Click, by Brian Evenson
Read it here in about 20 minutes.
Thinking about why I love it…
This story is grammatically confusing. We flit from past to present tense within the first section, then back to past tense for the majority of the tale, only to end up back in the present tense again at the end. We swap from third-person (he) to first-person (I) and back again, then, in the final section, to second-person (you), and, finally, first-person plural (we).
The situation is confusing. We have a possible mass murder, and four possible murder methods (‘Gun? Knife? Poison? Bare hands?’). Are the man’s parents dead or alive? Is the lawyer a lawyer? The doctor a doctor? What is the nature of the man’s injuries? Is he even in a hospital?
Conversations are repeated, with different people present each time. Events take place out of time sequence. Voices are heard when there’s no one there. Characters deny the existence of each other. The story comes full circle, so ends where it began, with the man being given a pencil and notepad, and being asked to write down everything he can remember.
Structurally, the story mimics the confusion a person might feel following a severe head injury. For the protagonist, sadly, it seems that by the end his memories have not clicked back into place, and he seems to beg the reader, in the final line, to help him understand what’s going on: ‘Now, we need you to tell us what we should make of it.’ Genius!
