Tremaine — not a selfish person, simply not someone who wasted emotion. Even with an unlimited supply of chemicals in his brain to give him emotion, he still hoarded it. He could always draw on his emotion when he actually needed it (delivering a speech, trying to get laid, meeting new people) but when he didn’t, why bother?

Thus, when Danny was in a happy state of mind, wasting precious emotion because he sort of felt like it, he didn’t at all appreciate other people trivializing his triviality by being happy too. This waste of his emotion was starting to make him sad, which in turn made him angry that he was wasting sadness that should be cultivated and released when necessary (death in a friend’s family, for example).

It was in this cyclical state of affairs that he ran into the first person he wanted to see: the last person he wanted to see. It was the first person he wanted to see because he hated him and that would help stop his happy cycle; it was the last person he wanted to see because this person liked Danny very, very much.

This person’s name was Jack Daniels. Yes. His last name had already been Daniels, and his mother (who had one too many Jack Daniels herself on the night Jack Daniels entered the world) decided it would be cruelly fitting to name him Jack. This hadn’t been a problem in his earlier years of schooling because not so many 8-year-olds know what exactly Jack Daniels is, but it became a problem in high school, so he went by Jack and when required to write his full name wrote “Andrew Jackson Daniels, Esq.”, which is a good example of his particularly :wub:[1] sense of humor.

Throughout their uncomfortable years in school together, Jack Daniels absolutely worshiped Danny, even adopting his attitude and speech. At first, Danny had found this to be supremely satisfying, and used his disciple to do entertaining yet incredibly stupid things. Eventually, Danny grew tired of Jack and told him in no uncertain terms to just screw off, for God’s sake, but Jack apparently didn’t realize “screw off” meant “I hate you, leave me alone, please just die”. He had continued to follow Danny around like AIDS (though Danny thought AIDS, at least, would go away when you died instead of delivering your eulogy and putting flowers on your grave). Jack had only finally left him alone when they had gone to different colleges, so Danny wondered quite reasonably what in hell’s name Jack Daniels was doing on a New York sidewalk running into him.

“Danny!” Jack exclaimed as if he had just seen the most beautiful woman in the world naked and bored.

“*******!” Danny replied warmly, embracing Jack and hoping it was hard enough to crush one or preferably both of his kidneys.

Jack laughed, slightly uncomfortably, and seemed as if he was about to embrace Danny back when Danny hastily withdrew and wiped his hands on his dress pants. “What are you doing in New York, Danny?” Jack asked.

Only images of a serene Mother Theresa and Jesus on the cross kept Danny from responding with sadistic violence. Instead, Danny forced a smile and said, “I live here. What are you doing here, Jack Daniels?”

“My name isn’t Jack Daniels anymore,” Jack said with a smile.

“Then, Andrew Jackson Daniels—”

“Wrong again,” Jack said, with the look of someone who knew his next sentence would be so mind-shatteringly enraging as to cause insanity and possibly even celibacy[2].

Danny felt a sinking feeling seep into his body. “Then, what’s your name?”

“Danny Tremaine.”

1: :wub: - adjective. Behavior or attitude reminiscent of a giant *******; synonyms: assholish, annoying, Tom Cruise.
2: Well, there has to be reason why priests do it. What, you thought it was God?


* * *

For a moment, Danny just stared blankly at Jack. His eyes were slightly glazed over; he had strange thoughts of happy places and fields of flowers and trees and crack cocaine. Then, he said slowly, “Say that again, Jack, I don’t think I quite heard you.”

“I’ve legally changed my name to Danny Tremaine,” he said again, with a wide cheery smile and a look of ecstasy.

“That’s,” Danny said, in slight shock. “Interesting. I guess you like the name?”

“Not really,” Jack admitted. “But I like you. I’m sure you remember.”

“Who could forget,” Danny said simply. What he meant to say was, ‘let’s go into a very dark, small alley where I will painfully end your life with a blunt object’, but the words didn’t quite come out.

“Let’s grab a drink, Danny,” Jack said. “We have a lot of catching up to do. What was college like? Any girlfriends? Drink a lot? Get in trouble? See any good movies?”

“Nggh[3],” Danny said.

“Wonderful,” Jack said, and began walking. For some reason, Danny followed him; maybe he had nothing better to do, or maybe he was just too shocked to make good decisions.

3: “Nggh”, in this usage, can mean any number of different things. It could mean, perhaps, exhausted agreement. It could mean, “what?”. It could mean, “why, yes, what a brilliant idea!” But in this particular statement, it most closely means “I would rather be raped by a sex-starved group of imprisoned midgets than be having this conversation”.


