Cat and Mice - Epilogue
What follows is an extract from Here, There and Everywhere, the autobiography of Celeste Frasier. It is generally believed to have been ghost written by Benson Tolliver but this has always been officially denied.
My first experience of crime fighting came when I was seventeen. A pair of notorious con-artists were known to be working close to my school; young girls were their favoured target. The police knew of them but had never been able to get enough evidence to make a case. The two men used threats of violence and blackmail to keep their victims quiet and no one was prepared to stand up in court and point the finger.
I saw first hand the damage they did. Girls still at school were forced to hand over money, but the psychological damage was worse. Happy out going personalities became introverted and terrified. The beasts would bleed one girl until she was a dry husk and then move on to another. It was just a production line to them and vulnerable people were nothing more than an easy source of revenue.
Something needed to be done. They needed to be stopped and I knew the police needed evidence. I could not just stand back and see anyone else get used like that. I deliberately introduced myself to Jean, the younger of the two and made sure to act the giddy young thing, easily convinced by anyone with half a story and a nice smile. I was hoping that he would see me as a potential mark and my plan worked perfectly.
It didn
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Phew, and that is enough
Phew, and that is enough unreliable perspective for now. I planned the idea when I was doing the homework piece for China, but it took longer than I intended.
Now I need to start reading up on Faust Chronicles. 24th seemed such a long way in the future, and I just had this to finish first.
Nice. Very nice. I'm curious
Nice. Very nice. I'm curious as to whether she is truly the spin doctor there. It indicates a high level of cunning that hadn't necessarily been visible up 'til now.
It shows Celeste as being the kind of person who can fall into a vat of sewage and come out without a hair out of place.
Nice twist.
Nice twist.
--
Imagination is the seed of intelligence. Nourish it and watch it grow.
The autobiography is a great
The autobiography is a great device! Hope to see another excerpt sometime.
I sure didn't expect
I sure didn't expect this.
I loved your mention of Benson Tolliver, very much. ...and I like the way you played with perspectives throughout this series.
(Catching up! I'm way behind on my reading.)
Now everyones read these I
Now everyones read these I thought I woulds ask for some advice from the assembled experience here..
Obviously with those three pieces I was playing with perspective more than I was telling a story, it was the esentially the same story three times.
I published them in the order they were written. But I did have a general idea of what I was intending to do before I published anything. Which means the surprise doesnt really effect me. (I suppose that is an obvious statement from the author difficult to surprise yourself.)
But I thought afterwards that the balance would have been very different if thay had been published in a different order. The reveals would be different, eg putting the autobiography piece first and then gradually revaling more truethful versions might be more interesting than putting the obviously spun version at the end. (It gives a picture which you might equate to what is believed to be true by an average citizen of Hudson City as a starting point.)
Anyway if anyone has any opinions on the order the pieces were publishes or the effect a different order would have on the reader I would love to hear them.
PS As a point of interest I was heavily influenced when writing these by the the use of unreliable perspective in the text pieces at the end of the Watchmen issues.