Guest post by Laurie’s newest client, writer of supernatural mayhem and a bonafide scoundrel, Jonas Samuelle: the ultimate unreliable narrator!
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When I was seven years old, an elderly wino named Bosley lived in the woods near my house. His “home” was in a little clearing just out of view from the sidewalk. He’d leaned long branches against a tangle of vines, then stuffed the gaps with leaves and brush to shield the rain. His only possession was a leather bag, which he’d hung on a nail in a tree. When I asked him what was inside the satchel, he said “stories.”
We’d always meet on my way back from school. He’d wave at me, then call me over to talk. Instead of chatting about the weather or asking for change, Bosley would always start with some comment that didn’t make any sense. He’d ask if I’d seen certain geese, or off-handedly brag that he’d taught the nearby trees Morse code. I loved Bosley.
Every day, he’d reach into the leather bag and pretend to pull something out, but when he opened his hand, it was empty. Of course, he’d say it wasn’t empty, that he was actually holding a story. I didn’t believe him. So, to prove it to me, he pulled a new story from the bag each afternoon and told it to me like he was reading from a book. I don’t remember a single one of his tales, but I remember they felt like magic.
One day, after school, Bosley was tired and didn’t want to tell me a story. He said the bag was almost empty for him. “Why don’t you tell me one? Maybe for you, the bag’s still full,” he said.
So, I reached in like he always did, and pretended to pull something out. Then, I made up my first story. I don’t recall the plot, if there was one, but I know it was about a little bird with a club foot.
Well, Bosley loved it, or pretended he did, anyway. He was so happy with my story that he told me to come back the next day; he said he’d have a present for me. I don’t know what I hoped for from a man with so little to give, but I was excited, anyway.
The next afternoon, I ran home from school—straight to Bosley’s clearing. For the first time ever, he was gone. His little lean-to was carefully taken apart and the branches were laid side by side on the ground in a neat row. The only thing left was the leather bag hanging on the tree: my present.
I took the bag, and have kept it close ever since. Every so often, I reach inside and pull out a new story. Most go about as far as a club-footed bird, but some have grown up into books. Eventually, one of those books was noticed by the lovely Laurie McLean.
It’s been a long walk and a lot of years since those afternoons in the woods, but now I’m thrilled to have found my place on Team Fuse. So thanks, Bosley, wherever you are, for giving me all those stories. And thanks Laurie, for liking one.
Cheers, to new adventures.
-Jonas
Jonas Samuelle awoke in an Arizona vineyard some years ago to find that he had no memory, a bleeding head-wound, and a shotgun leveled at him. Some of these issues have yet to be remedied.
Laurie will start pitching his weird supernatural western, The Bandit Kings, to editors very soon!
