"Potemkin World"

[Guttersnipe]

I don't believe in many things. I believe only in myself. The sun in my eyes and on my face doesn't convince me of its existence. Water cools my tongue, even though the experience is completely my own creation. I am one with myself
I'm telling this all to Denny, who is too busy scarfing down his chili dog to listen to my truths. He does catch snippets of what I'm saying; he makes this apparent via his somewhat pertinent comments.
"So, you mean, people are like brains in vats?" he ventures.
"Not at all," I say, my patience thinning by the moment, "It's more like this: I am a dreamer, and everything I sense is like a lucid dream, concocted by my unconscious."
He raises his eyebrows and rubs his napkin over his mouth. Why am I talking to him? Oh, it's only because he'll at least pretend to listen that I confide in this dope—this being I created out of loneliness.
It finally clicks with him. I know this because his eyes widen and his jaw drops.
"So—you can do anything! A lucid dream you control, right?" He looks over at an empty chair and points at it.
"Make that turn into a giant mushroom!" he says. I make it happen. As I expected, no one seems to notice. This only strengthens my point that these guys are not really people after all.
Denny exclaims wordlessly.
"Can you—make it disappear?"
I do; it vanishes, bottom to top, in mere seconds.
"Turn this restaurant into a gingerbread house!"
It's done in a moment.
We go outside, Denny demanding I delete a multitude of empty, physically null objects out of my mind, and thus, out of existence.
Soon, the street is gone—and the next one, and the third...
Now Denny just wants me to get rid of everyone who's intentionally slighted him in the past. One by one, I pluck them out of the universe, or, rather, put them back into my mind.
There are some television sets in the display case of the media store. I delete everything I see. I take back the people, the buildings, the beasts, and the clouds.
There is nearly nothing left.
Denny waves his hands to me.
"Don't make me disappear, man!" he says. I tell him to relax and that I can restore him back to his perceived reality as soon as I will it
But it doesn't work.
I look at my feet, and I then realize that I'd been a fool. Denny had thought about deleting whatever I thought about disappearing. All I did was guide his attention. I am not the One. And I am, to Denny's horror, disappearing....

 

[Margaret Note Spelling]

This sounds like an interesting take on solopsism, although without any context whatsoever it's a little difficult to know exactly what this is. An extremely short, self-contained story? The hook to something else? An excerpt, an actual character's dream?

Without knowing what this is supposed to be, it can be difficult to advise you on how to make it better.

That being said, the twist at the end seems a little confusing. Things are definitely being deleted from the world, in a kind of controlled genuine solopsism...but, contrary to your perspective character's initial belief, it is not his own mind in control of it? Is that it? Apart from the almost-perspective switch at the end, it is a pretty decent story idea. It sounds like the old joke about the master solopsist and his assistants, who were so in line with their master's beliefs that they considered it in their best interest to keep him alive, because, "if he dies, we all die!"

Anyway, there are several inconsistencies and questions raised in my mind from this, just from a cursory read-through, but I have no idea if any of them are really relevant. Could you perhaps tell us what this story is intended to be?

 

[Guttersnipe]

Thank you, Margaret. It's a self-contained flash/micro fiction story. You're right about the end, in that the narrator is not the real "dreamer" after all. Could you advise how to make it clearer? I admit that it does seem ambiguous. The perspective shift: the narrator is watching Denny's expression as the former is slowly vanishing. I hope I can make that clearer, too.

 

[ctg]

I don't believe in many things. I believe only in myself. The sun in my eyes and on my face doesn't convince me of its existence. Water cools my tongue, even though the experience is completely my own creation. I am one with myself

I'm telling this all to Denny, who is too busy scarfing down his chili dog to listen to my truths. He does catch snippets of what I'm saying; he makes this apparent via his somewhat pertinent comments.

"So, you mean, people are like brains in vats?" he ventures.

"Not at all," I say, my patience thinning by the moment, "It's more like this: I am a dreamer, and everything I sense is like a lucid dream, concocted by my unconscious."

Be careful with how you use words, especially in place of the said tags. In Denny's line, I would have preferred 'asked carefully,' while in the MC line the dialogue doesn't match the description. Change one, not both. This whole piece reads like a dream sequence from the beginning.

He raises his eyebrows and rubs his napkin over his mouth.

Do you think you could remove a few genre-words from this description? I know this is in present tense, but even then you could do better. Usually my brain goes to sleep when I see that tense, but you have rough talent.

Why am I talking to him? Oh, it's only because he'll at least pretend to listen that I confide in this dope—this being I created out of loneliness.

It finally clicks with him. I know this because his eyes widen and his jaw drops.

"So—you can do anything! A lucid dream you control, right?" He looks over at an empty chair and points at it.

