My story isn’t interesting enough to tell.
That’s why you’ll never know me. So, I’m not going to bother with my name or where I come from or what I do for a living. I’m not going to introduce you to my friends, or tell you about my hobbies. That’s not what you’re here for.
You’re here for something else. Something that takes you away from the staleness of everyday life; people you can live vicariously through and places you’ve only seen in your mind’s eye. Or your nightmares, perhaps.
See, none of that applies to me: I am a background character.
I get up in the morning. I get showered, get dressed. I go to work. I come back home, make dinner, watch TV and fall asleep in front of it. And I do it all again the next day. Sure, sometimes I play pickleball with a friend. Some days I go for a walk in the park, or take a weekend trip to the beach. But I complain about sore muscles and sand and before I know it I’m back in my old routine.
Who wants to hear about that?
Let’s be honest: I’m nobody. I’m just “Guy #9.” Or “that boy with a hat.” Sometimes I am “girl with pigtails,” or “woman running down the street screaming.” But I have no motivation. And my existence is unimportant to you, the reader/watcher/listener/writer, because I am only here to fill in empty space. Add background noise. Be rescued by the hero, or tormented by the antagonist. Watch my world burn. And with any luck I can go back to my life once the fire’s out.
So, if you’re looking for adventure, look somewhere else. My life is no fantasy. I don’t offer you romance, or mystery. I am here because it’s a requirement of most creative ventures. A world’s got to have people—even an imaginary one.
I’m here because I have nowhere else to be. We’re all here because we have nowhere else to be.
Like the nameless widow, whose husband was killed in the last alien invasion. Or the nameless firefighter who suffered severe burns trying to save City Hall from that dragon. Or the nameless bus driver who carted children to safety when that pack of werewolves took over town.
And then there’s me, and my brush with non-adventure: the man in plaid tights. Chasing a large dinosaur down the street while lasers blasted and fire rained from the sky. And a distracted driver crashed his car through the front window of my family’s antique bookstore.
Tell me, viewer, how do I move on?
It is something I cannot un-see, and yet I’ll never know. For hours I’ll give statements of what I saw. I may even read a fuller story in The Daily News. And I’ll have one hell of a time paying for the damage to my front window.
And then I’ll go home. Make dinner, and fall asleep in front of the TV.
But you. You want to meet the guy with the cape. The girl with the army of ghosts. People with stuff happening to them. You want quirky protagonists and menacing enemies, wreaking havoc in their interesting, fantastic, romantic and mysterious lives.
Get back to me when you’re ready to talk about The Bachelor.
So, you want to know where the man in the cape went? Don’t ask me. I’m just here, filling empty space. You’ve got the name. You’ve got the story.
And I’ve got a mess to clean up after you.
— C.M.
Dear C. M.,
I feel fortunate to have the original version of this story that you wrote several years ago. I keep it in a place where I can easily see it and review it frequently. Each time that I read it, I always feel uplifted. I’m reminded that not everyone gets to be the hero or the main character; but rather most of us are just simply the background characters. And that’s OK. In fact it’s quite important even though it may not seem so on the surface. Your original story reminds me that even though a background character may seem to lead a monotonous, mundane existence, it’s a very important and special role. For without the background characters, the main hero-type guy or gal doesn’t have a story at all! We may only be a part of the background, but your story reminds me that we are still important none the less. I appreciate the deeper meaning your writing conveys. Thanks for sharing your creative mind!
Thank you, Care Bear 🙂 I’m so glad that my story spoke to you! I agree that background characters are just as important as the main characters, if not more important simply because they give our hero a reason to keep fighting. By the way, I think some of the most important “background characters”–people who do so much work for very little reward, and (unfortunately) often no recognition–are teachers 😉