The Lost Short Story (Flash Fiction)
Author's Note: A short story/flash fiction about a lost story.
Image Credit (licensed under Creative Commons) : NATT-at-NKM at Flickr
Well I’m not sure if this is true or not, but this is the way I heard the story. There’s this writer, he’s kinda established but maybe not a star or anything. Anyway, he calls his publisher and tells her about a short story he’s written. It’s been on the computer for a while, he tells her, maybe for a year or whatever, but the other night he came to think of it. And slowly, he tells her, he’s starting to realize the importance of this short story. It was the best thing he ever wrote by far, he’s even thinking there’s something sublime about it, even revolutionary. It was called Alexandria.
Okay, the publisher says. So when can I read this masterpiece?
Well, the writer tells her. That’s just it. You can’t. It’s lost. The hard drive has crashed and he’s tried everything, even removing it and putting it in other computers. It’s utterly dead. So now this monumental short story is lost forever. Okay, the publisher says, and there’s no way you can rewrite it? That’s going to be hard, very hard indeed, not to say impossible. It was written so fast and he’s barely given it any thought this last year. He probably couldn’t tell her what exactly it was about at gunpoint. And yet he did recall the sentiment, and sort of the general theme, without remembering the actual theme.
It was kinda hard to explain, he told her.
Yeah, well, it probably WASN’T that easy explain, and this story has made its rounds since, so the quotes have maybe become a bit clouded. But that’s what he said, the way I heard the story.
So, not much to be done, the publisher tells him. Maybe you sleep on it and see if you can remember enough to rewrite it?
And that could be it, I guess, if not for the fact that the publisher had heard of a similar hard drive crash at her uncle’s dinner party just a week before, and learned that there are companies that basically live off these type of occurrences. She recalls this after they hang up, and then maybe a day or two later, she happens to be near the writer’s home and decides to swing by. It just so happens the writer is not home, just his wife, and because of course, she’s also heard the story of this supposedly magnificent lost short story, she hands the burnt out hard drive or computer or whatever to the publisher and tells her to do what she wants with it.
Another week goes by and the publisher goes out to this kinda run down industrial area to meet with the data reconstructing company. Which, as I heard it, is just a guy in a blue overall that kinda looks like a car mechanic.
And oh yeah, supposedly, the writer knows nothing about this. I kinda have a hard time with that part, like, the wife wouldn’t tell him about giving away his computer or hard drive or whatever? But yeah, he had a new computer and maybe she wasn’t convinced the short story was so brilliant or she was super busy paying bills or picking up kids from daycare or something.
Anyway, a few weeks go by and the publisher gets a call from the data-reconstructing guy, and he says he’s reconstructed everything, “down to the last screensaver setting.” The publisher gets a bit excited and cancels a meeting to be able to pick it up that same afternoon. And she pays a pretty hefty fee for the reconstruction, I’m not sure how much but definitely substantial, but she’s like whatever, it doesn’t matter if this short story truly is outstanding. Then when she’s about to leave the data guy, kinda in passing, mentions that he found an anomaly when he reconstructed the hard drive. They, the company that is even if it was just that one guy, had made a habit of always trying to find the cause of the crash in question.
And the thing was this time, he said, everything he could find pointed to the same conclusion. And that conclusion was that someone had made the hard drive crash deliberately. What do you mean, deliberately, the publisher asks.
Well, what you think it means. Knowingly, willfully, on purpose.
That sounds strange, the publisher says. Yeah, well, he says. That’s the way it is.
So on the way back to the city the publisher calls the writer and tells him that the hard drive has been restored. And because it’s been a few weeks since they spoke, he barely remembers what the whole thing is about. Restored? Yeah, I’m on my way back now to read it, was it called Alexandria?
That’s good news, the writer tells her, but he doesn’t sound very excited. They hang up and the publisher goes to get some food, finishes some work and then finally gets to reading. And when she’s done reading, she reads it again. And then she reads half of it again, and then she’s so upset she has to call the writer immediately even though it’s 11:30 and there are kids asleep at his home.
What is this fucking garbage, the publisher asks him. There’s nothing sublime or magnificent or brilliant about it.
Well, the writer tells her, maybe I kinda romanticized it.
And this data-reconstructing guy, he tells me you crashed the computer deliberately?
Really? I don’t understand that, he tells her. Why would I?
And since the publisher can’t think of any good reason for him to do that, she let’s the whole thing slide.
It’s not impossible, I guess, that something came out of it eventually, because the writer did publish a collection of short stories about a year after this supposedly occurred.
But the way I heard it, that short story was so dull and inconsequential -- or the publisher so hostile -- that it was left to gather dust on a computer that was eventually thrown out.