- Published in:
- Tumbarumba
- Publication date:
- Dec. 2008
Through the “wonders” of Facebook, I recently got invited to a school reunion. Wow, I thought, a chance to discover what became of Mr. Hull, find out who vandalised the science lab, and see if Daryl Hobden and Karen Steele were still together.
Actually, I didn’t.
Apart from a brief, and I mean brief, contemplation of the idea that wouldn’t it be fun to catch up with the assembled mass of Form 11y sixteen years later, I quickly came to the conclusion that a school reunion would probably be up there in my Top Five Social Hell scenarios.
It would, wouldn’t it? Making small talk with the old school bully over the cheese and pineapple chunks . . . listening to the milk monitor’s meteoric rise through A.N. Other Firm’s tedious corporate hierarchy . . . coming face-to-face with your childhood crush and suddenly remembering the home-made Valentines card you made them. Awful, awful, awful.
But, it’s a decent setting for story, I thought. Everyone can relate to it, the feelings evoked in such circumstances can be powerful, and there is a nice inherent resonance between childhood and adulthood. I pressed the “Maybe Attending” button, and beseeched the Spec-Fic Writing Gods for some inspiration . . . the Lord of Dark Fantasy answered.
“Reunion” was the result.
PS: I should mention the novel means of delivery that this story uses. The piece forms part of a twelve-author collection, all wrapped up in a Tumbarumba.
What’s a Tumbarumba? I hear you ask.
Well, firstly, it’s a plug-in that you need to install through your Firefox browser. Secondly, it’s a program that will chug along merrily in the background while you browse the web (through Firefox). Most the time it keeps to itself, but from time to time it will take a small fragment of one of the twelve stories and surreptitiously insert it into the pages’ text. This should lead to some surreal sentences, causing brief–and intentional–cognitive dissonance. Hovering the cursor over the inserted text should highlight a link which when clicked will lead to more words–which when repeated will reveal the whole story in all its glory.
Relax. It’s Art.