EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED

by John M. Floyd

This piece today is about story twists, but not the usual kind. I once heard a speaker at a conference say that reversals in fiction don’t have to be just at the end of a story, and they don’t even have to be restricted to plot reversals. Even dialogue can provide sudden surprises and changes in direction. (I’ve heard this referred to as “oblique” dialogue.) I was reminded of this a few weeks ago, when I ran into an old friend.

I was also reminded that situations in real life can be stranger than the ones in stories.

Our chance meeting took place in the parking lot of our local Borders, which has become sort of my home away from home. (The store, not the parking lot.) I hadn’t seen the guy in a long time, but since our children had grown up in the same town we’d spent many hours together at soccer games, piano recitals, Christmas parades, and school programs over the years. After a few minutes of chatting about the Old Days, he told me about what he and his wife were doing and where his son and daughter were and so forth, and then asked me about our three kids, two of whom had been in the same grades and classes with his.

“I remember your oldest, from the Scout troop,” he said. “He was good with the younger guys. I bet he’s — don’t tell me, let me guess — a schoolteacher now. Am I right?”

“Nope. Chemical engineer.”

“No kidding?”

I held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

“Here in the state? I always figured he’d stay close to home.”

“He’s in West Virginia,” I said.

“Oh. I would’ve thought your second son would be the traveler — all those backpacking trips he made –”

“Actually, he lives here.”

“In the South, you mean, or in the U.S.?”

“I mean about a mile from our house.”

“Is that so.” He frowned and said, “He majored in mechanical engineering, didn’t he? Like my son did.”

“Yep — I think they were in the same freshman dorm.”

“M. E.’s a good field,” he said.

“Well, actually, mine switched over to biological engineering, after the first year.”

“Oh. So he’s doing what now, research work?”

“He’s a doctor,” I said.

“Ph.D, you mean?”

“The other kind. He went on to medical school.”

“Hmm.” He looked a little puzzled. “How about your daughter? She was always laughing, never met a stranger — I bet she went into marketing, am I right? Or maybe politics.”

“She’s a schoolteacher.”

“Really. Teaching what? No, don’t tell me: public relations.”

“Music.”

“Seriously?”

I gave him a serious nod.

He mulled that over, then brightened. “I heard your wife’s teaching some, too. She was an R.N., wasn’t she?”

“Long ago,” I said.

“So she’s teaching nursing classes?”

“She’s teaching sewing classes.”

“Sewing.”

“Yep.”

Now he was really baffled. “Well, at least you’re doing what I would’ve expected,” he said. “I saw someplace that you teach computer courses, at one of the colleges.”

“Well, not computers.”

“What, then?”

“Writing,” I said.

A silence passed. “You’re teaching writing classes?”

“Fiction writing.”

“I thought you graduated in electrical engineering.”

“I did.”

“And worked for IBM, all those years.”

“Yep.”

“But . . . how does any of that qualify you to teach fiction writing?”

“Beats me,” I said.

He stared at me a while, squinting as if through a heavy fog. “Well,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Good to see you again, Floyd.”

“You too. Best regards to your family.”

As he wandered off, turning now and then to look back at me, I realized that in five minutes of honest but oblique responses, I had taken a content and satisfied person and managed (although it was unintentional) to confuse him thoroughly.

Or maybe I just made him think, and see that things are not always as they appear. That’s what writers are supposed to do.

Am I right?