Orbiting a Strange Attractor

Orbiting a Strange Attractor was my first real story written about 15 years ago.  I'm not sure it is a good choice to start the blog.  It's not one of my best stories and I'm a little worried that I might lose my audience before I even get going.  So please stick around, if you're following me, because the best is yet to come.

The title comes from a term in Chaos Theory.  It refers to a particle that moves in an otherwise unpredictable manner but whose movements are still bound within a predictable space.  So in a sense the story is about the chaotic things that happen to the unnamed hero of the story.  But really, I just thought it was a cool expression.  

I took a lot of what was happening in my life at the time and put it in this story.  We did have to change the knob & tube wiring as a result of an insurance company inspection.  My house is in a state of constant disrepair and I am an old fashion kind of guy who is tight with a dollar.  But I do not avoid change.  In fact, I thrive on it.  Nor do I pump out a lot of stomach acid.  I handle stress quite well.  So I would say that I am not the same man as the main character despite our numerous similarities.

A lot of my recurrent themes show up in this first story including sex, drugs, and rock & roll.  The rock & roll is usually Beatles music.  In fact, I wrote an entire story about John Lennon that will be posted in a later blog.  The sex however is usually unconsummated sex.  Why do my characters always have a difficult time 'closing the deal', so to speak?  My stories are supposed to be funny.  Having sex can be romantic or pornographic or even dramatic.  But unconsummated sex is funny.  It's as simple as that.

When I wrote this story I was still making up stories around the dinner table to entertain the kids.  The dream sequence in the middle of the story is one of those stories.  In retrospect I see that it is the start of a standard technique in which I change the prospective within the story.  I think I do it much better in later stories.

Finally, upon rereading the story, I notice that it's a big deal that the female lead is carrying  a cell phone.  It seems odd that this is an issue in 2010.  But the story was written in 1995 when carrying a cell phone was more rare and reserved primarily for people who needed one for legitimate business purposes.  It's rather sad that my stories are becoming dated already.   All the more reason to post them before they become hopelessly antiquated.


Enjoy.

Orbitting a Strange Attractor