fictionista

fictionista
by ll long
Everything you are about to read is true. Everything I say is a lie. I write my book every day. I am a self-animating golem carving emet on a clay tablet every morning of my life. I am fiction. I am my own invention. I can change at will. I am a shape shifter, adapting and blending into my surroundings, camouflaged and invisible, all the better to observe. You. I am the darting squid, armed with innumerate jets of ink. You will not elude me and the bathysphere will not protect you. I know who you are. I will invent your story.
I am fictionista, with the political overtones that the neologism suggests. Fiction is a transgressive act. I am Che Guevara armed with a quill pen instead of an automatic weapon. That is a lie. The computer is my automatic weapon. No more are fictionistas shackled to cap-and-ball armament. I am Promethean, fire-stealer. I am doomed. I have already stolen your story and made it mine.
To alter reality is to transgress. I could write out my biography for you in a few short sentences. Would you believe me? Would it matter? I am creator and destroyer of my own truths and fictions. I am Loki, mischief maker. I am a wounded god. I am mortal. Or am I?
I was born. This much is true. I grew to adulthood. I am a woman. I am no one. met. I am gone. I vanish. I exist in the ether. Perhaps I’m hiding in a cave or under a rock, waiting. Writing is guerilla warfare. Life is guerilla warfare. Our theatre, the mind. I am armed and dangerous. You are my quarry. I will excavate your truths and your lies and reveal them to you. By showing you who I am (am I?), I will hold up a mirror. I am you. That is a lie. I sow confusion. I crack open the clear vial of truth. It is a new truth every day. Every day a new pack of lies nips at my heels. They are my own invention. With a keystroke, they disappear. This is the power of the fictionista.
Viva.