Fred Aiken Writing

Category: Blog

April 7, 2025

A Fictional Character

Daily writing prompt
If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?
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They—the always mysterious, nebulous and undefined they—came in and made William fictional. Just like that! A wave of the hand, a snap of the finger. One second William Bartley lived, breathed, and had agency in the world, and then the next second he was a piece of intellectual property.

Don’t ask how they did it. The specifics hardly matter, I would think. The fact that they could do it, that going from real to unreal is now a possibility, should really freak you the fuck out. It certainly freaks me out. 

I mean, who is to say that it won’t happen to me, or you! You never know. William certainly didn’t. He was just minding his business, spreading grape jelly on a slice of white bread to make a pb&j and now he’s some fictional character in a new HBO show, or something. He didn’t ask for that!

I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m freaking out for no good reason. Who wouldn’t want to be a fictional character? Be some star in a movie or book? But I tell ya, it’s not what it’s cracked up to be. To be or not to be…and all that silly jazz. Always at the authors’ beck and call. Those needy perverts putting your life out there for everyone to see. Nothing’s private when you’re someone’s character, not even your own damn thoughts. Sure, there might be a few perks being fictional. Not being burdened with worrying about existential conundrums or dread. Not worrying about your purpose. Not having to worry about what you’re going to wear and where you’re going to get your next meal or even what to think because it’s all written out and scripted for everyone to see! There’s also the benefit of never dying once you become a character. But those benefits hardly make up for the fact that once you’re a character, your life is no longer yours. Better to toil in a brief moment of obscurity than to become the slave of infinite versions of yourself being broadcast for any ole Tom or Dick to peak about and watch as you do whatever it is their imagination wants you to do.

No, no, no, I’d much rather be some anonymous, real person rather than be turned into a fictional it. An after-thought. An inconsequential piece of literary meat in the flotsam of story-telling devices. I’m sure William Bartley would say the same, but they wrote him as a blind, deaf, and dumb character, so it’s not like he could tell you now.

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April 2, 2025

Portrait of a Hermit in Quarantine

Daily writing prompt
How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?
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The great illness to wipe out humanity came from the land of dragons. It would be the plague that destroyed the fabric of everything. All at once.

But it ended up being a shittier version of the flu. It was bad. The virus did some real damage. Though if one were to ask Daniel, nothing about his life changed.

Granted, Daniel’s life looked like an unintended quarantine prior to the governments’ orders telling everyone to STAY INSIDE!! We have this all Under control. Don’t look too closely. You see, Daniel has and, more than likely, will always be a hermit. He hasn’t left his house in nearly 15 years. So, when asked how the Great Covid-19 Plague affected his life, Daniel shrugs (not valiantly) and responds, ‘Not much.’

But that’s only because Daniel’s far too modest, or perhaps not all too self-aware. There are certainly ways Daniel’s life has changed since the pandemic. Whether he’ll admit them or not, well, that hardly matters.

For one, the cost of food and shelter has more than doubled. Daniel ran an online used sneaker store to etch out a living, but since the surge in prices for everything has gone up, he’s had to take on extra work. Side gigs, so to speak. Some remote editing jobs to dust off his once-thought-useless english degree. Some marketing consulting here and there for up-and-coming digital entrepreneurs. But what’s really pays all the bills has been the food pics Daniel takes and posts online. People seem to really love his feet.

Also, the conspiracy theories have become more interesting and engaging to Daniel. Prior to the pandemic, Daniel had to deal with reading through countless forums about pedophiliac pizza parties, or some such nonsense. But with algorithmic targeting, the advances in conspiracy narratives have exploded. Literally. His favorites to look into have been about flat-earth and how ai already took over and replaced people with robotic replacements that have been programmed to think they’re humans but really aren’t. The reasoning as to why ai would do such a thing is a bit murky and does tend to change from week to the next, but the idea that all of earth’s human population is some robotic ai sort of cyborg thrills Daniel to no end.

Daniel has also gotten really into crypto-currencies, and his crypto wallet is filled with a diversified portfolio of coins that, while he doesn’t know what their use is, he is convinced they will make him rich. They are the money of the future! And each morning, Daniels checks his crypto wallet and imagines what his life will look like when he’s a billionaire and can afford anything. Though most of those things would need to be enjoyed within the confines of his home because, no matter how much money Daniel did or did not have, he never intends to leave his home ever again. Especially with all the ai robots out there doing whatever the hell it was they were doing.

But otherwise, not much has changed for Daniel. He still lives, breathes, eats, and sleeps indoors, and there’s not a damn virus in the whole world that will change that!

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April 1, 2025

Morning, Good Morning

Daily writing prompt
What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?
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The sun’s not out yet. Damn! The sun is not out yet!

But I’m up, and I can’t go back to sleep. The house is too hot. Steph says she’s cold, so we keep the heater going, even though the temperature outside starting rising weeks ago. But Steph’s always cold, even at the height of summer. I believe her because whenever her feet touch me when we’re in bed it feel like a popsicle hitting my leg and startles me awake, motionless, counting sheep or trying to concentrate on the Federal Reserve’s policy on modern monetary theory.

So I get up and perform the perfunctory hygienic rituals that make me acceptable to the rest of the world. The pre-dawn cleansing of my body that suggests I know what I’m doing because I woke up today and decided to be clean.

I decided to not listen to the voice in my head saying that it doesn’t matter.

I don’t think anyone is buying it.

I know I’m not.

Afterwards, I go to the kitchen and prepare breakfast. Black coffee and an english muffin that I hope hasn’t molded even though it’s been in the pantry 2 weeks past its sell-by date–a random date on the calendar that’s more likely a suggestion rather than a hard stop to when the english muffin can be consumed. I place a generous helping of raspberry jam on the english muffin after microwaving it because I think putting it in the toaster would be too much effort, even though it doesn’t take that much longer.

Before sitting down to eat and down caffeine molecules, I look at the digital clock on the over that’s notoriously inaccurate. It doesn’t tell real time, just whatever damn time it chooses to. Which I can respect. Despite how inconvenient it is at times. Even with the oven’s clock being off, it’s still too damn early. The solar clock still nestled comfortably in the crook of the horizon.

In these early hours, I think about what my day looks like, or at least what it should look like. I create a mental check list of what needs to get done, what I want to accomplish, and what I’ve put off for far too long. The list for what I put off keeps growing larger and larger day by day, so I try not to focus on it too much, or else the depressing thoughts start to filter in. Then I start down a mental road of how I haven’t really done anything productive with my life. I’m reminded of Mozart and all he accomplished in his teens. Then I’m reminded of Einstein and all he did before turning 25. But most of all, I think about Taylor Swift and the enormity of her accomplishments, and the fact that I’m 2 years older than she is. But that shouldn’t matter, because I don’t have a fraction of the talent of any of those people.

And so in the first hour of consciousness, when everyone else in the apartment complex is asleep, except maybe those getting home from their graveyard shift at their amzn warehouse jobs picking gallons upon gallons of butt paste that gets purchased at an alarming pace by countless Americans everyday, and I realize the list I made for myself and what I wanted to make of my day doesn’t matter, and sometimes all that’s important is just waking up and writing down the sentence, ‘I’m alive,’ which keeps me chuggin’ along.

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