The line between fact and fiction can be amazingly fluid.
Have you ever had an experience so bizarre, that you found yourself looking around for a camera and a crew? Like, for reals, someone is filming this shit, right?
Sometimes, as a storyteller, it feels like the line between fact and fiction can get super blurry. Particularly when you have true, actual, factual experiences that read like total fiction.
Along this line, I’m going to share with you 3 stories. Two out of three are true. One is pure fiction. I will reveal all – and summarize thoughts on the line between fact and fiction – after.
Fact and fiction – a real cliffhanger
When I was probably 12 years old or so, I attended an overnight camp in upstate New York.
Sometimes, we’d go on excursions away from camp. Daytrips to cool hiking paths all over upstate New York.
One such trip was to Kaaterskill Falls. As I recall, there were two levels from which we enjoyed the falls – from the top and a pool at the middle point.
One of the coolest features of this pool was that there was a natural amphitheater that ran behind the waterfall. It was a bit treacherous – but a fun hike.
The pool was clear and gorgeous – and we swam in it for a couple of hours and had lunch at its banks.
As the afternoon wore down, we hiked back along the natural amphitheater behind the falls. During this, I lost my footing and slipped.
I caught myself so that my upper body was on the trail while my legs hung loose. One of the counselors chaperoning us and another camper quickly helped me back to my feet.
Brushing myself off, smartass that I was, I remarked, “Damn. That was a real cliffhanger.”
Combat experience
We had a plan. And it was a damn good one.
My unit of inexperienced fighters was to meet the enemy and push through them. It was expected that we might take some losses – but it would gain us more ground in the end.
We advanced to face them, but I saw what they were missing. Another of our units had gotten behind them. Rather than push as ordered – and knowing my general expected me to change tactics as needed – we stood our ground. Moments later, they were eliminated.
The line of the enemy combatants gone, we advanced. We had a skirmish or two pushing through, and we remained three of five.
Then, I saw her. The enemy commander. Unguarded. Think fast – go after her myself and cede my command – or – send one of my inexperienced fighters after her. Making a swift tactical decision, I pointed toward the enemy commander and order my fighter loudly to “kill her!”
I knew she was a sacrifice and would not succeed. But sending her after their commander removed her from her position of authority to defend herself.
Moving through, I lost my last fighter. It was just me now, and six of them were advancing on my position. I prepared to take them on – but saw all I had to do was stand my ground. A moment later, some of my allies were behind my enemies and eliminating them.
Jogging across the field, I heard the end was neigh. I joined the last standing of our allies, prepared to fight to the end. But then, shoulder to shoulder, my allies and I noted that the enemy had vanished. Run away? No – defeated.
Though we’d been outnumbered, we still won the day. And it was a most glorious victory.
That time I got arrested
I was really certain that it wasn’t me the cop had clocked, but the other guy that had passed me by. Nevertheless, I was the one he’d pulled over.
Following the usual rigmarole involving my license and registration – I waited. The cop appeared again at my window, asking if I was a prior resident of this state. Well, I was – but it had been a few years. Thinking nothing of it I provided my social security number as requested.
FYI – never do this. Pretend you don’t have it memorized or have your card on you.
The cop returns and asks me to step out of my vehicle. We walk around the side, out of traffic. He proceeds to ask me, “Do you have $250 cash on you?”
Weird question. “No,” I reply. “I never carry that much cash.”
“Sorry, then, since you don’t have bail, I need to arrest you.”
“Pardon me?” I question. “Arrest me? For what?”
“Driving on a suspended license.”
Uh, no. “My NY state driver’s license is valid and clean.”
“Your NJ state driver’s license is suspended.”
I live in NY, not NJ. How does this even work?
Before I know it, and after the threat of force, I allow myself to be handcuffed and placed in the back of the police cruiser.
What followed included my friends rescuing my car and posting my bail, then multiple court dates and a whole lot of BS with the state that lasted several years.
When placed in a prison cell awaiting my friends and the bail money – to my surprise, they let me take my mobile phone with me.
I made the following phone call:
“Hi, Dad? I’m in jail!”
(If you know the song reference above, more power to you).
Where is the line between fact and fiction?
I claimed that one of these stories wasn’t true. Actually, that was incorrect. All of them are.
Or rather, all of them are fact instead of fiction.
The combat experience is a bit embellished – but not by much. What I left out is that this was a 125 on 100 or so fencing combat melee battle at Pennsic War in the SCA many years back. As such, nobody died, save calling ourselves “dead” when a “killing” blow was landed (i.e. a tipped sword thrust or dull-edged cut to a vital part of the body). It was a really cool fight, too.
Yes, I did slip while on the natural amphitheater path behind Kaaterskill Falls (which is no longer an open trail – I visited it again a few years ago as an adult) and made that smartass remark.
Also, I really did get arrested for driving on a non-existent invalid license. It was even more bizarre and surreal than my retelling here.
Fact can be way stranger than fiction. And the line between fact and fiction can get really blurry. But this is all part and parcel of what makes life interesting.
But it adds fuel to our fires when experiences we might have are way weirder or wilder than any fiction we can concoct.
The line between fact and fiction can be amazingly fluid. As a storyteller, this makes life that much more interesting.
What experiences have you had where fact and fiction get blurred?
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