Excerpt from “An Accurate Record” by Eric Roe
A strange calm came over him. He listened to a studio audience clap in sympathy as a man on television wept, and he realized there was a reason he did not typically remember his dreams.
Excerpt from “An Accurate Record”
by Eric Roe
If not for the timing of the telephone call interrupting his afternoon dream, Barclay would never have consented to the interview. The faces of the Oster Family hung before him as he answered the call, and he blinked them away, found himself in his blind-darkened living room, a talk show playing on the television. The voice coming through the telephone was young and apologetic. Wanted to interview Barclay about his experiences during the Coup. “It’s for my history class,” the voice said.
“Who is this?” Barclay snapped.
“It’s Eric Roe. I mow your lawn.”
Barclay didn’t say anything for a moment, the dream still rampant, as if playing out in this very room. It had been a room like this one. He fixed his eyes to the television screen. The talk show was the kind on which guests sat with the pretty host, shed tears, and confessed their dark pasts and deep secrets.
Through the telephone, Eric Roe, who mowed Barclay’s lawn, said nervously, “It’ll just be an interview of you as a normal citizen during the Coup. I have to do it for a grade. I won’t get too personal or—”
“Yes,” Barclay said. “I will cooperate.” His heart was pounding. “When will you come?”
They made arrangements. As Barclay replaced the telephone, a strange calm came over him. He listened to a studio audience clap in sympathy as a man on television wept, and he realized there was a reason he did not typically remember his dreams: Forgetting was an act of will. But it exhausted him. He couldn’t do it anymore.
Keep reading Eric Roe’s early and middle drafts of “An Accurate Record” as well as the full process statement, in Copytext Magazine Issue One.
The full story of “An Accurate Record” was originally published in the Summer 2021 issue of The Westchester Review.