Cassandra

Content warning: this story mentions domestic violence.

A story about an unreliable narrator. That’s what she wants. And of course, we all know how that goes. Friday and Saturday she’s just thinking. Quietly. By Sunday she has a plan. And by Monday morning I get summoned from my slumber back on the page. Ready to impersonate another protagonist. This time the narrator acts all charming and likable, but she turns out to be the murderer. Tessa gets attention and the reader gets to chuckle smugly, thinking, "I totally saw that coming." The reader holds all the power. And the protagonist has none. 

I once had a backstory with a best friend. Her parents had moved here from Switzerland. They spoke German at home and English at school. She was bilingual and incredibly proud of it. Her entire identity was tied to that dual nationality combined with those summer holidays in Switzerland. Now read that sentence again: her parents moved here.

And what about this one? A social media influencer showing off her four kids in matching (clean!) outfits and her organic vegetable garden. She’s got it all figured out. She is the center of their world. She is God. Let’s just conveniently leave out the fact that her husband earns the equivalent of two average salaries.

Two perfect examples of unreliable narrators. Write them out into a 1,000 to 3,000 word story and sprinkle some glitter on top. 

No, of course not. Hello? Wake up. They aren’t unreliable narrators. 

They aren’t lying, are they? Do you think I’m so jealous that I’d spend nights doing research just to find some dirt on that seemingly perfect influencer? Everyone knows her husband is a corporate lawyer. It says so on her profile. And yet, people line up for her e-book titled "Fifty Creative Zucchini Recipes." As if she were some new sustainable guru who’s going to save us all.

Speaking of the power of "organic"... My father once experienced a great injustice. I call this The Great Injustice, because he normally doesn’t really talk about his feelings, but I’ve heard the disbelief and frustration from this one from all angles. Anyway, it never got published, but it went like this: he grows roses. And people like to give roses as a symbol of their flawless love, so the roses have to be perfect too. That’s why my father sprays them with poison. Or insecticide, as people like to call it. Year after year, more and more people started complaining about those chemical roses and their toxic side effects. And what do you think happened next? My father simply took the feedback to heart and tried going organic for a year. He read up on it and took a course. He even put up a sign out front displaying some sort of certification. And what did he get? Dozens of complaints about earwigs suddenly crawling out of the flowers at the wrong moment. And people asking how he dared to mock his customers like that. They made sure he knew they’d be getting their next bouquet from a different grower.

And that’s how you can spin any fairy tale however you like. There are people who believe you can drop bombs on children's hospitals and still have a right to complain about injustice. There are books with plot holes the size of craters that have become bestsellers.

Tessa once made me attend a party. A perfectly normal party, with rather plain descriptions and predictable men, if I may say so. Halfway through, someone grabbed the microphone. “Today is the eighth of March. International Women’s Day. For all the women in the world. And especially for the women who are mothers. Three cheers!” The crowd cheered as if we had won the World Cup. I didn’t cheer. I was sick to my stomach. And my head filled itself with memories. Memories I’ve actually shared, you know. Bruises I’ve actually shown. I’m not lying. I’m not the one who’s unreliable.

And yet, every Women’s Day, Mother’s Day, birthday, Christmas, the conversation turns back to that sick excuse of a human being. “Doesn’t it bother her that you don’t want to talk to her anymore? She is your mother, after all. Maybe you could visit her just once more. Maybe things are different now.” I’m not even going to answer that.

Two months ago, I was waiting for Tessa to decide on the details of my wedding dress and I looked out of the window. A group of neighbours were staring at something. They were chatting and gesturing, but nothing happened. I was bored out of my mind and went outside. I heard it before I even saw it. A puppy. All by itself. Crying at the top of its lungs in a total panic. I picked the little one up and took him home. The neighbours said that by doing so, I was perpetuating the cycle and rewarding the people who dump dogs. The neighbours said my house would turn into a flea factory. The neighbors said the puppy would destroy my couch.

And now we walk down the street twice a day. My puppy and I. That little dude who wakes me up at night and still regularly pees on the kitchen floor. And the neighbours’ reaction? “Oh, look how big he’s gotten. And he walks so beautifully on the leash. You really are lucky, you know. To have such a sweet little dog.” And then I think back to all those times my mother started to cry. “I know it’s not right. I know. Of course, but it’s just so hard. She is so difficult. Her little brother isn’t like that at all. I say ‘no’ once and he listens. I know it’s bad, but I don’t see any other solution.” And then I think of all those people who feel pity for a grown woman who hits small children.

There was a time when I believed it was all Tessa’s fault. She really isn’t that good of a story teller, to be honest. Maybe she needed more adjectives or better plot devices. She could hand me credibility. Or maybe I myself needed to develop a better sense of drama. Maybe I frowned or paused or sighed at the wrong moments. For a long time, I believed I was the one who had to change. I had to earn my trustworthiness. Yes, the premise had to be earned. And then those almighty readers would eventually stroke my forehead, pat me on the shoulder, and say that they finally understood.

I fully intended to just try again for the three-hundredth time. To let Tessa mold me into another protagonist. Maybe a small child who doesn’t understand why Mommy is so mean. About a child who promises herself to play more quietly the next day. To make less of a mess. A child who decides she is lucky, that things could have been worse. I would perform that story with beautiful simplicity. Tessa would provide a fitting metaphor somewhere just past the midpoint. And the president of one of those bomb-loving countries would read my story with tears in his eyes. 

This is my resignation letter. I can’t do it. And you know what? I’m proud of that. There are so many people calling desperately for help. They’re going from door to door day and night, hoping to find someone willing to protect them, someone willing to believe them. And it’s true: most people already have enough on their plates; they don’t necessarily need to take on other people’s problems, too.

But then, safely tucked away in Tessa’s fantasy world, I become the perfect protagonist. I inhabit the perfect story that no one can wriggle their way out of. A story so pure that it forces people to face the actual facts. A text that ensures everyone who reads it is inevitably confronted with their own cowardly flight from responsibility. And then, the almighty reader feels moved to the very depths of their saturated souls.

Do you know what that means? That if I can be the perfect protagonist, all those other children just didn’t perform well enough. It’s easy to rescue a puppy that wags its tail and relaxes as it presses itself against you. But does a puppy that growls have any less right to care and shelter?

As far as I’m concerned, from all my years as an all-round protagonist, there are no unreliable narrators. Only a bunch of unreliable readers.

Sincerely, 

Cassandra