I Was Hypnotized!
“You can’t erase ten years of Detective Malone stories with ‘he was hypnotized so it was all in his head’, Candace!” Aaron said.
“Sure I can.”
“That’s absurd. Not publishing this.”
“I guess I’ll have to tell everyone what you did at that party a few months ago then!”
“I was hypnotized!” He blurted.
“Touché!”
I’m sure I’m not the only writer that sometimes thinks of reboots and retcons as a way to revisit past stories. There’s an endless ocean of possibilities, what if scenarios and whatnot but, when the time comes, I never go forward with it. Well, just because I can’t, doesn’t mean my characters can’t so that was my reasoning for this one. I don’t think I was hypnotized into writing it though.
Obvious Things
“The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply,” Danielle said.
“Like what?” Mark asked.
“Well… you didn’t believe you were my slave until I said it.”
“You said it a million times to brainwash me!”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Good. Get your brother on the phone…” she smirked.
Believe it or not, the opening line is a quote by Khalil Gibran. Yes, not even the famous Lebanese thinker/poet escapes my subversive Muse. It’s true that in our lives we often neglect obvious things and only come to realize them when someone points them out loud thus shattering our way of thinking but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t thinking about powerful women when he wrote that.
Well, he didn’t, but I did because the show keeps going. Almost three complete months in 2019, only nine more to go.
Pairadox
“There’s two of you? You never told me you had a twin, Alice!” Mark exclaimed.
“She’s not my twin but a clone I created in the basement of my father’s from a single drop of blood…” she replied.
“Cool.”
Alice smirked. It was always fun to make him believe whatever she wanted while in trance.
When you’re in trance, you’re more open to suggestions, everybody knows that. Depending on one’s degree of suggestibility, one can accept even the most absurd things as facts. I wrote this one thinking of that and as for the title, well… you already know I love absurd words and puns so…
Original Sequel
“Why do you hate sequels?” Alicia asked.
“Because continuity is a bitch,” Clark replied.
“I can be a bitch, too. Still waiting on that story.”
“What story?”
“The continuation of the piece where the writer is unwillingly hypnotized by his girlfriend.”
“When did I write the original?”
“One minute from now,” she snapped her fingers.
Let it be clear from the start that I don’t hate sequels though I’m not overly fond of them either. Continuity is certainly one of the reasons for it because of trying to make sure all the details match, especially in longer enterprises, can be quite difficult. I’m my own worst critic so when I find myself devising a story-line in an already existing universe, extra work is necessary to keep it all consistent. Since I always have a million or more ideas swirling in my head at any given time, it’s often easier to create something new than to go down the continuation route.
Sometimes, I get asked to write sequels to my works. Sometimes, I do it, sometimes, I don’t and the aforementioned reason is one of them. It’s certainly easier to do so in a small pieces though.
This isn’t a sequel to one from the past but the idea of writing under hypnosis is certainly appealing. The sequel angle here is just a hook to get things going as seen by the last line. First, you confuse the subject and then you win. Doesn’t that sound nice?