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The beginning of my June story starts here... Whoknows where it will end? Don't look for modern stuff,like TGA-4 or whatever. I am going to write about a manwill be 61 very soon and something strange thathappened to him in his late 50s, where, as Rod Serlingwould have said he crossed over into the Twilight Zone.Okay, I'm derivative sometimes, but all writers are.CHRISTIAN BARZOY, TOBACCO BROKER by DevonPitlor I. The "heart attack"
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eginnings are a tricky business in fiction. You havethe details all tangled up in your head, but you reallydon't know where to start or where your one and onlyfan (because you always must believe you have at leastone) would like you to start or where you really shouldstart. Suppose that I should say that today in the UnitedStates being a tobacco commodities broker (as wasChristian Barzoy) is a very tenuous business. To makeit short, let's just say that U.S. tobacco has to be soldsomewhere else but in this country, like in the ThirdWorld where we can maintain huge percentages of smokers who are, sadly for the tobacco industry,diminishing in North America.Typical boring start coming from an economicsmajor...sorry. I can't help it.Okay, let's go to the pretty little town of Raleigh, NorthCarolina, right in the dying heart of the Americantobacco industry. There we find 58 year old Christian
 
Barzoy waiting for a connecting flight to Charlotte. Thestory will therefore begin in the airport at Raleigh andcontinue on to the airport in Charlotte.Damn, this is sounding dull. I hope I can do better.Like every other middle aged executive in commoditiesexchange, Christian Barzoy was well past his prime, buthis life had been surprisingly fulfilling. He had married avery pretty woman named Alaina at an early age and hadproduced three rather appealing children who, as weopen this story, were now moderately successful adults.He had chanced to visit his oldest daughter, Alexis,while in Raleigh and now was returning home toBaltimore when he suffered his "heart attack."Christian's "heart attack" was no usual heart attack [or else I would not have bored you with the quotationmarks]. It was, in fact, a very welcome "heart attack"and one that was very natural to have in a busy placelike an airport. It was the sort of "heart attack" thatChristian had enjoyed since he had first crossed thethreshhold into adolescence many eons before.Okay, I drop the quotation marks now. You get the point.Christian's heart attack was somewhat like a real one.His pulse raced, his heart pounded, he got slightly dizzy,needed to sit down and breath deeply. He knew whatwas coming, and, above all, he knew what caused it.Once in his twenties, he had even gone to an emergencyroom because of a stronger version of the same heartattack. And what is coming is that when an hour or solater, when Christian will arrive at Charlotte's bustlingairport, he will suffer a much stronger version of thesame attack---and this time if Christian didn't have alifetime history of such attacks, he would have indeed
 
been afraid and summoned emergency personnel whichhe did not do either in Raleigh that day or later inCharlotte.Instead he sat back and enjoyed them.He could not after all these years explain them, but heknew what caused them. And for Christian Barzoy,ageing tobacco broker, that was, after all, "kinda nice."II. One in ten thousand....an estimateChristian Barzoy had long ago explained himself tohimself.His favorite phrase was "one in ten thousand...that's myestimate." What he was estimating was the ratio of women or girls on earth whose mere appearanceexercised such a dramatic effect on him---upon firstsight---that he would suffer the thunderstruck symptomsof these so-called heart attacks and be transfixed like amoth to the setting sun for as long as the visionendured.Now this is not a story about some horny guy who washaving a libidinal surfeit of testosterone and going intoseizures over women because he wanted sex. It is thestory of a man who was really lucky to have ever founda wife and married in the first place. Not because hewas twisted, weird or unattractive--because he was noneof these--but because only about one in ten thousandwomen appealed to him in any way whatsoever. Notcharming women. Not smart women. Notaccommodating women but beautiful women, womenwho had a certain type of look that he had spent his
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MaryAnnaX

I like this because it is so different and original.

reply10 / 11 / 2009
Carson89

the group really liked this one!

reply09 / 12 / 2009
Nartan89

Writers group read aloud and discussed. Very well liked. We are doing study of your stories. This is excellent.

reply08 / 17 / 2009
Devon_Pitlor

This story was the second I wrote for that board I mentioned to you elsewhere. Strangely, this is very autobiographical on my part. Not the supernatural elements, but the rare attraction only certain women. My work colleages read all my stories here at work, and they totally failed to see me in the story because they think I'm automatically drawn to anything female, but in a lot of ways I am like Christian. I was still doing a lot of author intrusion when I wrote this, and it still comes up in my narrative style from time to time. I am a big imitator of the following classic authors: Hawthorne, Guy de Maupassant, Flaubert, Saki, O.Henry, Arthur Machen, Poe, and his French counterpart Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, who is popular in France but not so much here. All of these short story writers did author intervention. Also Flannery O'Connor, whom I consider to be pure genious. I owe the above English-language writers my American naturalized status and my love for English. Without them, I may not have learned English so well or so rapidly. From your one message to me in email, I saw that your written French is very good. Perhaps you could do like me and write in a language other than your first one. It becomes an interesting challenge. Anyway, the Christian story haunts me a little because of my own personality dimension in Christian. Christian, the character, ends on a happy and contented note---accepting his strange attractions and alternate life histories---but of course, he is mean enough not to acknowlege it when another person (in whom he is obvious not intrested) has the same problem. All I can say is that this "heart attack" sensation to being totally obsessed with one in a thousand (or whatever I wrote as the percentage) has NOT served me well in life. So if this were Devon instead of Christian, the story would be a little less pleasant and optimistic. Thanks for reading and liking. I was 14 when I published in a French children's magazine a story that I had made up around one of those campfire at night sessions. I used to be the main story teller in my childhood group of friends. I can't remember a time before I was not inventing fiction of some sort. Are you the same way? Love and appreciation, Devon

reply07 / 09 / 2009
Searcher420

Devon, My second story since last week. I had a busy weekend. I do not mind the author's intrusion. It is often an earmark of your writing. Like a tale told around a campfire. The end of this had your usual interesting twist. Good writing as usual. Held my interest.

reply07 / 06 / 2009
Devon_Pitlor

I try to pack as many details as I can into stories. Thanks for the comment and the encouragement.

reply06 / 22 / 2009
Devon_Pitlor

The intrusive author has always been me. Sorry that part bothered you, but I can well understand where you are coming from. Glad you liked the story anyway.

reply06 / 22 / 2009
Brandon Freel

Great tale! I've had these kind of feelings too. Your details are fabulous. Good writing!!

reply06 / 10 / 2009
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