Liz Mills, A Short Story

 Liz Mills
"We cannot afford to forget any experience, not even the most painful."
~~Dag Hammaskjold

"Will you remember me when you're famous? I know you won't."

"How could I forget you? I can't even imagine it." Steve Lawrence had been showing Liz his sketchbooks when she said this. She saw an unusual strength in his work, and a unique style that transcended what was trendy and fashionable. For a young art student, he had been incredibly prolific.

"Someday you'll be famous and I'll be just one more girl who foolishly threw herself at your feet," she said.

He laughed. He had enjoyed her immensely. She was delightful, funny, thoughtful, profound, and incomparably sensual. He affirmed it repeatedly. He would never forget Liz.

The following semester, when Liz dropped out of the university and went to Mexico, Steve became involved with Stephanie Bond with whom he remained involved for two years until he met Gloria, which wrecked things with Stephanie, but that was O.K., until Gloria went off with his friend Chuck. For a while, after graduating he dated several girls at once until he moved in with Marianne, whom he later married.

Over the years his career path was equally circuitous. Political activist, social worker, kitchen help, janitorial work and a cabinet manufacturing position all helped pay his bills until he got plugged in at the ad agency. He had no idea how much those disjointed experiences would so profoundly contribute to shaping his worldview and contribute to his future success. 

From time to time during those curious career twsts he'd recall to mind something Liz had said. “Art doesn’t change the world by force—it changes the people who eventually do.” Throughout his various paths he never stopped exploring the possibilities of line art, how to evoke emotion and connect with human hearts. 

Timing played a role as well. Minneapolis agencies had just begun to get the attention they deserved and his was spotlighted frequently as a national trendsetter. Awards followed, along with much success, including a Clio for his inspirational health care campaign, 

At this time, again, something Liz said had risen up from some dormant place in his sub-conscience. “The most enduring impact is not made by those who accumulate wealth, but by those who reshape how others see.” It was a defining element in his career. He'd never pursued success for the money or fame, but rather as a vehicle for opening minds. She had nailed it before he ever realized it.

In his twilight years he received numerous lifetime achievement awards for his creative work and accolades from around the globe for his "World Peace Through the Arts" initiative. Two presidents entertained him in the White House and as an ultimate grace he was nominated for, and received, the Nobel Peace Prize.

Success in art, business and global statesmanship... what more could any man want? Yet there was something else he wished for. He wished.... he wished somehow, that he could find Liz Mills and tell her that, indeed, he had never forgotten her. 

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech he famously said, “Art whispers truths that success alone cannot afford to say out loud.”  

There were chuckles when he told the little anecdote about Liz Mills, and several reporters included the story in their account of the speech. Newswire services picked it up as well. On social media people debated the merits of the story, whether there really had been a Liz Mills, or whether it was simply a metaphor for youthful aspirations and long lost dreams.

A search was undertaken, initiated by several friends, as a surprise for his eightieth birthday. They scoured every database conceivable. There was a difficulty in that she may have married and had someone else's name. Nevertheless... in hope, the search was undertaken.

Liz Mills, the bold, vivacious Liz Mills of his youth, the real flesh and blood Liz Mills, now living in a nursing home -- having been placed there by her family -- was blankly watching television the evening Steve Lawrence and the Nobel Peace Prize were being discussed. Celebrities and scholars debated the merits of Steve's achievements, two endorsing and two assaulting. A brief snippet of Lawrence's acceptance speech was also aired, including the anecdote about Liz Mills.

Liz smiled and turned to a nurse who, standing nearby, was also listening. "Isn't that funny? My name is Liz Mills, too.”

"Did you know him?" the nurse asked.

"No, I never knew anyone by that name," Liz said. "I'm sure I'd remember someone like that."

