I Owe No Allegiance to the Facts

Like many people who write, I spend a lot of time in my own head. It’s pleasant in there. The skies are blue; the barometric pressure, steady; the edges, rounded; the unsavory facts encased in bubble wrap and unable to hurt anyone.

It’s nice, in my head.

And as can be expected by someone with a limited loyalty insofar as reality is concerned, I make stuff up.

And sometimes, people who should know better mistake my stories for truth.

Years ago, I wrote a piece as part of a writing exercise. Certain elements were to be present: danger, colorful dialogue, humor, resolution.

There was never mention made that it must be true.

So I made it up. I used an actual vacation I had taken, made up some names, created both situation and dialogue. It was published online and quickly forgotten.

Or so I thought.

Months later, at a party, I am approached by a woman whose name I had used in that story.

“You remember that, Pearl? You remember that night? Everyone, this is Pearl. She’s the one I was telling you about.”

I shift my beer from one hand to another, look around the room. Linda is a dramatic and insecure person prone to both hysteria and self-aggrandizement. She wears me out.

“What night are you talking about?”

“You know! The story! Remember that?” While I run my eyes over the rest of the room, looking for a way out of this conversation, she lays out everything I had written, quotes it extensively. A crowd gathers as she relates the fictional tale as something she personally experienced, adds details not in the original story implying that she saved me from a dangerous situation and that I, being young and foolish at the time of said story, owed her a debt.

Linda laughingly finishes up by saying, “Really, Pearl, you need to be more careful.”

Mary appears at my elbow. “None of that happened, did it?” she whispers.

“Not a word of it!” I hiss. “What in the world is she talking about?”

Mary laughs. “This is what you get for writing a story using her name. What’d you use her name for anyway?”

I shake my head. “It was just a name, just a location. Now she thinks it’s real!”

“You going to call her on it? She’s made herself out to be a hero!”

And you know, I thought about it. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. As annoying and needy as Linda is, I couldn’t take away a story that made her a hero.

Like I said, it’s pleasant in my head. Even when what’s in there is fueled entirely by the imagination.