josephdevon.com

In June I began writing a new original story every two weeks and posting them to this website. Much to my surprise, one of those stories, Second Choice, spawned a second story, then a third, then a fourth and so on until it became clear to me that this was actually one novel length story coming out of me in installments. This was all fun and good but now that seven months have gone by since the first story it has become clear that a brief refresher course is needed for me and many of my readers. Therefore, leading up to the publication on this site of Part 7 on March 6th I will be interviewing a number of characters from this work here on my blog.

(In a sparsely furnished room sits Nyx.  Nyx is young, barely in her twenties if not still a teenager.  Her hair is dark black and pert bangs rest on her forehead over heavy lidded eyes rimmed in purple eyeliner.  She is sitting back in a semi-daze, as if contemplating taking a nap.  She reaches up lazily and wipes a bright scarlet smear off of the corner of her mouth.  A fine mist of something similarly colored is splattered over the carpet and the interviewer’s chair, which sits across from her, noticeably empty.)

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In June I began writing a new original story every two weeks and posting them to this website. Much to my surprise, one of those stories, Second Choice, spawned a second story, then a third, then a fourth and so on until it became clear to me that this was actually one novel length story coming out of me in installments. This was all fun and good but now that seven months have gone by since the first story it has become clear that a brief refresher course is needed for me and many of my readers. Therefore, leading up to the publication on this site of Part 7 on March 6th I will be interviewing a number of characters from this work here on my blog.

(In a sparsely furnished room the interviewer sits across from Gregor.  Tall, lean, and pale, Gregor has a sharp confidence to him that he emits through an easy smile and casual attitude that seem at odds with his gaunt coloring and middle aged face.  When he needs to, he can appear imposing, if not downright frightening, with a pointed gaze that burns through sallow eyes.)

Joseph Devon: Gregor, I thank you for joining us.

Gregor: And I thank you for having me.

JD: Now, we’ve been through a number of interviews and we’ve covered most everything concerning your world, I hope.  But before we get started, is there anything you’d like to say about being a tester that you want to make sure gets mentioned?

G: Nothing that comes to mind, no.

JD: Right.  I suppose if we’re going to talk to you we’re going to have to talk about the Council.  Is that going to be a problem for you?

G: No, what happened there happened centuries ago.  I’ve long ago made my peace with the Council.

JD: And have you made your peace with Epp?

G: (Smiling his easy smile) I hardly think it’s right to go blaming Epp for the actions of a hundred other testers, do you?

JD: (Slightly put off) I suppose not.  Um…(Looking through his notes) so can we talk about what brought on the Council’s punishment for you in first place?

G: Of course.  I was opting to do things a little differently when I first started testing.

JD: How so?

G: I’m sure you know the basic idea, we interfere in the lives of humans and we gain energy from them by altering them.

JD: By pushing them forward.

G: That’s one way of putting it, I suppose.  At any rate, I decided to see what I could draw out of an entire village up in the mountains of Eastern Europe.

JD: And how did you do that?

G: I’m not going to give up any secrets here, Mr. Devon, but it’s enough for you to know that I was striving to become an icon, a myth, a legend amongst those people.  I was curious to know what ways we were allowed to interact with humans, how many undiscovered tools were still left to be found.

JD: And what did you become?

G: I became myth (smiles).  I became legend.

JD: You became the origin of vampires.

G: I did.  But don’t say it like that.  My work has been used and ingested and chewed up and turned around so many times that I actually like to distance myself from today’s notion of vampires.  All the stories and movies you have today, they really stray away from the simplistic beauty of what I did up in that village.  Of the reaction I was able to build.  It was wonderful.

JD: You were just trying to see what was possible.

G: That’s right.

JD: And you ran headfirst into another group of testers, also sensing that new things were in the wind, and also curious to see what was possible.

G: That is a very good way of putting it.  I ran right smack into the newly formed Council.

JD: And they opted to punish you, which we’ve already discussed with Kyo.

