Original fiction: “Passages” (with editorial notes)

And now for something a little different.

Until I get some new fiction here on the Nose, I hope you enjoy the story below. I wrote it in spring 1987, for the school literary magazine “The Scarlet Letters”. (Which, if the web is to be trusted, is still being published.) I was tempted to make many changes to the story, but you’ll see “Passages” reproduced just as it was offset-printed in the original magazine. The only corrections I made were to obvious typographical errors.

As I read this mess written by a name-thief twenty-four years my junior, I was pleasantly surprised not to find it quite as embarrassing as I though it would be.

I went back to the story with the intention of using it as a filler article only. Rather than update a story with a shaky premise, I decided to just publish it as-is and then write about it, pretending I was sending notes to an author submitting the story to me for editing. This earlier “Neil Fein” is skinnier and has longer hair than I do; he will never read this essay, but maybe the Neil who abandoned writing will take some inspiration from these editorial notes.

And also, younger-Neil, the hair is great, but lose the perm already!

Passages

Let me introduce myself. My name is Jon Slime, and I’m the little guy inside your nose that causes the buildup of…well, call it nasal slime. It’s my job to cause your nose to stuff up to the point where you have to breathe through your mouth half the time.

Most people with allergies have somebody like me in their noses. The guy I’m assigned to is allergic to everything, almost. That makes my job tough. But it’s okay, since I get paid according to how much slime I manage to work through the nasal passages.

The other day, I called Jim Diaphragm on the phone. (He’s the guy who makes you belch at inconvenient times.) I had just finished working through a really big load of slime. Mr. Neurath—he’s in charge of the main office—Mr. Neurath had just alerted me to the fact that there was a cat nearby, and I should start shoveling. Anyway, I called Jim, and we got to talking, but soon I realized that it was time to go back to work.

Well, that’s where I made my mistake. I was into really deep stuff with Jim, so I held the phone with one hand and shoveled with the other. I wasn’t watching myself very carefully; about five minutes later I hit a major nerve with a load of slime.

When I had cleaned it off, I saw that I had gouged out a piece of the nerve with my shovel blade. I hung up on Jim and immediately called the main office.

“Hello, Cerebral Cortex Center, may I help you?”

“Hi, this is the nasal complex, Jon Slime. I’ve just had a major nerve damaged.”

“Please hold.”

Quickly, I put in, “Lady, you’d better call Neurath! This is a really big nerve here!”

But she had already cut me off. I was on hold for ten minutes, and with my phone locked into the main office’s system, I couldn’t even call for a repair crew myself.

There wasn’t even any music.

“Slime? That you?” It was Mr. Neurath.

“Yeah, it’s me, sir. Look, I’ve got a major problem here—”

“Mrs. Smith told me. How in hell did you hit a nerve? You having a party or something?”

“No, my shovel blade slipped; I—”

He was very nice about it. He didn’t even yell at me. He came down by sub in the right carotid artery. The repair crew was there right behind him. They started work, and then he yelled at me.

He stopped when one of the repair crew guys interrupted. “Sir, I’m afraid that the damage is more extensive than it appears to be.”

He swore under his breath. “What’s the problem?”

“I’m afraid that when your man here—” he indicated me “—hit the nerve with the shovel blade, he hit a major relay. The damage could go all the way into the brain, since this is a high-voltage nerve.”

When Neurath called the main office, we found out that the body we were in was unconscious, comatose. He shouted, “Don’t even bother to clean up! According to the boys in analysis—” he hit the wall with a fist “—this body is dead meat in two hours!”

They piped the countdown to all levels, even to the garbagemen in the intestines and the video arcade in the appendix—not that anyone was playing Pac-Man at the moment.

As I understand it, this is the first time some body’s died because of an error on the part of a body functionary.

So we were all routed to new destinations. I don’t know why, but instead of going into another body, I was given a real human body of my own.

It feels odd, having a cold, and no causing it. I’ve come to despise the slime-shoveler inside of me. Feeling the effect, rather than causing it, is very different.

But it’s better than shoveling slime.

Dear “Neil”,

Have read “Passages”. Despite obvious logical problems, the concept is cute, and fun. Fortunately, the story is short, coming in at 651 words. (It and the illustration have to fit on two pages for publication.) I’d probably expand it a little bit, relegating the illo to half a page or even eliminating it. (I know you put a lot of work into that illustration, sorry!) Don’t expand it too much, or the story won’t hold up well. Everything’s a little cartoony and fun, please don’t lose that!

Regarding the names “Jon Slime” and “Jim Diaphragm”—I’d probably change these to something where they only hint at the functions these people perform, similar to how Mr. Neurath’s name hints at the term neurology. I’ve always been terrible at naming characters, and I sometimes catch myself spending too much time on the names, and end up using “Smith” or “Patel” or whatever.

Some of the wording could be tightened, but I quite like that the lead character rambles a lot. You might consider accentuating that trait. We don’t get a lot of feel for the character of the slime-shoveler (can you come up with a better term, please?) The introductory bit in particular comes across as clumsy. Either have Jon talking directly to the reader or don’t; now, it’s halfway between a letter to the reader and a straight-up first-person viewpoint. Also, “I was into really deep stuff with Jim” is vague. I know you don’t like writing dialog, but can we actually hear some of the conversation instead of just seeing it described?

The bit with the telephone locking up when connected to the main office makes no sense…unless it’s not really a telephone? Maybe there’s a system of some other kind in place? You could go with cell phones (think of little tiny two-way radios), but that’d just make the story dated in a different way. Maybe they use pneumatic tubes and send messages back and forth? Postal mail? Carrier leukocytes?

Speaking of dated stuff, lose the 50’s office feel. It’s already dated in 1987, and that’ll get worse in 2011.

There are hints of an industrial feel to this when the repair crew shows up. Can you increase that? Think of the following: Is there personal protective equipment that Jon should have been wearing, that maybe he didn’t?

How do the employees know what’s going on in the body they’re working in? How do they get assigned to the positions they’re in? What about industrial automation for some of these jobs? How do the functionaries go to the bathroom? Do they get coffee breaks? What happens at the end of their shifts? Are intra-organ affairs prohibited?

The underlying concept is going to be ridiculous no matter how rich and realistic you make the narrative superstructure supporting it, and that’s okay for a shirt-short story like this. But you need to decide, what’s the point of the story? Is there something you’re trying to say, or are you just being absurdist and entertaining?

In short, I found “Passages” a fun and entertaining story, with many problems. (Also, the title “Passages” is similar to Robert Silverberg’s story “Passengers”.) I know you don’t have Microsoft Word (or even a computer!), so I’ve enclosed a marked-up copy of the story with this letter. I look forward to reading your revised draft. Please feel free to get in touch via email or time capsule.

—Neil Fein, 2011

Copyright ©1987 by Neil Fein.