"Make that turn into a giant mushroom!" he says. I make it happen. As I expected, no one seems to notice. This only strengthens my point that these guys are not really people after all.

Denny exclaims wordlessly.

"Can you—make it disappear?"

I do; it vanishes, bottom to top, in mere seconds.

"Turn this restaurant into a gingerbread house!"

It's done in a moment.

Nice writing. It flows, but there are occasion places where I would have placed a bit more description to show the readers of what is actually happening, instead of you telling them. It's not a hard rule as the piece reads well enough, but I would have like to see a bit more. The important thing is that your pacing is right.

We go outside, Denny demanding I delete a multitude of empty, physically null objects out of my mind, and thus, out of existence

.

Again, be careful with your wordings. Delete creates strange connections.

Soon, the street is gone—and the next one, and the third...

Now Denny just wants me to get rid of everyone who's intentionally slighted him in the past. One by one, I pluck them out of the universe, or, rather, put them back into my mind.

There are some television sets in the display case of the media store. I delete everything I see. I take back the people, the buildings, the beasts, and the clouds.

There is nearly nothing left.

Denny waves his hands to me.

"Don't make me disappear, man!" he says. I tell him to relax and that I can restore him back to his perceived reality as soon as I will it
But it doesn't work.

I look at my feet, and I then realize that I'd been a fool. Denny had thought about deleting whatever I thought about disappearing. All I did was guide his attention. I am not the One. And I am, to Denny's horror, disappearing....

Nice twist. If all this happens in the virtual world, delete might be right word, but if not, then consider adapting something else.

 

[Margaret Note Spelling]

I'm just a little confused about what the twist means for the MC's previously-held beliefs about solipsism. It started out with a fairly straightforward idea, that everything the MC experiences is actually a dream, making his belief true. The reader was prepared for a self-consistent reality where his solipsism actually was true. But it was then subverted by the information that it's actually Denny's dream, Denny's "solipsistation," and I'm having trouble retaining the self-consistency without a little more explanation. Why was the MC the one that noticed he could delete things, rather than Denny noticing? If the MC now realizes that he's a being created by Denny out of loneliness, then that means the one thing he stated that he believed in at the beginning, is now proven to be false--meaning he now doesn't believe anything is real--which is true for his dissolution, I guess, and also a cool concept. It calls back to the beginning of the story rather well. But I didn't realize that until just now, so you might consider drawing a little bit of attention to that state of affairs as the story ends, just to wrap it up a little tighter. Just a suggestion.

Also, I actually don't understand why the MC disappeared anyway. Did Denny think of it? He seemed to be worried about the MC deleting him at the time...was there simply an association of ideas there for Denny? Did he simply have to imagine it happening, or want it to happen...and, technically, can't Denny bring him back just as easily? Unless he still doesn't realize the state of affairs. Does he realize, or not?

I'm just trying to make some sense of the story's universe--test the logical parameters of what is possible and what isn't. Maybe I'm putting too much thought into what's supposed to be a one-shot idea; that was why I wanted to know what it was before I started asking questions. Sometimes these things just don't matter. But it's also an idea you could quite easily turn into a larger story, exploring the experience of the MC trying to get by in a world made up by the imagination of the person you're eating lunch with....

Oh, one more thing I just remembered: there is, in fact a restaurant called Denny's in the USA. Is that a pun reference within the story?

 

[Guttersnipe]

Denny doesn't realize that he has this ability. He doesn't have control of it; whatever the MC is thinking, he thinks about, too. He trusts that these objects are not real, which causes them to disappear. Denny has no idea that he himself the only real being.

I really need to start re-reading my stories. :/

You're absolutely right on the point that Denny might be able to bring the MC back. For some reason that didn't cross my mind. No pun was intended. I appreciate the criticism. I'll have to rewrite it. Hopefully the next version will be more up to snuff.

 

[tinkerdan]

I found it easy to follow where it was going .
It is well rounded to the point that it is a bit sparse.
By that I mean that we have all this dialogue with a few things responding to the dialogue yet no real idea about how either character might feel about the things that occur around them.

That said it does work for me the way it is.
However there is no emotional involvement in the story until one has the horror of the other disappearing and I found that unusual.
My conclusion is that it could use a bit more detail in showing the reader the reaction of the characters to the fantastic things that happen.

 

[Guttersnipe]

@tinkerdan You're right in that it's not very descriptive. I'll have to add more interesting details.

 

[Hedgerow]

I also had little trouble following where the story was going. It may be challenging with a flash fiction, but I think that if you added a little more characterization, maybe give this narrator figment of Denny's imagination some hallucinated backstory, it might help it all to hit harder. I would note that it doesn't matter if Denny can bring the narrator back. All that matters is that the narrator thinks he's spelled his own doom. That's more than enough to create tension.