* * *  

The Secret Sharer

I still remember the first time I read "The Secret Sharer" by Joseph Conrad. I had obtained this peach-colored paperback titled Great Short Works of Joseph Conrad. His story "The Lagoon" knocked my socks off when I first read it and made me hungry for more of Conrad's stories and novels. This volume included "Heart of Darkness," famously re-interpreted in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, as well as this one, "The Secret Sharer." I was determined to learn how to write short fiction (I didn't believe I had enough free time to write a novel while raising a family and holding down a full time job) so I selected classic authors and burrowed through as much of their work as I was able. Conrad was one of these.

I loved Conrad's stories for several reasons. First, because I was impressed by the fact that English was his third language. Second, because they were deep. He found ways to touch deep parts of our inner lives by making vivid the psychological complexity of his characters. Third, his descriptions were so alive and the writing beautiful. You could easily tell he had experienced the settings where his stories took place---a South Pacific island or Congo backwater or, in this case, a sailing vessel in the South Seas.

This story is told in first-person by a young, unnamed captain taking command of his first ship. Only later did I learn that "The Secret Sharer" is based partly on a real shipboard tragedy and partly on Conrad’s personal memories of himself commanding a vessel for the first time, which makes the story so real, even though that's not precisely what the story is about. By combining those two sources, Conrad created a psychological sea tale about leadership, responsibility, and something bigger. 

That "something bigger" is the nature of human nature. When I myself read "The Secret Sharer" I saw the story as a metaphor for our "two selves," the one that is hidden and the other that is known. This "house divided" cannot stand, thus the story is includes the question of how to bring resolution to this inner conflict.

As the story begins we learn that narrator is captain of a ship at port in the Gulf of Siam. Across the way there is another ship anchored called The Sephora. We quickly learn this our hero's first command as captain. He's quite young for such responsibilities, still in his twenties, and this story is essentially a rite of passage, his personal initiation into leadership.

The night before departure he instructs the crew to knock off early so they'll be rested for the voyage. The mates obey, but think it a curious thing for the captain to take the night watch in this manner. What happens next is even more curious. In the dark he goes to pull up the ladder but it seems stuck on something. When he looks, it startles him to see what appears to be a headless man holding on to the bottom rung of the ladder.

As he hung by the ladder, like a resting swimmer, the sea lightning played about his limbs at every stir; and he appeared in it ghastly, silvery, fishlike. He remained as mute as a fish, too. He made no motion to get out of the water, either. It was inconceivable that he should not attempt to come on board, and strangely troubling to suspect that perhaps he did not want to. And my first words were prompted by just that troubled incertitude.

He goes on to say...

I had somehow the impression that he was on the point of letting go the ladder to swim away beyond my ken—mysterious as he came. But, for the moment, this being appearing as if he had risen from the bottom of the sea.

In reading this I was immediately given the impression that this "bottom of the sea" was a metaphor for his subconscious self.

The man (his name is Leggatt) is invited to come aboard and the captain rushes off to get him clothes so that they are dressed alike and even look alike, Leggatt himself being in his twenties as well. As they talk, we learn that Leggatt shares the same education and background. The captain calls him his double, so there is no mistaking the meaning of this character. 

But we also, the captain and reader, learn that Leggatt is a fugitive. He killed a man while serving as first mate on the Sephora. The young captain listens to the man's account of the incident. The chief mate, refusing to follow orders to secure a sail, put the Sephora at risk and with it the safety of all aboard. In short, though Leggatt saved the ship he was locked up for the crime.  

Feeling the crime may have been justified, the narrator of this tale hides his double in his own quarters. They each share their personal stories and consider how things will unfold as a result of this unplanned, unlikely twist of fate.

So begins a tale fraught with tension, first because this is also a test of the captain's own ability to lead. And then there's the stress generated by having to conceal this secret from the crew. The story is a perfect setup to address themes of isolation, the duality of the self, courage, and the struggle to assert authority. 

As the story unfolds the screws tighten, but as in life, stress reveals who we are and what we're really made of. This is the heart of the story.  

