The Writers Workshop

The Writers Workshop. Whatever pompous dilettante dreamed up this name for a creative writing class probably had one story published in his high school newspaper and went on to hallucinate himself a great writer and critic.

"My name is Mr. Mike Bell and I'm standing in for Mr. George Johnsrud who was called away to the Harvard Literary Seminar," I announced to the classroom of aspiring writers, bored retirees, and students needing an extra credit hour. "This is, for those of you who may have forgotten, is the Iowa University's Evening Writers Workshop. I hope everyone remembered to bring their hammers and saws." There was an applausive chuckle from the half dozen present, drowned out by the thunder of some freighter lifting off from the spaceport South of the campus. I studied the two page cheat sheet George had handed me the day before.

"I read that Mr. Johnsrud always started the readings with the novelists. Mr. Calori, would you care to begin?"

He was wearing the complete "famous writer" costume: penny loafers, slacks, Grand Banks fisherman's jersey with a briar pipe tucked into a corner pocket. Papa Hemingway or William Faulkner. He adjusted the lapreader before him, cleared his throat.

"Tonight I'll continue with chapter twelve of my novel "Cloudbuster!", about two poor farm boys who build a jetwing from an old plasma drive and scrap lumber to fly the countryside, sharing adventures." He squinted into the view screen.

"Me and Jeb circled the field looking for a place to land. It was really scary for a while. When we landed, all the people came over to look at the Cloudbuster and us. Two pretty farm girls were so thrilled they asked me and Jeb for a date. We both said yes."

And so it went. A bland and carefully neutral critique followed. I had sat through several of these workshops in my college days and recognized the familiar scenario. Any negative criticism of another's work would be rewarded by a punishing review when it came your time to read. I returned to my cheat sheet.

"Ms. Hensley-Cohen-Parker, I see you have chapter fifty-eight of your gothic romance for us?"

There was a roll of toilet paper on the desk beside her, a pile of wadded tissue at her feet. Evidently, Ms. Hensley-Cohen-Parker was suffering through a cold and regarded handkerchiefs as not in character with a potential literary great.

"As I left off last week, Cecelia discovers Prince Iezore's--excuse me--." She stuffed a wad of toilet paper under her nose and sneezed, her several chins jiggling. "--secret door in the castle…"

Looking back across decades of standing before fresh young faces, introducing them to the world of great writing, I had hoped I would be the one to discover and inspire the next Edgar Allen Poe, the next Ray Bradbury. I shrugged, returning to my sheet.

"Let me see, short story writers are next. Ms. Merkel?" I looked expectantly over the lines of desks to the back row and locked eyes with a tall, rumpled-looking girl wearing a spray of some kind of fern in her hair. Very 1960's retro-look; tie dyed blouse, peace medallion. This class was obviously very big on costumes.

Ms. Merkel centered the lapreader on her desk and glanced up at the people around her with a kind of surly triumph. Or was it smugness?

"Morning of a Permian Dawn. The sun crested the hills, painting shadows among the cycads at the water's edge. The dimitrodons raised their back fins, blinking in their beds of mud."

I had to admit it was well written, with a wealth of detail. Perhaps too much detail. How could one tell what the mud smelled like millions of years ago?"

A faint chime came sounded in the corridor outside the classroom. I glanced at the timebar on the far wall.

"That looks like all we'll have time for tonight," I said. "Be prepared to critique Ms. Merkel's story in our next session."

The room quickly emptied, its occupants no doubt off to bed, part-time jobs at Burgerquick or to add more pages to the next blockbuster novel. I gathered up my files and George's cheat sheet.

There was a green object lying on the desk where Ms. Merkel had sat. It was the spray of the fernlike plant she had worn in her hair. There was something really odd about it, something otherworldly. On impulse, I slipped the comm disc from my vest and clicked a photo. As I stared through the viewfinder for a second shot it flickered, turned two dimensional, and it was gone.

"Hermita Germanica, from the early Permium period, say, about two hundred ninety million years ago." Professor Drumgold looked up from the screen on my comm disc and nodded approvingly.

"Very nicely crafted replica. Who did you say brought it to your workshop?"

"Replica?"

"I don't think it's a plant you can pick up at a homeworld nursery sale."

Professor Drumgold and I went a long way back to when he was the senior academician at Iowa U and I was a wet behind the ears undergraduate. He was the type to never retire. The students called him Professor Dumbledore.

I snapped the cover shut and returned the disc to my pocket.

"The funny thing is, as I was taking that picture it sort of flickered and disappeared."

"Define disappeared."

"As in vanish. Gone from sight."

The eyes under Drumgold's shaggy white eyebrows gave me that look he reserved for his students who made some incredibly stupid remark before the entire class.

"Go home," he ordered. "And get some sleep."

"Crouching in the ruins of the dead city Popeye listened to the wind blowing from Kaol, a few hundred haads to the East and the roars of the ba'aths, the great hunting lions of

Barsoom." If you are going to plagiarize Edgar Rice Burroughs, at least get the names of his characters straight, I mused sourly. It's banth, not ba'ath, you mediocre hack. I was immediately sorry for the thought, remembering both of my ex-wives telling me that, among my many faults, I was too judgmental. The workshop had grown by two more credit-hungry students and guessing by the shirt, a burgerquick deliveryman.

