Manhattan Transfer

A Story by Abishai100

Narrated portrait of struggling American writer and Ivy-divorcee who must come to terms with cognition, fate, chess-IQ, and distance.

An homage to the iconic novel-adapted brilliant film Bright Lights, Big City (Michael J. Fox). Thanks for reading,

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I'd been living in Manhattan and working at a publishing/editing house since graduating from Dartmouth and enduring a rough divorce from my college-sweetheart Selina. This was my new life, and I was still not 50-something and ambitious and living in a nice apartment and commuting to work by walk and taking small amounts of stimulants to spike my work-energy while feeling less frustrated about my great-American novel about a writer who wins the lottery in Manhattan and wonders if he should escape the life of an intellectual.

My name's Amlan Satan, and I like work, generally, at the Manhattan publishing-editing house and besides the fact that our boss is quite a stern lady of ice, the office-space affords us some decent camaraderie, especially for the ideation that coworkers are intrigued by my youthful optimism regarding the writing foray. I've been thinking about switching over to comics ('Batman') but remain for the moment a 'pedestrian-life' writer, focusing on the nuances of 'cognitive-sciences' driven human consciousness/drama, and believe it or not, I take time for Facebook-IQ (I'm a 'real' consumer!).

Divorce was not a simple experience for a man like me, especially since I liked the writings of deceptively sentimental authors like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Edith Wharton and cared much less about 'living' through a casual non-spiritual 'adventure' in an otherwise 'intrigue-laden' city like Manhattan (United States). In fact, my novel-concept had been somewhat 'borne' from this divorce-light, and I made my Manhattan post-work wanderings, in bars/nightclubs and coworker parties a reflection of my 'American' interest in translating drama into youthful realism of some kind (in writing!).

TWO PRETTY WOMEN: So, you're writing a 'fantastic' novel about a struggling (American) writer who wins the lottery, eh?
ME: Yeah...

TWO PRETTY WOMEN: Sounds hot and worried, pal; but you also look like a 'nerdist' with some stimulants in your jacket!

ME: Yeah...

TWO PRETTY WOMEN: Do you feel like what you've really got to 'acquire' is some kind of night-time meaningless detour?
ME: Yeah...

TWO PRETTY WOMEN: You should be more careful, dashing writer-man; there's plenty of alien-IQ in Manhattan now (spice?).

ME: Yeah...

After this illuminating chat with two random beautiful Manhattan gals which resulted in a rather steamy weekend, I decided to sit in the more spiritual park-area of the city and played chess with some old guys of New York. I learned about patience and the quality of post-divorce consciousness that would 'lift' my lottery-America novel-concept to the level of dramatized life sanitations. I mean, why'd one have to think a game-prize in Manhattan must equal some kind of anti-spiritual deflation in a place like this?

I just required a post-divorce spike in energy with some unusual activity that would complement the plot-flow of my novel-concept and therefore decided to spend some money to play lottery-games for a full-month myself and then won! I won a nice fat money-prize and decided to call my ex-wife Selina and told her, "I might go to Hawaii to write my novel on an island and just retire...as an artist" to which she coldly replied, "Congrats, Satan; I'm seeing someone now, and I honestly could care-less about your lottery-acquisitions funding your life-turns, ok?"

Since that Selina-chat resulted in absolutely nothing, I got myself a Xenomorph robot-action figurine/toy and placed it on my writing-desk in my apartment and began to write my great-American novel about a lottery-winner. I'd decided to write at least 1/2 of the novel before jumping to Hawaii to finish it with my won lottery-money, and besides, I'd not minded going to work still at the publishing/editing house and not 'forgetting' the great friends who'd made my life in Manhattan post-divorce somewhat meditative. As I wrote and wrote and wrote, the Xenomorph insect-dragon alien-robot toy reminded me precisely why Manhattan life was like a 'chess-IQ' for wrought stalemates in difficult dreams. Selina had become an alien to me!

I visited the Manhattan cemetery and decided to pour some wine on the tombstone of a coworker who died in a car-accident, killed by a drunk-driver, a horrid tragedy which reminded us all in the office-place that daydreams in a big city like Manhattan would inevitably be colored by the forms of realistic fate! Why'd I endure a divorce? Why did Selina leave me in the end? We were sweethearts of the Ivy-League after-all! I wondered in that cemetery if I won the lottery simply because I was 'fated' to meditate on the complicated depths of 'real' distance(s).