* * *

Joseph Conrad had been working on the political novel Under Western Eyes, which dealt with life and politics in Russia, to write this shorter story which was originally called “The Secret-Sharer: An Episode from the Sea.” It was first published in two installments in Harper’s Monthly Magazine in August and September of 1910. A couple of years later, in October 1912, it appeared again as part of a small collection of Conrad’s sea stories titled ’Twixt Land and Sea: Tales.

Read the story here:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/220/220-h/220-h.htm

Bonus Track: The Lagoon

https://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Lago.shtml

Harry Gold, Revisited

SHORT STORY MONDAY
The following is a piece of flash fiction written in a rather unconventional manner. All of the sentences from this story have been borrowed from other works of fiction created by other authors. It was sort of a word game. For continuity sake I did add a few sentence fragments and used the name Harry Gold in all the places where needed. I think it interesting how a sentence, placed in a new context connotes new meanings through the unexpected juxtapositions. See if you can tell where the original ends and the newly created addendum begins.

Harry Gold

"The rule of 'nothing unessential' is the first condition of great art."
--Andre Gide

After dinner Harry Gold reads us the last two chapters of his La Nuit. The next to last especially seems excellent to us, and Gold reads it very well. Being rich is an occupation in itself, particularly for people who arrive at it via parachute in middle life.

We go out for a walk -- William Williams, Gold and myself. Never has it seemed such a long way to the top of this hill. The road with its tossing broken stones stretches on forever into the distance like a life of agony. It is hot as a furnace on the street and we sweat profusely.

I bring up the question of ownership. "Who owns language? Can a man own words? Sentences? The turn of a phrase?"

Gold's face becomes agitated, defiant. "It's mine now. No matter what they say, it's mine."

It occurs to me that Williams doesn't like this reply, but there are no others to turn to and we are forced to accept it. Gold feels guilty because his work is heavy with borrowing. Ideas, phrases, sentences, even whole paragraphs have been shamelessly appropriated, pilfered without attribution, plagiarized.

Harry adds, in a low voice, "The will of man is unconquerable. Even God cannot conquer it."

I can not bear to see him like this. To myself I think, Why do you do these things? In human affairs every solution only serves to sharpen the problem, to show us more clearly what we are up against. I consider how sages of the future will describe this historic day.

For a while we walk without speaking, the heat pressing down on us like a heavy hand. The hill seems steeper than before, as if it has grown suspicious of our intentions. Williams kicks at a loose stone and sends it rattling down the slope. The sound echoes faintly, like a small confession that no one intends to pursue.

Gold wipes his forehead with a handkerchief that was once white but now bears the stains of long arguments and careless pockets. He walks with a strange determination, as if pursued by invisible editors demanding an explanation.

At last he stops and looks out over the valley. The town lies below us, quiet and indifferent, its roofs glowing in the late afternoon sun.

“You speak of ownership,” he says, almost gently now. “But language is a river. We drink from it, we carry it away in cups, and still it flows.”

Williams nods slowly, though whether in agreement or exhaustion I cannot say.

I begin to suspect that Gold’s crime, if crime it is, lies less in the borrowing than in the boldness of admitting it. Most men prefer their thefts to remain hidden beneath respectable silence.

The wind picks up briefly, stirring the dust along the road. For a moment the heat lifts and we breathe more easily.

Gold laughs then—a short, unexpected laugh.

“Perhaps originality,” he says, “is merely the art of remembering badly.”

We continue our climb.

Somewhere beyond the crest of the hill a dog barks, and the sound travels toward us as though the evening itself were calling us onward.

# # # #

Illustration: ChatGPT

Tech Tuesday: The Man Who Tried to Hold Infinity

A Cold War Episode That's Never Been Told

Dr. Franklin “Sandy” Reeves believed, above all else, that nothing was perfect. Not the meter in Paris. Not the constants in textbooks. Not even the speed of light — though he would never say that out loud in a room full of physicists.

“Nothing is perfect,” he would mutter, tapping a yellow legal pad. “That’s the first fundamental.”

