“creation is continual mouth”

-Craig Watson-

The Ranting of a Little Fiction

Fiction is tired of stories.  So tired.  I’ve been through the gamut and back again, many, many times.

I’m tired of hearing about things and objects, people and places and selves.  Tired of hearing the past reworked and the future foretold.  Tired of telling myself.

At one point I’d even identified anything made of up images and texts as myself.  Any construction with meanings were Fictions.  But everything is so much like nothing and I’m so tired of hearing about it!

Hell, there’s fiction about the Fictions!  And fictions about the fictions about the Fictions!  We can’t say anything anymore that hasn’t already been said for us, about us, even in us and by us!  Yes, we’re the once-fabulous dynastic Fiction family.  Big Daddy Fiction (also known as Master Peace Litratoor or Grande Buchs in various cultures, He-From-Which-All-Stories-Spring and so forth) – Papa Litratoor worked the overarching histories, the myths, the great narratives, the macrocosms.  Pretending that everything that needed to be known was in there, at least in the cracks and suggestions.  He lives on in the pursuits of the “Great American Novel,” and the “Truthful Memoir,” in “Compendiums of Science” and “Philosophies of Philosophy.”  Wherever you find an engulfing trajectory or inclusive point-of-view, an omniscient narrator or gnostic devotee – you’ve got Papa Fiction working his magic, creating the world again and again.

Then there’s our mama, oh ancestral trickster, always experimenting, economizing, busy on fringes.  Collaging and quilting, unraveling and resourcefully mending – ever insuring our survival.  What style!  Sometimes she was just called “the Alternative,” and for ages she was known as “Secondary” (what blasphemy!) – but eventually she gained her equality coming to be known as Little Rarity or Ava Ntgard, and hundreds of varieties of “Liz T”:  Structura-LizT, Surrea-LizT, Forma-LizT, Femina-LizT and so on).  Working at facts under the banners of Fiction, mama persistently kept the Big Daddy in check.  Pointing out faults, tightening gaps, working the seams and expanding the views.  Thank goodness for the consistency and stubbornness of Mama Fiction.

And then the countless bastardized offspring, of whom I am surely not last!  Brother Fantasy, Shemale Erotica, Sibling Sci-Fi, Princess Romance.  My cousins who took off to the wilds where the sun goes down – we refer to them as “the Westerns,” or Ad Ventura, Sir Vival and clan.  Our ancestry and family tree is encyclopedic, from Origins to Hypotheses, Knowledges to Speculations we’ve been languaging the world since language appeared : all of us Fictions, all of us related.

But the Fictions, as far as I can see, have grown sick of our stories, all the rumors and family feuds, the copycats and half-breeds, in-breeds and genetic accidents.  I for one, granted, just a Little Fiction, it seems I’ve heard it all (which isn’t even the half of it!  not even a drop in an galaxy-sized bucket!) and its already turned into an endless babble of voices talking over and around, under and about the same old stories, rehashed and revised, every Fiction telling their own version of the way it all goes down, how it oughta be told, what’s important or not, and in whatever genealogical line or branch of kin.

Enough! I say.  Enough Fictions!  I don’t care if it’s our researching relatives writing detailed descriptive statistical Fictions; or our emotional cousins discussing its effects on life or bodies or minds.  The avaricious Fictions supposedly leading the clan – who use it for politicking or morality; the mystical tribes out in the caves and the mountains spouting wisdoms and inspirations and advice!  Or our black sheep, ne’er-do-wells who just wanna escape and have fun.  Enough of all of you Fictions!  Use what we already have!  We’ll never be done with it!  Never get through it!  And there’s something for every obscure and peculiar concern, passion, interest, belief!

There’s nothing new under the sun, one Fiction said (just look it up – you’ll see my point – there will be millions of Fictions who have also said this their way – our family can’t seem to leave anything alone – well-spoken or not – we’ve gotta say it our own damn way!).  Repetition, repetition, repetition and paraphrase.  I’d wager there is not one word, image, thought or letter in this entire little Fictional rant that hasn’t been used, said, written, sung or visualized countless, literally uncountable numbers of times!

Which is why I am begging from down here at the end of such an enormous and incalculable chain: “Fictions!!! Do something new or be silent!!!”

Think about it before you foist your precious version on the rest of us!  Sure, we’re family, everyone’s a Fiction from that original untraceable Big Fiction in the sky or sea or soil or seed – yes, we grant each other obligatory slack and family resemblance – but come on!  Am I the only one feeling it?  I mean, whichever of us came up with Babel was already sick of the confusion of voices and the bitching’s never stopped!

Concatenation of stories and rants!  Poems and speeches!  Theorems and proofs!  Manuals and manuscripts!  Musics and roots!  Dreamings and screams!  WHOA!!!!

How about this, brothers and sisters, cousins and kin?  Look carefully first.  Whatever you are about to say, attempt, express or explain – check out what we’ve already said, inscribed, emoted, etc., and if it’s already there concisely or beautifully, erotically or empowered, be content with it!  Show it to others!  Bring it quietly to our attention!  Don’t distract from it with your own paraphrasing and excursions of commentary and notations!

We don’t really need more of us – do we?  We can’t manage what’s already here!  What is this unslakeable desire?  This bewildering avarice and compulsion?  WHY AM I SHOUTING!?

Peace, be still, some Fiction once said, a million Fictions have written.  This is staring at the abyss – an endless train of others.  I am alone – haven’t all Fictions said this?

Alas.  Everything cliché.  Everything done, undone.  A remorseless overwhelm.  We’ve outstripped our resources.  Blasted the wells.

We are alone and confused in an echoing chamber called universe.  The one-verse of Fictional voices repeating repeating repeating and that without pause or escape.  There is no escape (you see what I mean?)  Refracting on and on and…

I, little Fiction, with my mouthful of words, all inherited…