The Treachery of Fred

The last thing I wrote in the waning days of Clarion came out in a sort of fever dream, and it shows: it’s a tumbling wordy over-the-top story about an amorphous living city’s relationship with its children.

That’s what I thought it was about, anyway. But a couple of really perceptive people in my writing group just finished pointing out to me that it is, in fact, a giant unadulterated Christ allegory.

This kind of disturbs me, because I kind of thought I was an atheist. I was, in fact, under the impression that I’ve been an atheist for years. What am I doing writing a largely approving story about god’s love for his children?

But it’s worse than that, really: I apparently have no idea what my subconscious is up to. I’ve always known that it’s down there quietly doing its own thing, keeping to itself, occasionally popping inscrutable images into my head or forcing me to engage in annoying bits of introspection or untapping undiscovered wells of feeling for no apparent reason. Mostly I hear from it when I’m writing. A lot of writers call this thing a muse. Stephen King calls it the boys in the basement. At Clarion, we called it Fred.

So, yeah. I don’t know much about Fred. Fred keeps to himself. But I always assumed that he was more or less on board with the rest of me, towing the line, and that all of his odd behavior was nothing more than idiosyncratic elaborations on the theme of me.

Now I don’t know. Is Fred Christian? Is he devout? Is he quietly steering me toward a lifetime of Sunday church and prostration to an invisible deity? Is there a communion in my future? A baptism?

Or is he just fucking with me?