Experiment in Style: The Back of Beyond

Read this with a friend: you won't want to be alone...

Greetings!

One of the things I’ve been trying out is reworking a piece of text into a completely different style. A full exposition and explanation are given here:

Experimenting with styles

The aim of these experiments is to explore how different styles and approaches can affect the tone of a story. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

For today’s experiment I wrote the story as a “Twilight Zone”-type mystery.

Here is the original text on which these experiments or transformations are based:

The original (template) text

In the middle of the night, I woke up (if you can call being semi-conscious being awake), walked purposefully towards the door to go to the bathroom — and almost knocked myself out.

The reason was that in the twin states of entire darkness and semi-somnambulance I was facing in a different direction from the one I thought I was facing. As a result, instead of walking through the door, I tried to walk through the wall.

The next few days brought nausea and headaches. After much prevarication I went to Accident and Emergency, where I waited petrified among people for whom “social distancing” means not quite touching you, and who wore their masks as a chin-warmer.

An hour and a half later I emerged into the twilight, secure in the knowledge that I had nothing more serious than mild concussion. I failed to do much writing, but I was pleased to have read a further 17% of my book.

The Back of Beyond

This is a parody of the shows The Twilight Zone and One Step Beyond.

Please note: this is not an actual Twilight Zone or One Step Beyond story but a parody of the “spooky” canon, written in accordance with the UK’s rules on parody or pastiche, and Fair Dealing, and the US’s Fair Use.

Beyond our three dimensions lies another reality. One in which the rules of the familiar universe do not apply. We call this –

The Back of Beyond

The story you are about to read is a matter of public record. You may not believe the events in the story took place, but the people involved were there, and they believe it.

Fred Terryman. Thirty-seven years of age. Married. Lives in a mid-range house, and drives a mid-range car. Takes the 06:45 am train to work every morning, economy class. But today, unknown to him, he’s booked a first class ticket --

to The Back of Beyond

Oh boy, I wish I hadn't drunk so much water. I need to use the bathroom. But it must be around 2am so I won't turn the light on. Best not to wake everyone up.

OUCH!! How come the wall is there, where the door should be? This looks like I'm in a mirror image. And why does everything look so misty? My head hurts. I'll take a cab to the hospital.

~

Why is everything so quiet? Why are all these people standing so close together? Why aren't they wearing their masks? Wait! My name is being called. There's a nurse coming towards me. why is she grinning like that? And what is she going to do with that syringe?

KEEP AWAY FROM ME! KEEP AWAY I SAY! KEEP --

NOOOOOOOOO!

Created in Ideogram

Yerret, wake up. You're having a bad dream. And you're in a cold sweat.

You mean, you mean it's been a dream?

Yes, you were shouting "keep away!” Go back to sleep. In the morning you'll feel better, maybe even do some writing or, if not, you can read your book.

So it was only a dream? But it was so real, so real!

Wait! Why are you calling me Yerret? My name is Fred.

No, Yerret, your name has never been Fred, you’ve probably got mild concussion from that bang on the head.

A bad dream? Or did Fred Terryman have a return ticket to —

The Back of Beyond?

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Notes

For the sound effect I used an app called SynprezFM, and recorded it with Quicktime Player.

Here are the shows on which this version is based:

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I hope you have enjoyed this version of the story. Comments are welcomed, as always.

If you’re new to the series, you can see the index of my experiments here: Index.

Thank you for reading!