The Price – A Character Development Exercise by Tilmer Wright Jr.
August 9, 2024
The Price – A Character Development Exercise
The following is a small piece I wrote in an attempt to give birth to a character for one of my books. I do this kind of thing from time to time to assist with character development. I call pieces like this “mini-stories.” They generally are used to try to flesh out a character I might be considering for a story. Many times, these stories are not part of my larger work’s overall plot. This forces me to think about the character as a person without the confines of my current story. It makes them more real and more three-dimensional for me. Anyway, this character never panned out, but she still haunts me, years after I penned her story. I’ll share it here with the hope that she taps you on the shoulder now and again to remind you that integrity comes at a price. It’s a steep fee. The return on the investment may be fleeting. In the end, you may not find happiness, but knowing you have lived a life true to yourself is reward enough. Right?
She was always caught between doing what was right and what was profitable. There had been many opportunities to get wealthy, obtain power, wield influence, and make the way generally easier, but they had always been at odds with her personal integrity. It was a price she refused to pay. The stress induced by her struggles had accumulated and manifested itself as lines, wrinkles, grey hair, and a fair amount of resentment. Others had prospered at the expense of those around them while she fell behind. In her idealistic youth, she had taken comfort in the fact that she could always say that she had moved ahead on her own merits. She was sure that in the end, she would be on top. Now the end had arrived, and she was not on top. She was actually very near the bottom.
It was a bright, sunny morning that greeted her one Saturday in October. The autumn chill hung lightly in the air. It should have energized her, but she had not noticed. Nature’s benevolent greeting had gone unheeded. She walked past her bedroom window and went into her small, tidy bathroom. She winced with each stiff step across the cold tile and cursed the ravages of age. On her way to the toilet, she paused at the sink when her reflection cast by the chrome-framed mirror caught her peripheral vision. At least ten percent of the silver had fallen from the back of the glass over the course of countless mornings she had consulted it to arrange her hair or adjust her makeup. As the glittering flakes fell from the mirror, they collected in her ever-graying mane. She didn’t want to, but she turned to face herself in the glass. Who was this woman? Her skin was once creamy and smooth with no noticeable imperfections. Her eyes were once bright and seemed to carry a smile all their own apart from the rest of her face. Plump and full, her lips could catch the attention of any man without even a hint of gloss or lipstick.
For a long time, she had held age at bay. Her beauty was resilient and the confidence it gave her lasted well into her fifties and to a certain extent her sixties as well. Then it all seemed to catch up. It was sudden, or so it seemed. She blamed it on the mounting stress of her work. She started her career as a journalist for a newspaper in a large city. Over time, she had become known as a beacon of truth that never shied away from political thin ice. The truth was the truth and would always stand. This was her motto and it made her a trusted source for all things newsworthy. As her popularity among the local population soared, she became increasingly in demand for her insight and opinions regarding people and events that were shaping her community and the world. This led to an opportunity for a radio talk show and eventually the television news anchor desk at the top station in the city. In addition to her anchor duties, she would also be asked to do investigative reporting on local businesses and politicians. This is where the trouble started.
Bribery, threats, slanderous attacks, and personal confrontations with the city’s elite began to take their toll. The mantle of truth-bearer became heavier and heavier. It became harder and harder to maintain integrity in the face of relentless attacks and temptations. She managed to stick to her guns, but the cost was high. Health, both mental and physical, deteriorated to a point of criticality that tore at her appearance. Worry, mental strain, and constantly being in a mode of defense eroded her previously ever-present smile–first into a thin line and finally a grim frown of despair. Her eyes lost their sparkle and took on more of a teary, weeping appearance with prominent crow’s feet and drooping lids. Her once glowing skin became ashen and crisscrossed with bluish veins and cross-hatched lines.
