Halloween One Shots

THE DARKEST TIMELINE

Contest Profile: Secret Treasures

The party was wonderful! I went to top up my drink when a cold presence wrapped around my body. Those around me gasped. Oh no! The vengeful spirit that took one person from our small town each year at Halloween had chosen me. No!

We landed in a small empty room with a laptop on a clean desk.

This didn't seem so bad.

"Where are we?" I asked my ethereal companion.

"The year 2020," came the wispy response.

"You snatched me only to transport me nine years into the future?" I mused. "I thought you sent people to nightmarish worlds?"

The mostly translucent ball of light smiled. "I do."

"Yeah right," I scoffed. Looking out of the window, things looked normal. "So, what's supposed to be scary about this place and/or time?"

"You're a writer."

I laughed. "I'm already a writer! That's not scary. In fact, I've been working on a new story about..."

"Does it have a white protagonist?" the ghost asked, cutting me off.

"Um, maybe?" I replied, wondering what that had to do with anything.

"Yeah, no," came the reply. "You're black. You can't write white characters."

"What?"

"Don't worry. White writers can't write black characters, either."

"That's silly," I replied. "Fiction is all about pretending to be something we're not. What about extra-terrestrials?"

The ghost ignored me. "You're also cis-het, which means you have to stop writing about gay characters."

"That's just..." I choked out. "For as long as I can remember, I was taught that I must hate gay people, but I had never met any. A writer's characters are as real to them as anyone they meet, so I write gay characters to allow myself to entertain the idea that these are just normal people going about their normal lives and who deserve all the respect and dignity and..."

"Just, stay in your lane," the ghost cut me off again. "If your story has a single sentence that has anything to do with race, ethnicity, disability, gender, sexual orientation, assault, colonialism, imperialism, diversity, class or inequality and you're not anxious about it, you're doing it wrong."

"How can you even write..."

"And make sure you engage sensitivity readers early enough," the spectre went on.

"Engage who?"

"They're experts on a range of delicate feelings," they explained. "They'll help make sure your work doesn't offend anyone."

"So, I can only write about black characters and what I know?"

"Well, it's better to have a diverse cast of characters," they explained. "Mostly People of Colour though."

"Coloured people? Isn't that a slur?"

"No! People of Colour! It's different!"

"And 'People of Whiteness' shouldn't be included in this diverse cast?"

"What?"

"That's not the current term for white people?"

"No," they said, decidedly. "Also, Donald Trump is the US president, half of Australia and California is basically ash and there's a global pandemic happening that prevents economical travel to most countries."

I looked at the spectre, horrified. "Where am I?"

"Welcome to the darkest timeline."