The hack had come to the end of his tale and looked around him expectantly.

"Really great, Garcia. This one's sure to be a sale."

"Fantastic originality, colorful characters."

"I loved the part where Popeye rescued Sweet Cheeks before the gates of Kaol."

"Yeah, well written, dude."

In some remote place and time there must have been a writer's workshop which held the likes of Jack London and Sinclair Lewis. This didn't seem to be the time or place.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Garcia." My gaze traveled to the gone-to-seed hippy in the back row. She grinned as if reading my thoughts. I cleared my throat.

"Ms. Merkel, I see you're ready to dazzle and astound us with your latest."

She adjusted her lapreader to the precise center of her desk and with a smirk concentrated on the screen.

"One of history's great love stories was that of Hector and Andromache during the Trojan War in Greece of ancient Earth."

Thus launched, she carried on about their likes and dislikes, personal foibles, marching armies, battles won and lost. No question at all, she was good. I had the eerie feeling as she read that part of her was back in ancient Troy and instead of creating a story she was merely describing what she saw.

Her tale ended. I saw chagrined looks on the faces of Papa Hemingway and the hack. Great. Perhaps they picked up a few pointers on the craft of writing from the pompous but talented Ms. Merkel.

A few more readings followed and the workshop ended for the night, the budding writers closing up their lapreaders and pocketing scribes. Soon, I was alone. I yawned, reached for my coat and paused.

The desk in the final row was still cluttered with scribes, carryall, and Ms. Merkel's lapreader. I frowned. Perhaps she had to run to the ladies' room to relieve herself of excess arrogance. Or maybe she had merely left, forgetting--

A hazy shape formed by the desk, solidifying into Ms. Merkel. She stood for a moment, swayed, and fell to the floor. I dashed down the rows, kneeling beside her. There was blood running along the floor and a long arrow protruding from the fleshy part of her calf.

"Holy crap!" I blurted. "What the hell happened to you?"

"You know, Homer was right." She winced and jerked out the arrow, tossing it away. "Paris really was a sneaky asshole." Then she fainted.

I hit the emergency button on my comm disc before ripping off my tie and fastening a crude tourniquet. Seconds later an avalanche of paramedics, campus security and school officials stormed into the classroom. Ms. Merkel was bandaged up and strapped to a gurney. The head of campus security looked at me expectantly.

"Gee, officer, she stumbled back into the classroom--she's one of my students--must have been stabbed outside in the hallway. Most likely one of those dirt bag exchange students from Mars Colony. What kind of security force are you running here when you can't even protect us in our own buildings?" The school officials around me were keening like widows at an Irish wake over the blood, overturned desks and the fact that the custodial staff had left for the night.

"Very nice replica, looks like Trojan war era," Professor Drumgold remarked, turning the arrow over. "You're certainly becoming quite the antiquities collector. First Permian flora, now this."

"Actually, I found this sticking in the leg of one of my writer's workshop students." I had to relish the expression on his face. "No, she's going to be all right. The paramedics said no serious tissue damage, probably patch her up, and send her home."

"You don't think the State Peaceforce might be interested in this arrow?"

"I thought you'd find it a lot more interesting. Why don't you hang onto it for awhile and see."

"You know, Mike, I never liked mysteries…"

I thought the timing at this point was superb. The arrow took on a diaphanous shimmer and faded away. Drumgold stared at his empty palm then looked up.

"This student of yours… where is she from?" he inquired calmly.

"Ms. Merkel? I think I saw a note on George's sheet that she's a student transfer in from Sheridan's Planet."

Drumgold fixed me with a hard stare. "It would seem your Ms. Merkel is on hyperdrug."

"Excuse me?" I must have looked as blank as I felt.

"Sheridan's Planet is under Interworld quarantine as the only source for the illegal hallucinogenic drug hyoscyamus folsox."

I shook my head. "I didn't see her doing any hallucinating. One minute her desk in my classroom was empty, the next there was a blur and she's back with an arrow in her leg."

"Folsox, or hyperdrug, is an alkaloid amine that interfaces the brain's neurotransmitters with quantum space. When someone ingests the drug, he or she is transported physically or mentally to whatever place and time is thought of. Researchers call it the fantasy dimension." He made a wry face. "I suppose you could refer to it as the ultimate bad trip and sometimes fatal."

Now I could see how here stories had such fire and realism. I began to grasp to what length she had gone to reach her potential as a writer

"Just how illegal is hyperdrug?" I ventured.

"You have no idea. Since the mandatory aversion vaccines for drug addicts and users in the thirties, this is the only illegal drug left. She's facing lifetime deportation to the Agoyn Penal Asteroid."

I found myself looking at a bloodstain on my pants cuff. "I think I need to have a chat with Ms. Merkel."

"Better make it soon," he agreed.

