‘I can help….’ but can we?

I can help! Such a simple statement from the android Minsky (Fargo: Season three), (sadly, just removed from Netflix after five years.) The story revolves about an android from the planet Wyh who roams the galaxy for billions of years and finally ends up on Earth. The android wanders here for millions of years and sees all of creation evolving, offering the simple comment, I can help. It’s sad because in fact, he can’t help. He can’t change anything.

So, what does this have to do with my story? Daniel (the main protagonist) is wandering the world searching for love. He thinks he’s found it in the Blue Mountains. He’s wrong. He has to go off, across the world to search for someone he thinks he once loved. But how can he know?

(You can get some of the emotion from a Bruce Springsteen song- Human Touch, Live on YouTube, but it’s not the answer he’s seeking.)

This story, (and my story, I know realise)  is an allegory about the Wandering Jew. In Fargo- season three, he appears as Paul Marrane, the man offering advice to Gloria Burgle on the plane to LA.  From scripture, he went by a few names, Ahasverus or possibly Cartaphilus. Research is a confusing adventure sometimes—most times, actually— because it’s about the past. How do we decide what is true or not? Truth? A major theme of my book (which is currently looking for a new title. Any suggestions?)  Could the story of the wandering Jew, be true? Or just an elaborate conceptual metaphor, a hoax??

This has been my major challenge in writing this story—how to blend fact, fiction and history together to produce an interesting story, one that will be enjoyable and worthwhile to read. In the end, they are more that just words on a page. They are nothing more unless they have an impact on you, the reader.