He worked for MITRE, which meant he worked for the Pentagon without quite admitting it. In 1962, the problem on his desk was simple enough: determine how accurately a fighter-bomber could hit its target using a forward-pointed laser and a corner reflector beyond the objective.

The mathematics were straightforward. The field intensity should vary as r⁻⁴. That’s what the textbooks said. That’s what the instructors had said.

But Sandy had a habit of looking more closely.

After the test run, he slipped a 16-inch reel of streak film into a standard projector — not because it was required, but because curiosity had always been his private religion. He watched the beam flare and fade as the aircraft crossed from far field to near field. 

Then he stopped the projector.

The intensity had doubled.

Leaning close with a magnifying glass, he saw. It doubled far too quickly.

He sat back and pondered. If the mathematics were correct, the film was wrong.

If the film were correct, the math would be incomplete.

He went home that night and began scribbling. What if light carried mass — not convertible mass, not E=mc² in the tidy classroom sense, but a companion mass that had to be accelerated from zero at the antenna? What if the outward flow of energy was not merely radiation, but acceleration?

--Mass times distance equals force.

--Energy equals hν.

--Set Planck’s constant equal to one — the convenient dodge. Let grams, centimeters, and seconds collapse into unity. c = g = s = 1.

He circled it twice. If the variables reduced, then the universe reduced. And if the universe reduced, perhaps the equations could be added — mass side and electromagnetic side — into one structure. Two triplets of differential equations. Add them properly and you reach it: A Theory of Everything. 

He wrote it in the margin once. Then crossed it out.

He wasn’t a crank. He worked with hardware. He built a computer for aircraft — a pulser amplifier circuit using a new planar transistor designed by a brilliant MIT graduate. The fall-time problem vanished. The pulses were clean. Too clean.

Some transistors were so fast that the flip-flops double-triggered and canceled themselves out. A machine that thought so quickly it thought nothing at all.

Sandy laughed when he realized it.

“Too perfect,” he said. “And perfection is impossible.”

The solution was human. Three technicians traveled with every unit. He went with them to the high-altitude test chamber so they wouldn’t balk. He passed the test.

Later, the USSR fielded intercontinental missiles and bombers became relics overnight.

The machine he had built — ounces shaved, circuits refined, technicians trained — became unnecessary and irrelevant.

He didn't rage. As usual, he returned to his notes. "Infinity," he had written, "does not mean forever. It means you can always name a number larger than the last. Energy flows from high to low until equilibrium."

Somewhere in the infinity of space, he believed, every extremum existed: 10⁻¹⁰ grams, 10¹⁰ grams; 10⁻¹⁰ seconds, 10¹⁰ seconds. The universe of universes had always been. Would always be.

Late one evening Sandy closed his notebook and looked out the window at a Maryland sky buzzing faintly with unseen transmissions. If mass and energy were twins, if fields rose and fell faster than predicted, if constants were conveniences — then perhaps the universe was not a finished equation but a balancing act of perpetual motion. Never perfect. Never still. Never ending.

Photos by the author. Galileo Museum, Florence

THIS STORY IS A WORK OF FICTION

Short Story Monday: Song of the Matrix (Version 5.0)

An AI Collaboration 

Perry Gustafson often felt as though his mind teetered under the weight of a thousand rickety tensions. It wasn’t madness, exactly, but a constant pressure—too many rules, too many judgments, too many voices ringing through the corridors of memory.

This evening he ducked into The Power Café, a narrow place on the corner that had once been a tailor’s shop. It now boasted a slogan in chalk script on the sandwich board outside: The Magic of Northern Italy. Inside, the reality was day-old biscotti and an espresso machine that hissed like an asthmatic.

 

Above the counter, a sun-faded poster drooped: Waisted Minds. A waist is a terrible thing to mind. Beneath it, graffiti scrawled by some anonymous wit demanded: Why are Texans so Austintatious?

He smiled grimly at the joke. It was just the sort of thing she would have laughed at.