G: You talked with Kyo, did you?  You didn’t get anything interesting out of him, did you?

JD: Not a lot, no.

G: That one’s a bit of a mystery.

JD: That’s for certain.  Anyway, is it true that Epp was against the Council by the time they had decided to punish you?  He says that he was leaning towards considering your work genius.

G: That sounds correct, yes.

JD: Epp was against the Council?

G: No, that sounds like something Epp would say.

JD: I see.  And you, during those years, spent a lot of time in graveyards?

G: That was where they drove me.  I didn’t have many other places to go.

JD: And you learned a lot while you were there?

G: Not so much, no.  I think maybe you’re going to want to save those questions for Hector.

JD: Hector hasn’t agreed to meet with me.

G: (Surprised) No?  I’ll have a word with him.  You’ll want to see him and Nyx I’m assuming?

JD: Well, yes that would round out the week nicely.  Thank you.

G: (Waving off thanks) It’s not a problem.

JD: Okay, so to end, can we just talk a little bit about what you have in the works currently?

G: I’d really rather not talk about it.  You know how it is as a fellow creator.  You don’t want to give too much away.  It ruins the effect.

JD: Yeah…yeah that makes sense.  But it’s safe to say that you don’t entirely agree with Epp’s school of thought.

G: Let’s just say that I don’t think Epp speaks for all of us.

JD: I suppose that will do for now.  Um…well okay then. Thank you.  I guess we’ll move on to the questionnaire created by Bernard Pivot and used by James Lipton from “Inside the Actors Studio.”  You ready?

G: I am.

JD: What is your favorite word?

G: Possible.

JD: That’s interesting.

G: Why?

JD: That’s the same…never mind.  What is your least favorite word?

G: Structure.

JD: What turns you on creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?

G: A blank canvas, or the equivalent thereof.

JD: And what turns you off creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

G: I don’t know.  Too many rules, I suppose?  That sound so corny but I suppose it’ll do.

JD: What sound or noise do you love?

G: Bacon frying.

JD: What sound or noise do you hate?

G: I loathe loud trucks.  Or cars.  Those muscle cars?  Ugh.  Get a life.

JD: What is your favorite curse word?

G: Motherfucking hell.

JD: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

G: I could see a pilot.  Not a pilot today, but back in the old barnstorming days.  Flying a biplane in loops and that sort of thing.

JD: What profession would you not like to do?

G: I have no interest in math.  So anything too math heavy.  Income tax filer.

JD: If heaven exists, what would you like to hear god say when you arrive at the pearly

gates?

G: Your gains have outweighed your costs.

JD: Thank you. Very interesting.

G: Agreed.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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In June I began writing a new original story every two weeks and posting them to this website. Much to my surprise, one of those stories, Second Choice, spawned a second story, then a third, then a fourth and so on until it became clear to me that this was actually one novel length story coming out of me in installments. This was all fun and good but now that seven months have gone by since the first story it has become clear that a brief refresher course is needed for me and many of my readers. Therefore, leading up to the publication on this site of Part 7 on March 6th I will be interviewing a number of characters from this work here on my blog.

(In a sparsely furnished room the interviewer sits across from Bartleby.  Bartleby is dressed in black from top to bottom.  His clothes blend in with his hair which is just as dark and hangs in short pin-straight lines about his head.  His age is hard to tell, he could be anywhere from twenty to mid-thirties.  His demeanor is standoffish, as if he isn’t entirely sure that he is okay with this interview.)

Joseph Devon: Welcome, Bartleby, and thank you for coming.

Bartleby: Yeah.  Yeah, it’s no problem I guess.

JD: So we’ve talked with a few of your kind thus far, gotten a wide range of perspectives, is there anything that comes to your mind that we absolutely must know about being a tester?

B: I don’t…not that I can think of, no.

JD: All right.  Then let’s dive right in.  You are roughly the same age as Mary, and like Mary you are one of Epp’s students?  Correct?

