Can Fiction Cause Reality?

Introduction

I had an idea for a story, about an author's stories coming to life. Obviously, my stories don't come to life, so - though the story is told in the first person by the author, I am not that author rather I am the one who wrote this story.

The characters, locations, and stories are all fictional. Fictional - as in not true, not meant to seem true, and not based in or on truth.

Here goes.

Can Fiction Cause Reality?

My name is Dennis Comstock, I wish I could say you know my name from the Nikki Brand novels. Unfortunately, the only readers of those novels, to date, are editors at various publishing houses - all of whom have suggested I might try another profession.

I should not be so hard on myself. All have shown interest, but suggested Nikki, a mayor of an unnamed major city, should be more like this or less like that. Nikki is an independent - woman and politician and consequently not quite right for either conservative or liberal editors.

The more I change Nikki to be what they want, the less they are interested in her - she is then, too ordinary. That saga is a whole different story.

I can afford to be an unpublished author because I am married to Pat Welch. At home she is Patty Comstock, but at International Widgets, where she is COO, and top dog, she thinks Patty too "girlish" and uses her maiden name. International Widgets is the manufacturing division of Global Gadgets, my wife is a contender to be CEO of the parent company before she retires.

Patty and I have two children. David, ten, was born when Patty was 31 and I was nearly 31 - I am four months younger than my wife. Michelle is fourteen months younger than her brother.

Our marriage is a strange one in many respects. We are fine with our roles. We love each other. I love raising two beautiful children. Our fear, as expressed by Patty is that her children might not be able to pick her out of a line up.

If Pat is to become CEO of Global, she needs to be head of sales and marketing for the parent company before she is in her mid-forties. That job is currently held by Pat's biggest rival. He needs operating experience before he would be considered for the top job. There is often talk of the two of them switching jobs after another year, or two.

While Patty loves her children, she is driven to be CEO. People in competition for those jobs have no limit on how many hours they will work. Any time a question arises about job or family, it is easy to fall into the trap of - the family will always be there, this might be the thing that puts me over the top. Her boss, the current Global CEO, uses that dangling carrot with Pat, often. He doesn't estrange himself from his family by making my wife work more hours.

From this description, you would think there was tension between Patty and me, but there isn't. She loves her life. I love my life. We love our life. David loves his life.

Michelle is nearly nine. Suddenly, she needs a mother. These days about half of her friends live with only a mother. She is not happy.

Guys are guys, we go with the flow. Women, even "little women" don't. When they are unhappy, silence suffers - they don't.

Patty got home at 10:45 pm, not all that unusual. Michelle had been in bed, "asleep" for nearly two hours. As Patty and I kissed and loved one another, a little voice said, "I am basically an orphan. Why do you come around at all?" She turned and went to her room.

She could have hit Patty with a hammer and hurt her less. Tears welled and were quickly swallowed. Patty used a little gallows humor, "Wow, not yet nine. I'd say she is out of control, but I know her mother. We only have a decade before she will start to see things more clearly."

"Let me go talk to her. I don't like her getting out of bed to say things like that to her mother."

"Denny, let her be. I can go in and get into it with her, but she is up too late and that will end her chance at a good night's sleep. Believe me, she and I will have ample opportunities in the next few years. It is clear I am going to need to wear my big-girl-panties, or she'll run right over me."

"Patty, quit being an exec. I saw the tears. She is your daughter."

"I know. More than that, she has a point. We need to talk about that. She does need things from me, that David didn't, and that you can't do well."

"I can tell her anything." I said, defensively.

"You can't hang with her and be her girlfriend/mentor. She needs me to be a mom. You need to help me with that."

"How can I help?"

"Denny, we were made for each other. I can't tell you how cathartic it is for me to come home and find you and your unconditional love. I can be an absolute terror, or a total fuck-up, or in the middle of everyone genuflecting each time I go by, because I am a super star - it is all the same. Here is where my center is. Here is where my sanity is."

"And this helps Michelle, how?"