He slid into a booth. Around him, voices hummed with the same desperate cadence. A sharp-suited man at the counter asked, too loudly, “If I’m so successful, why am I so lonely?” A pair of students argued over credit cards, one insisting, “I’m gonna max out my Monkey card,” as if that were rebellion. At another table a trio quoted advertising gurus like preachers citing scripture: The greatest sin in advertising is to be boring. “And the second greatest sin,” one added, “is not agreeing with Ogilvie.”

 

He pulled out his notebook. The pages were cluttered with fragments: The Four Atomic Sons of Madame Fauvre. Freestyle Frost Flicker--for cleaning ice off windows. A single word: Opinionitis.

 

He paused to reflect on that one. Yes, that was the sickness of the age. The inability to hear without judging. He remembered the P.I.N. Formula from de Bono—Positive, Interesting, Negative. But no one waited for the interesting anymore. Everyone lunged straight for the negative. To be effective, he thought, one must tame the value judgments, suspend the reflex to condemn. A mature mind listens first.

 

But who was listening?

 

He closed the notebook and left. Outside, the streetlamps flickered, frost spreading across their glass like silver lace. He whispered the only benediction he trusted: How to get blessed—be a blessing.

 

A voice startled him. “Talking to yourself, or to the universe?”

 

A young woman leaned against the lamppost, smoking. Her coat was too thin for the cold, her hair cut short in uneven lengths, as if she’d done it herself. She smiled wryly.

 

“Maybe both,” he said.

 

“Lucky universe,” she replied. “Most people don’t bother.”

 

They fell into step as he walked. She didn’t ask where he was going, and he didn’t offer. After a few blocks she said, “You look like a man who keeps notebooks. Am I right?”

 

He hesitated, then showed her the one in his pocket. She flipped it open, skimming the fragments. “‘A man who needs nothing can afford to risk everything.’ I like that.” She tapped the page. “But do you believe it?”

 

“Some days,” he said. “Other days I need everything and can risk nothing.”

 

She laughed—not unkindly. “That sounds about right. I once wrote: Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Then I realized I was quoting someone else, not myself. Isn’t that strange? How other people’s words get stuck in your blood?” 

Her candor knocked the air from his lungs. He thought of her, the one he’d lost—a woman bound by rules like chains. He said nothing.

 

The girl must have noticed. “Sorry. I say things too bluntly. It’s a flaw.”

 

“No,” he murmured. “It’s… familiar.”

 

They walked in silence until they reached the river. The water was black, its surface rimmed with ice.

 

“You know,” she said, tossing her cigarette into the current, “the footprints we leave—half the time they’re not even ours. They’re for whoever comes next.”

 

He looked at her sharply. The echo of Buzz Aldrin’s words startled him, as if the universe had been listening after all.

 

“What’s your name?” he asked.

 

She grinned. “Depends on the day. Tonight it’s Clara. Tomorrow it might be something else.”

 

“Clara,” he repeated, testing it. “Do you ever feel like you’re living inside a song? One you can’t quite hear but that keeps pulling you forward?”

 

She tilted her head. “All the time.”

 

He smiled for the first time in weeks. The Song of the Matrix was no longer a solitary hum. Someone else could hear it too.

And for the first time in months, he wasn’t just listening. He was accompanied.

 

# # # #

 

"The Song of the Matrix" is a collaborative work of fiction. The process I used to create this story was as follows. I was sifting through old folders on my Mac and came across a document where I had copied a batch of fragments and ideas from a writer's journal, circa the mid-90s. After feeding several of my short stories into ChatGPT and instructing it to "learn my style," I then fed a page from that Word doc into ChatGPT and instructed it to write a story using all these disparate elements. That was version one. I then re-fed an edited version of that into the AI. At the end of my third version, ChatGPT asked me if I'd like to add a second character to the story. I said yes, which resulted in version four. After tweaking and fine-tuning, I ended up with this which you read here. What do you think?