B: (Taking a deep breath as if choosing his words carefully) I’m not so sure that I’ll ever refer to Epp as my teacher again.  Frankly, I’m not sure that anyone, anywhere, ever, should refer to Epp as their teacher.

JD: (Checking his notes) Right, right.  There was an altercation between you and Epp when he felt you weren’t progressing as a student.

B: You could call it an altercation I suppose.

JD: What happened?

B: What you need to understand about Epp is that he doesn’t consider himself a teacher or a mentor or a leader.  If he assumes anything close to one of those roles, it’s under the assumption that you will learn.  He isn’t interested in how smart you think he is, he isn’t interested in feeling superior to you, he isn’t interested in any of that.  He teaches so you’ll learn, and if he gets the feeling that you aren’t taking a proactive enough stance as a student, if you start to worry about making him happy rather than learning what you came to learn, well he doesn’t react too well.

JD: How did he react?

B: He kind of grabbed me by the shoulder and tossed me onto the far side of Mercury.

JD: The planet?

B: Yes.  That would be correct.

JD: You’ll have to forgive me, but how-

B: He’s Epp.

JD: How far is it possible for one of you to travel?

B: No idea.  It’s a mix of how far your kind has gone and how far one of us believes is possible to travel.  See, your world and our world are constantly intertwined and your notions of your world greatly affect ours.  If I had let Epp down in the year, I don’t know, 52 AD, before telescopes had allowed you to actually see distant planets and what have you, then I’m not sure how far Epp could have sent me.  It’s like cell phones. (Reaches into his pocket and takes out a cell phone) We use these all the time now.  The notion of having a personal communication device didn’t exist for us until you guys came up with it.  But we only use the idea of cell phones, it’s not like we have cell towers set up in some parallel universe.  And, it’s worth mentioning, that long distance communication was possible for us before you came up with it, it just required a very deep understanding of the nature of things and a tremendous amount of energy.  Epp was probably able to do something similar to making a phone call eons ago.

JD: That’s interesting.

B:  Our relationship is give and take.  Epp drilled that into me over and over.

JD: And then he threw you onto the far side of Mercury.

B: (Doesn’t respond for awhile) Yeah.  Then he did that.

JD: Now you wound up with some side effects from that trip.

B: Yes.  We can just get right to it.  I now light on fire constantly and without control.

JD: You’re prone to bursting into flames?

B: You’re repeating me.

JD: Sorry.  Can you explain that?

B: I can explain it to my liking, yes.  Whether it makes sense to you is not up to me.  But I was on Mercury, where the temperature can reach up to eight hundred degrees.  And I traveled there almost instantly.  Now you, if you were to land there, you’d just burst into flames and be killed in seconds, but I don’t technically have a body so obviously I didn’t die.  Instead I was suddenly dealing with molecular motion and chemical reactions that I had never seen anything like.  It was different, wildly and completely different and whatever part of me I use to interact with the physical world has been unable to take in and deal with all the…all the crap I dealt with while I was there.  (Irritated) So, no, I can’t control what happens to me so much any more, it’s not like I was able to get used to the energy shift that happens when you travel millions of miles and hundreds of degrees like that (Snaps his fingers. Outside a burst of lightning flashes).

JD: (Looking outside, confused) I had no idea it was supposed to rain today.

B: (Rubbing a palm wearily against one eye) Sorry, that might have been me.  (Looks outside) I’ve got a lot on my mind recently. (Clearly getting worked up as smoke begins to billow up out of his shoulders) Can we maybe wrap this up?

JD: (Alarmed) Absolutely.  We’re going to end with the questionnaire created by Bernard Pivot and used by James Lipton from “Inside the Actors Studio.”  You ready?

B: I just said I was.

JD: What is your favorite word?

B: Ice-cold water.

JD: What is your least favorite word?

B: Alone.

JD: What turns you on creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?

B: The thought of showing other people what I can do.

JD: And what turns you off creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

B: Bursting into flames.

JD: What sound or noise do you love?

B: A woman’s laughter