"That's my point. It doesn't. This is where I come to be with you and to tell you about my shitty day, and for the last four or five years listen to how Nikki should approach failing schools or dangerous streets. Then, we make sweet love, and I can take on another day. Michelle doesn't fit in that. You need to make me be a better mother."

"Patty, you're dreaming. You don't do what I say. I don't do what you say. We live wonderful lives because we allow and enable one another to be free. Our marriage works so well because a mutual freedom we choose is to be together."

She came over to me, in my oversized chair, sat on my lap, and put her head on my shoulder. I held her and we were still. No words, no movement, just contemplating our conversation. She often did this when I was right, and she wished I weren't.

She was right about our lifestyle. When we married, I was partner in a company which did payroll, insurance, and 401(k) retirement programs for small businesses. I did the work; my partner made the sales. Our clients numbered forty or more companies in three cities, there was no way I could visit them and get any work done. So, I worked from home.

Pat (her work persona) was a super star, rising fast. We wanted children and decided I could be the stay-at-home parent, since I was already at home. Everything worked well, for a while. My partner kept selling to more clients and we hired additional people to do the work. Suddenly, my job was in part, supervision which needed to be face-to-face. But I was bound at home.

Patty and I liked me at home with the kids, so we decided to sell my half of the partnership. My partner loved the idea, the purchase price was to pay me about half of what I had been making, for ten years. That enabled me to be an as-yet published author and still contribute to the household accounts.

Nearly five years ago, when the sales arrangement started, I still made nearly as much as Patty. Now, Pat makes easily twice what I do, even without her substantial year-end bonuses. But my contribution is what we agreed to, and we are happy - I am not a "kept man".

"Make love to me." Brought me back to awareness that Patty was now sensuously snuggling into me. We quickly adjourned to the bedroom.

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Mornings were hectic, then calm. For a time, it was: make breakfast for Patty and me; argue with the young woman that it really was time to get up; find a favorite sweatshirt; make second breakfast; and so forth. Then, into the car, ten minutes to school, ten minutes back home - to solitude and "the blank page".

The writing was proving difficult. I could not seem to find the balance between plot and characters - my plots tended to overwhelm the people.

I decided to do some writing, which could be viewed by many, at no cost to me (or them). I would use what I learned from that writing and feedback to help my, as-yet not-for-profit writing. I found an erotic story website, which suited my needs. I write using the name, BadKarma.

The site has multiple categories and I write in many of them. All my stories are received well, but the real winners are ones where the cheating spouse and his or her paramour come to a bad ending. When I say bad ending, I mean struck by lightning, caught in a cattle stampede, or some similar spectacularly fatal ending.

My first BTB story was submitted on Halloween, last year. I know many of you read it, it has over 50,000 reads and 328 comments, to date. The title was Lady in the Lake. The lady was Cheryl Adams, the wayward, wanton, wife of Sam Adams (no, not that one). I'll recap the story, so you don't have to look it up.

It seems Cheryl was bored with her workaholic husband, Sam. She found a man, Chester White, willing to help relieve her of her boredom (and himself of his sexual tension). Unlike other characters, in other stories, they were extremely cautious in their hook-ups, and knew they'd never get caught.

One winter's day, the two were parked by a lake just outside their hometown of Roland, Wisconsin. The lake was not very deep and as far North as Roland is - frozen over every winter. Chester wanted to be in the warmth of Cheryl's bed since her husband was in the middle of a two-week business trip. Cheryl would have none of it. Someone might see them go in or out and they would be caught.

When Sam returned from his business trip - no Cheryl. Her car was gone. All her things were in the closet. Sam called the police.

Sam was beside himself. The police asked when he and his wife had last talked. He said he called her four times during his absence, but she did not answer the last time he called, which had been six days earlier. The police were curious why he had not called more. Sam could account for his time with client dinners, and various meetings.

There were no charges to any of their credit cards and their joint bank accounts were never touched. There was no ping from the GPS locator in her car, nor from her phone. She had simply vanished.

