Logorrhea linkup madness: SYCOPHANT
John explains what is going on here.. It’s probably better to read this first, and then pass on to here. Thanks to John and the other writers in the anthology, who I know put a lot of hard work into the anthology.
Logorrhea was a great, great anthology which I was thrilled to be a part of. If you haven’t checked it out yet, do so!!
I’d actually posted quite a bit about the genesis of my story, “Plight of the Sycophant,” at the Lit Blog Co-Op here. I actually read it at Normadale Community College last week and the kids actually liked it. I drew a map on the whiteboard as I was reading it, and I thought it would help, but it didn’t. They still liked it tho.
There’s also a podcast of the story, including the section below.
Jeff VanderMeer wrote a story that incorporated every word that was included in the anthology, called “Appoggiatura”. And here’s his section of the story that included my word, sycophant. I really like this story.
SYCOPHANT
The young man who sat down beside the writer Baryut Aquelus in a Tashkent coffeehouse wore a black blazer over a green t-shirt and blue jeans. He had sallow skin, an open, round face, and thick eyebrows. His mouth was fleshy, as if he’d suffered a split lip.
The writer thought he recognized the type. The first words confirmed it.
“Are you—? Are you really—?” The rasp of a mouthbreather, along with the stain and smell of betel nut.
“Yes.”
He no longer bothered to smile or straighten his jacket when people came up to him. It had been a few years since he’d removed himself from the great, the smoldering, eye of fame, but he remembered its heat.
“I’ve read all of your work, sir. Even Myths of the Green Tablet. A very brave book.”
“You speak like a native Smaragdinean,” the writer said.
The man looked away, actually blushed. The writer found this charming.
“Thank you. I came there as a child. I know English. And French, too. A little. I read you in French, at first.”
How long ago? He’d been out of print in France for at least half a decade.
“That’s very good, um…?”
“Oh—Farid. You can call me Farid Sabouri.”
“Nice to meet you, Farid.”
The notebook in front of him now seemed inert, useless. The thoughts welling up behind the pen receded into some middle distance, waiting for him to call them forth again.
“Tell me, if I’m not bothering you,” Farid said, “how you came to write Myths of the Green Tablet.”
“You mean you don’t know?” He’d meant it as self-deprecating but it came out vainglorious. “I guess I’ve told it so many times I expect anyone who wanted to know would know.”
It had gotten him in trouble. Vague death threats from a bunch of doddering priests. A shorter stint at the university in Smaragdine than he would have liked. The Green Tablet not the gospel, not even vaguely true? He hadn’t realized the effect it would have when he was writing it—he just wrote it.
“I know, but it’s different reading it in the paper.”
“Well, if you insist.” Do I really mind that much? “I wrote it because I think that Smaragdine has suffered from its fetish for the color green. It keeps us looking at the past. I feel that, for the average Smaragdinean, the future is behind him. I mean, it’s practically fantastical. Medieval. Alchemy? Airy-fairy about earth-air-water-fire? No offense,” he added, noting the intent look on Farid’s face.
Farid smiled, revealing yellowing teeth, and said, “I am fascinated by the bravery in the act. To become a…a lightning rod for many difficulties.”
“Yes, well…”
Above them the fans swirled slowly and out on the street a steady procession of outdated vehicles used the worn street. The waiter came with two coffees.
“My gift for our meeting,” Farid said. “Please, enjoy it.”
“Thank you,” the writer said. And he was, actually, surprised. Usually the people who came up to him wanted something but offered nothing, no matter how trivial, in return.
“So what brings you to Tashkent?” the writer asked.
Farid did not look away this time. “I came to see you. I studied your work at university. I’ve studied your life, too.”
Oh no, the writer thought, here it comes. Sometimes he felt his personal life had become the size of a postage stamp.
“And did I measure up?”
“Oh, you are very brave,” Farid said. “Although I don’t know if you understand that.”
“It’s kind of you to say,” the writer said, although Farid’s syntax seemed odd.
Farid almost said something, stopped, bit his lip, leaned forward. “No, it’s the truth. It makes me weep a little, thinking about it. If you don’t mind me saying it. You’ve used your talent for things that don’t always make sense to me.”
The writer tried to shrug it off with a chuckle.
Is this where the conversation turns obsessional?
“And here I took you for a bit of a sycophant, Farid. A bit of a hanger-on, as the Brits here like to say.”
“Not in the least—you believe too little but know too much,” Farid said, and pulled out a gun and shot the writer in the stomach.
Baryut had the odd sensation of Farid walking over him and past while he lay there staring up at the ceiling fan and people were running around screaming. There was no pain. Nothing so fast could really be painful, could it?
Possessed of a sudden and terrible clarity, Baryut thought: What can I write in the next few minutes?
*end of story*
I hope that the formatting turned out okay.
