Immortal Artist

Author: Richard Alan Scott

Rhode Island, USA

09/26/22

Just as the opposite often occurs, most men have times when they are down on women. Usually, it may be because they were hurt badly in a relationship, sometimes it’s just that they never “got” them, or perhaps they were shot down so many times they’ve given up. I was thinking about that state of mind while taking a long walk in the forest one day, and I pressed myself to come up with a story that could somehow capture how angry, lonely and isolated I knew my gender could get.

Ironically, which often happens in my thought process, my mind went in the other direction, thinking about a guy who has everything in the world and it’s still not enough. He has a beautiful wife, a kid, and a gorgeous mistress, maybe even all the money and material things you could ever ask for, yet he’s driven to be by himself because he needs to be in his head and have his alone time; away from women, away from everything. I couldn’t have guessed that in Edward Ree I was creating a personality that we would all come to recognize very well in an upcoming President of the United States.

For years after I traveled around Ireland two times, I could never get it out of my head. I noticed things I’ve done my whole life in a certain way, because my Ma who was my primary caregiver for fifteen years, was 100% Irish and did things that way. Whenever I walked anywhere that was green, well I imagined myself right back in Ireland of course. Somehow their woods seemed more magical than mine, and I immediately went to the desire to set this story in Ireland and make Ree a visiting American. But something more, an entrepreneur who wanted to build there, frustrated by some holdup.

I had been very influenced by a tour in a horse cart I took of the woods near a certain Ross castle over there, near Killarney, a beautiful area (as if they all aren’t). The way the trees lined up, the way the path meandered, etc. you’d expect to see many of those little doors to fairy houses on the trees. I think a huge fantasy for a man on the make, while over in Ireland, would be to run into a stunning Irish lass in the middle of nowhere. So shall it be written, so shall it be done.

Now I had written a Banshee story already but another fairy folk legend I wanted to explore was the Leanan-sidhe or Lhiannan-shee. This sprite is a beautiful woman who takes a human male for a lover. She may be a muse or a partner, but what the unsuspecting human is not aware of is that he soon may encounter a disastrous fate. He could wind up dead for getting involved with her. A familiar phantom to many who are now dead inside, including friends and family of mine. I could see the encounter turning bad for my protagonist, but it struck me that he is a Teflon man. Others around him may be hurt all the time yet he slides away Scott free. That is when I came up with greatly unexpected twists that would result in this guy finding out something about himself that he had no Earthly clue of.

By the time my 40-minute walk ended, I had written the whole of “Playthings” in my head, and I quickly jotted many notes in a pad I always carry, when I got back to the car. It had been a productive walk indeed. There’s just one problem, which I outlined profusely in my last entry to this journal. What editor would see my little Misogynistic Masterpiece as a viable statement about the mental health of many males, in the age of the Me-Too movement. None I’ve been able to encounter yet, lol.