When spring came, a couple of teens out skinny dipping saw a car at the bottom of the lake. The car had the very dead bodies of Cheryl and her lover, Chester.

Police speculated that they had left the car running, for warmth, became overcome by carbon monoxide, passed out, and somehow put the car in gear. The short ride to the bottom of the lake ensued.

Cheryl was right, she was never caught - in life.

One morning in the spring, nearly eight months after I submitted the story, I saw a news headline on my browser home page. A woman, Sharon Adler and her paramour were found in her car at the bottom of a lake in Northern Wisconsin. Now, Sharon Adler is not Cheryl Adams - but, c'mon.

The parallels of the real event and my story went on and on. Husband on a business trip and returns to no wife. The police investigation, leading to a death by accident. The wife and lover drowning in a frozen lake.

In my story, Sam Adams found out about his wife's affair when the bodies were discovered. Instantly, he went from mourning a faithful wife to the joy of being rid of a cheating slut. Her cheating ass (along with the rest of her) drowned and he lifted not a finger. Further, he could even be a hero by donating her clothing to various worthy causes. Total retribution with the benefit of being seen as community minded as a result.

The real-life story had a short video of Stan (not Sam) Adler. He said he was shocked that his wife was in an illicit relationship and felt guilty that he now was glad to be rid of her. (When he said he felt guilty - he didn't look like he felt guilty.) He closed saying some good could come from her death by his donation of all her things to various local charities.

When the video ended, my palms were sweating, my stomach churning. I wrote a story about a couple committing adultery near some lake in Northern Wisconsin. Today, they are pulling a car and bodies out of a lake in Northern Wisconsin.

It hit me. Maybe, I had seen something about them being missing, and subconsciously put the story together. I searched for dates. The wife was reported missing two days after my story was posted.

The question was - did I foresee it? Did I cause it? That is just ridiculous. How could words I write cause something to happen? They didn't. They couldn't.

Trouble was predicting or foreseeing a future event is just as impossible. I am not Karnak, the Magnificent.

I sat and thought about it. Finally, eerie as it seemed, it had to be a coincidence. After all my story was Sam and Cheryl Adams, the real-life couple were Stan and Sharon Atkins. My story was in Roland, Wisconsin - I made that town up.

The facts were similar. Stan wasn't all that sorry his slut of a wife drowned - but who would be?

I looked for an article which would correspond to my second story, Gator Bait. I found none. So much for my writing causing and/or predicting real events.

I was disappointed. Wouldn't it be great if you could write some bizarre scenario, and have it all come to pass? But no such luck. In the end I am still an unpublished author, who now has written one intriguing, if coincidental tale.

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Several weeks went by. Things on the home front were not good. Michelle took every opportunity to lash out at her mother. Patty didn't like it, though she understood it. The troubling part was she wanted me to stay out of and wanted me to fix it.

Her response was uniform. When I was trying to fix things - I was meddling and should stay out of it. When I was on the sidelines - I was the stay-at-home parent - fix it!!! By uniform, of course I mean I was always wrong.

One night, things took a real turn for the worse. Patty was particularly edgy, and it was time to bring it to a head. They say fools rush in, so I started, "What's up? You are not like this, ever. Something is bothering you."

"You wouldn't understand. You stay at home and do nothing all day."

"Excuse me?" I stared at her. I was not going to add more. I did not need to defend that on which we had agreed.

"Don't you ever get tired of living with make-believe people, who can't even come together in some saleable book?"

"No, can't say that I do. Why do you ask?" My question sounded reasonable; my tone suggested it was not.

"I am tired of coming home to a daughter who is always pissed off and a househusband who does nothing about it."

"Well, just yesterday, you were tired of my meddling and setting you back with your daughter. Maybe, and I am just spit-balling here, maybe you should get off your dead ass and try to be a mother. But that comes from a househusband, whose opinion apparently has gotten a major downgrade in recent weeks."

She looked absolutely livid. She opened her mouth, squinted, rethought what she was about to say and exhaled, sharply. "Who are you to talk to me like that?"