I had to stop by my classroom to get her address. It wasn't at any of the university dorms or off-campus student housing but next to an industrial park in the backside of the spaceport. Which told me she wasn't here at Iowa University on a scholarship or on the tab of rich parents.

I took the metro slider to a run-down flatblock and tapped the speakergrill by the door. There was a long pause.

"Yes, who is it?" I could hear an ancient folk song from the 1960's wailing in the background.

"Mr. Bell."

"One second."

The door opened revealing Merkel in her most aggressive retro hippy outfit of love beads, bellbottom jeans and granny glasses perched on the end of her nose. She was leaning on a plastoid crutch; her jeans rolled up above the bandage on her calf.

"How's the leg?" I asked. "I see the clinic didn't have to lop it off."

"Come in, grab a seat." She waved to a tiny table littered by discs, scribes, and her lapreader.

"Well then, what shall we talk about?" she asked, leaning back in her chair and peering at me over the top of her glasses.

"I see you're working on a new story." I indicated the lapreader.

The surly expression brightened. "Yes. This one is about ancient Atlantis prior to its sinking under the ocean around 1400 BC. I've almost finished the rough draft. Since you're here, let me give you the outline."

I let her ramble along for a while, growing more enthusiastic as she enlarged on the climate, the architecture and the culture.

"So when are you leaving?" I finally interrupted. "Or have you already left?"

The enthusiastic glow vanished. "Well now, I suppose we're about ready to come down to cases. Do you still have the arrow?"

"You know what happened to the arrow."

There was silence in the tiny room but for an out of tune guitar and a nasal voice singing about "the peace train is coming."

"I had a flashback. I was concentrating so hard on my story I lost control." She picked up a stylus and began drumming on the table. "My parents saved for years, working in the mines on Sheridan's Planet to send me here. I know I have the talent to become a great writer and I refuse to let them down. Or myself."

"No matter what the cost."

Her mouth curled into a snarl. "So preach me a sermon, Reverend Bell. You must have a low tolerance for mediocrity to sit night after night listening to the pathetic scribbling of those hacks." Well launched, she was on her way. "All they have to write about is the experiences of others. Great writers tell about the experiences in their lives. When I write about Troy or a Permian swamp I've been there, I've lived there." She fished in her jeans and held up an orange capsule. "See this? When I crack it open and inhale the hyperdrug gas I'll be in Atlantis, mind, body and soul. My story--"

"They probably took a blood sample at the clinic when they patched you up tonight."

That put a stopper on the flow. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she was able to speak. "Blood sample?" It came out as a whisper.

"Standard procedure to check for alien infections or offworld diseases." I gave her a few moments to let this sink in. "Were I you, Ms. Merkel, I'd take the next jumpship home."

"Attention! This is the Iowa State Peaceforce," came from the speakergrill by the door. "We would like to talk to Ms. Sylvia Merkel, please."

Our eyes locked. Her reaction wasn't what I expected.

"Could you see what they want, Mr. Bell? My leg is killing me," she smiled.

I walked to the door and pulled it open to confront no less than five burly peacetroopers. They craned their necks to look past me into the room.

"Is Ms. Merkel available?" one of them wearing sergeant's chevrons demanded.

I nodded. "She's one of my students in my writer's workshop. What's this all about?"

"She's under arrest for hyperdrug possession." He held up a warrant. They pushed past me and spread out, searching the bathroom and tiny kitchen.

The room was empty. All that remained was the table, the open lapreader and two halves of a broken orange capsule.

"--and after casting the evil Lord Barnsmellow from the ramparts Prince Eizore swept Cecelia into his arms--"

I was staring at the vacant seat in the back row where Ms. Merkel used to sit with her lapreader and a complacent smirk. Outside the classroom another jumpship thundered skywards, rattling the windows.

I know she won't be back. She talked a great deal about the fundamentals of great writing. Craftsmanship, style and imagination. What she left out was the value of research. I did a little research myself into the writings of Plato back in 355 BC. He claimed Atlantis sank under the sea around 1500 BC. Which means that when Ms. Merkel arrived there via the fantasy dimension Atlantis will have been at the bottom of the ocean for a hundred years. Somehow she didn't strike me as being that good a swimmer.

Still…

I continue to stare at the empty seat in the last row. Perhaps there will yet be a ghostly shimmer and Ms. Merkel will appear like the Cheshire Cat with her lapreader and a fresh new smirk.

THE END

Bio: A native of Canada, Kurt Heinrich Hyatt came down and joined the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. He started writing in 2010 with science fiction stories being accepted by Etopia Press, Jupiter Science Fiction, Dreamscape Press, Explorers Anthology, Efiction Magazine, Garbled Transmissions, Kalkion, Fast Forward Festival, Residential Aliens, and is a frequent contributor to Allegory Magazine and Aphelion. This story originally appeared in April, 2011 issue of Residential Aliens. His last Aphelion appearance was The Plague Merchants in our June 2013 issue.

E-mail: Kurt Heinrich Hyatt

Comment on this story in the Aphelion Forum

Return to Aphelion's Index page.