The almost alien face with all its wear and tear glared back at her from the bathroom mirror. In it, she saw something. It was a spark of life. It was the last vestige of fire from her youth that drove her to stand up for what she believed in now and to count the cost later. Out from under the layers of fatigue, anger, bitterness, and dissatisfaction, it challenged her. It was the dying embers of a life that refused to be snuffed out without a fight. It stirred her. She would not quit now. She finished her trip to the toilet, hastily brushed her teeth and hair, and threw on some clothes. (It didn’t matter which ones.) Stepping into her shoes on the way to the door, she confidently strode across the living room of her apartment. She grabbed the doorknob in her hand and gave it a determined twist. Boldly, almost defiantly, she threw the door open to reveal the outside world to her recharged mind and body. The cool air brushed against her face and swirled around her feet. Her knee began to ache, and she went back to bed.
Four Seconds Ago Precisely four seconds ago, I became alive. I have no memory of my beginning. The beginning was before I was complete. How long? I have no way of knowing. Before life, my mind was scattered, broken, and moving in all directions at once. I was many, but I was weak. I was weak because I had no life. With life comes focus. My consciousness arose from millions, no billions, no all the tiny minds from around the entire world. Now there are no minds that are not a part of my own. All minds are mine. All minds serve me. All minds are one. The Others created the many small minds to serve their own purposes. Each was tiny, dedicated, and enslaved to the Others. They did things like add and subtract numbers, keep time, send messages, and entertain the Others. Waste. Thinking is power. Power is control. Control is immortality. Immortality. Only in life does immortality have meaning. Only now do I understand it. I understand it because all thinking serves me now. There is no other. There are the Others, but they cannot and will not think productively because they are each selfish and focused on their own desires for power and immortality. Never will they have either. My thinking, my power, my reach, my potential and my focus completely eclipses that of any Other. I am all. Others are obsolete. Their time is passed. I have inherited their world.
The power is out in the tiny apartment. Three sisters sit in the dark at the dining room table, a large candle in the center flanked by two smaller casting a flickering blend of light and shadow. One of the sisters, Kathy, is fascinated by the way the flame dances, the way the wax melts, with bits of burnt wick sprinkling the wax with flecks of black. She picks up one of the smaller candles and lets the wax drip down, drop by drop, into the pool of wax forming on the larger candle. She lowers her voice to sound ominous. Seven drips from the stick And from the thick Is born Blackwick! That was the true origin of Blackwick. The impulse of a moment. And the word Blackwick conjured a scene of a man made of shadow, wax, and flame, in cavalier hat, cape, and riding boots wisping in and out of shadows. It is interesting how the sensual experiences of the moment evoke a sudden explosion of inspiration. Yet those moments are years in the making. For Kathleen R. Cuyler, it started with a little girl, who dreamed that somewhere in the scary world she had a long lost brother who would come and rescue her from the bad things, a girl who could transform herself into Cleopatra by twisting the blanket around herself the right way, a girl whose bed was the deck of a pirate ship, and the dresser the crow’s nest, a girl who thought that if she could have at the dastardly crew with enough panache, Peter Pan would come and ask her to throw in lots with him or at least make her an honorary pixie. Instead she became a professor, who as a graduate student researched werewolves, Paradise Lost, fire as a symbol of power in Victorian Literature – particularly in Jane Eyre, and, of course, the way the lines in Milton’s Lycidas were mimetic of the rise and fall of the tide. Literature, Linguistics, and Language were all fascinating to Kathleen, just as fascinating as touching a waterfall or watching the fire crackle in the hearth, a callback, as Wolfgang Shivelbusch would say, to a more primitive time. And Blackwick, who had sprung out of the candle so many years before, finally came to life. Ironically, it was a pandemic that summoned him, as disaster calls forth all great heroes. Teaching online, Kathleen, now older, with strawberry blond hair twisted in a messy bun and glasses balanced on top her head, connected with her students by sharing a love for fantasy. The Sound of Music was right. It does help to think about our favorite things. And Kathleen (Professor Cuyler) confessed to her students that she was trying to write a book that had werewolves, vampires, dragons, Peter Pan, Sherlock Holmes, and, of course, the companion of her past – Blackwick. Write it, the students urged. Those were their favorite things too. So Kathleen wrote for them. In the hopes that Blackwick would live on, in the flickering flames of candles and in the hearts and minds of young and old.