"Patty, I'm not doing this with you. You have some major bug up your ass, and I am not going fishing for it. I am doing what I am supposed to do. I am doing what we agreed I would do. I don't give a flying fuck about your temper tantrum. You step up and we'll talk."

She turned and went to our bedroom, closed, and locked the door. I saw no more of her that evening. At my bedtime I debated unlocking the door, which takes a screwdriver, or sleeping in the guest room. The guest room won out.

She was matter of fact in the morning. Friendly, as one might be to a known waiter. She was off before the kids were up. Her parting was, "See you tonight." No hugs, kisses, or emotion. My, "Bye" was equally warm. My normal morning duties getting two to school were looming.

I got a text during the day, "Dinner meeting. Home about 10."

She got home with half a smile. "Sorry, maybe I was out of line. Make love to me, that always helps."

We did. It didn't. Two of us were in the bed, with only one actively participating.

<><><><>

Patty seemed to be trying harder. She had fewer cross words with Michelle and none with me. She went out of her way to be loving, she just wasn't as friendly. That sounds odd, I guess, but we were lovers, and we were engaged with each other, just not in the same way we had been. I'd moved back to our bedroom after only one night apart.

Our evenings went like this, she'd talk about her day, and I'd ask questions or provide my insight to which she always gave polite responses. It was hard to put a finger on, she benignly accepted my input. But it was acknowledgment of receipt, not acceptance. On the other hand, she nearly ignored anything to do with my writing, so I quit talking about it. She never noticed.

Maybe ten days into this new normal, I saw an article about a coroner's inquest in South Florida. There was no evidence of any foul play, there would be no charges filed, the couple mauled by the alligators was ruled an accident.

Holy shit! I had looked for a story about the time of the discovery of the couple in Wisconsin. Gator Bait had been submitted just before the first of the year. I didn't find the story because I was looking in the wrong time period. The real second story was discovered almost immediately. The real first story laid buried beneath the lake for more than seven months.

Like my first story, the names were slightly different, but the cheating wife and her lover were found near their parked car, in the Okefenokee Swamp and both bodies had been mauled, then eaten by alligators.

In my story, the husband was home when the wife went missing. Therefore, the police knew he was guilty of using his wife as reptile bait. Try as they might, they could not prove it. There was no evidence of foul play, just two tragic deaths. Similarly, in the true event, no foul play was discovered. The couple was out of their car and tragically caught by alligators.

The striking similarity between the stories was the end. In Gator Aid, the widower was smiling about as wide as the gators, and another harsh tale of what happens to betrayers was told.

Now, two stories, similar names, nearly the exact location and circumstances, and in both cases mere days after my story had been posted. One occurrence? Coincidence. I have no idea how many data points you need to prove correlation - but in my mind, two were sufficient.

I wanted to believe my stories predicted these horrible events. Problem was I didn't. My mind just could not conceive coming up with some barely plausible plot and to have that plot play out, just as I predicted, within days.

Did you ever call someone on the phone and have them tell you, "I knew you were going to call." - I haven't ever experienced anything like that. I don't get tingles when someone is staring at me. I have no psychic abilities. None. I am not predicting future events.

So, if it isn't a prediction and it isn't a coincidence - the writing is causing the events. How can that be? Simple! It can't.

If it can't then it is back to a coincidence. A lake in Wisconsin, a swamp in Florida, names, facts, and on and on - how can it be? Did you ever hear of some couple hiding their infidelity in a swamp getting eaten by alligators? Who gets naked in a mosquito-invested swamp? "Gee dear, where did you get all those mosquito bites on your ass?" The question never comes up because no one gets naked with their lover in a swamp.

Since the day I was married, my solution to something that confounded me was Patty. We were both smart, but different smart. Things I could not grasp she often saw clearly and vice-versa. Maybe this would be a way to start back on the right path.

<><><><>

When I found my first story had actually come about, I thought up one way to test whether my writing caused events. The state lottery. I had a small dilemma, do I buy a ticket, then write a story? Or do I write a story, then buy a ticket. I decided not to overthink the thing.