* * *

Danny Tremaine had sat quietly through an uncomfortable discussion in the bar, his mind finding happier places as it tried to deal with a strange sense of shock and lethargy. Danny had no memory of the conversation, really; he had payed as little attention as humanly possible. He remembered only a few sentences — memories of high school, repeated questions of how life had been. Danny just tried to answer as vaguely as possible.

Eventually, Jack paid the tab and took Danny out the door onto the streets They stopped together, Danny looking at the ground with a mixture of rage and somewhat humored confusion, and Jack looked up at the sky with excitement. Night had fallen, and the lights of the city hid the stars. That, and the pollution.

“So, Danny,” Jack said, starting to lead Danny along an unfamiliar route, “Have you ever considered what you want to do with your life?”

Danny was silent for few moments, crossing his arms in the cold, but he eventually spoke. “I am doing what I want to do. I live in New York, I’m rich, I’ve got a girl ... I’ve made something of my life. Unlike you! You probably still live your mommy, right?”

Jack smiled. “No. Let me show you my apartment, Danny.”

Danny shook his head. “I don’t want to go in your damn apartment, *******. I’m going home.”

Jack paused, then reached into his pocket and withdrew his wallet. It had a strange resemblance to Danny’s, the same make and color, and it was suspicious enough that Danny felt in his pockets, making sure he still had his wallet with him. He did. “Do you recognize this?” Jack said, pulling a credit card out of his wallet.

“It’s a credit card,” Danny said impatiently.

“Look a bit closer.”

Exasperated, Danny looked a little further at it. It was familiar . . . and not just the same kind of card, but the same number. Danny laughed nervously. “That looks a lot like my credit card.”

“That’s because it is,” Jack replied with a smile. “Well, not exactly; it is an exact copy of yours. You still have yours, of course, but so do I.”

“Well, it won’t do you any good without my PI—”

“4132,” Jack said with a smile. “I know everything there is to know about Danny Tremaine.”

“Okay,” Danny said. “Cut the ********, man. Very funny. Now I’m going, and I never want to talk to you again.”

“But we’re friends, Danny,” Jack said, with a strange tone Danny had never heard before . . . not fear, not admiration, not adulation . . . contempt. “Such good friends.” He pulled another card out of his wallet, and showed it to Danny, who tried to snatch it.

“Social Security,” Jack explained. “I have your birth certificate, master’s degree, high school diploma. Social Security, credit card, check book, ID, driver’s license. All with my face on them, and my name. Because my name,” he smiled, “is Danny Tremaine.”

Danny made a flailing attempt to grab Jack’s wallet, and was met with a shockingly hard punch to the ribs that sent him to the street. He felt strange, lethargic, uncertain . . . and shocked, shocked that Jack Daniels, the biggest pussy in the history of pussies...

Danny felt something shockingly cold against his forehead.

He looked up and into the barrel of a gun. His blood ran cold; sweat turned to ice running down his back. “Come on, Jack,” he said uncertainly. “This has been funny. I just want to go home. You want money?”

“No,” Jack snarled. “I don’t want anything from you, you pathetic bastard. I don’t want anything because my name,” he narrowed his eyes, “my name is Danny Tremaine. I am Danny Tremaine. And I am going to be a much, much better Danny Tremaine than you ever were.”

A shot rang out, startlingly loud in a loud city. Danny Tremaine died instantly, a hole in his skull, blank eyes looking upwards as his body slumped against the cement. The old Danny Tremaine died, and the new one calmly pocketed his gun and walked away, whistling quietly to no one but himself.

[Libertine]

Thats ed up mate... awesome but well weird.

You may wanna go get some help

Anyhoo, rock on Justy liking the material

[Justinian]

Why would you write something normal when life is normal?

[Niles Crane]

Nay, awesomeness so awesome we shall create our own word to describe it: awesasmic. Awesome so awesome it’s orgasmic. If you prefer, we could also use awesomality. Or both.

That is so you. In fact, that is really the subject matter of all our MSN conversations.

[danzig]

Really, really good

[Justinian]

Thanks man.

[Faenaris]

This was an intruiging piece. I especially loved the ending.

Thumbs up.

[Justinian]

The ending is actually the part I'm the least sure about. Thanks!

[Faenaris]

The ending is actually the part I'm the least sure about. Thanks!

You did a good job building tension and leaving the reader a bit unsure on what actually is going to happen. Your ending was a true catharsis and it wasn't an obvious ending. Good stuff.