He just wouldn’t stop laughing. He went on and on for a good twelve minutes, tears streaming down his cheeks, laughter inaudibly choking out of his piggish face. With each intake of breath, Francine’s hatred for the man across from her deepened. For the life of her, she could not fathom what could be so funny about her story, and at this point, she was too incensed to find out.

She was about to slam her fists down on the table when Joanie, their instructor, cut in, “Alright, alright, Chaz, your laughter is hardly conducive to the workshop experience. It is bordering on disrespectful to Francine’s work.”

Bordering on disrespectful? Francine thought, babygirl, Chaz cleared that line and then some with his ceaseless chortles.

Finally, he wiped the last tears from his eyes and wheezed out a sigh before descending into a thirty second coughing fit befitting a lifelong smoker. When he was able to speak, he said, “It’s just so fucking funny,” shaking Francine’s pages in his left hand.

Fury burned Francine’s throat. She could feel the heat rising through her body, threatening to pop off the crown of her head in a cartoonish fusion of steam and noisemakers. There was absolutely nothing funny about the story she’d handed in for that week’s workshop. She’d worked hard on it, jotting down theories and ideas before her husband left for work, between naps, and after bedtime for nearly five days. She made the submission deadline by just three minutes, handing in a story, clearly autofiction, about a mother just going through the motions until finally she snaps, or so she would have you think.

Francine felt proud of her work and was willing to acknowledge that she was a little rusty. After all, it had been a good six years since she’d last really put pen to paper. Between wedding planning and buying their first home and her first pregnancy and her struggles with postpartum depression followed by her second pregnancy and an even more challenging postpartum period than the first, it was only recently that she’d noticed that mom brain fog finally clearing. It was sudden, really, she’d gone to bed one night exhausted, listless, disinterested in receiving her husband’s affections and miraculously slept through the night for the first time in years; she woke up feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Like she could actually be a good mom. She snuck into her four year old’s room before waking the baby just in time to take in his delicious early morning stretches and hug him tightly, still warm from sleep. They snuggled in his twin bed for a full five minutes before they heard the tiniest, “mama?” from the next room. Together, they tiptoed into the two year old’s room and were both overjoyed to see her standing in her crib, sleep sack slightly askew, wild bedhead, luminous smile, arms stretched wide to greet her mama and big brother.

And the day just went on from there, almost dreamlike. And it wasn’t just that day, it was the whole week, then it was the week after that. After a month of good rest and happy (more or less) moments as a stay-at-home mom, Francine finally felt motivated to do something for herself. She always had lofty dreams of being a writer and after about an hour of research, she came upon a listing for an eight week creative writing workshop at the Riverview Adult Learning Annex (aka the new modular buildings behind town hall) on Tuesday and Thursday nights from 7-9pm taught by an actual published author. The summer session cost $500 and would be starting the following week.

She felt like it was meant to be, so she prepared herself all day for a discussion with her husband that evening after the kids went to bed. She was ready to explain how she needed something that was just hers, she doesn’t ever do anything, go anywhere, talk to any adults besides him in real life. She was ready to tell him that he gets to go into the office and talk to honest-to-god grownups about things other than potty, snacks, whatever mind-numbing shit Blippi was up to. She was ready to tell him that while a $500 fee for a couple of night classes may seem steep, she really never spent any money. She was ready to tell him that he could handle bedtime for both kids twice a week. She was ready to tell him she really needed this. But she hardly needed to brace herself, because when she presented the idea, in kind of an off-hand you know what I saw today? kind of way, he grinned and said, “yeah, babe, that sounds like a great idea. You should do it.”

So here she was, three weeks in to their eight week course, enduring the sickening laughter of a mall cop at her expense. Did he not realize what it took for her to get here? Not physically, but emotionally, to leave her two kids at bedtime, to put herself out there in such a vulnerable way? No, he didn’t, and he couldn’t understand.

A mousy guy with horn-rimmed glasses nearby could feel the heat radiating off of her, so he cleared his throat and said, “Chaz, can you elaborate? I found Francine’s story very imaginative and compelling. Far from funny, I found it a little hard to get through—not because of the writing but more so because of the content. It’s hard to read about a mother being so angry with her children, like at times I thought the story was going to end up with the kids strapped in a mini van, sinking in a lake or something.”

“Be a hell of a lot better ending if it was,” said Chaz, “I mean, then you could at least feel that mother’s anguish, and yeah, I felt like it was going in that direction too, and then suddenly…it was all a dream. Ha! So fucking funny.”

Joanie, a Jess Day type, shifted in her seat and said, “What is funny about the dream device here?”

“It’s just that,” Chaz said with a menacing grin in Francine’s direction, “she just keeps playing it safe with her endings. This week, ‘it was all a dream,’ last week it was, ‘and then she just walked away,’ I mean, what’s next? I can probably guess.”

And then he started laughing again, and Francine’s cheeks burned. She knew where she was lacking, partly because she was in a rush to finish the stories, partly because she felt like her brain didn’t really work when it came to writing conclusions, partly because she was afraid to really feel the emotions required for more violent or dramatic endings, but that’s what she thought the workshop was for.

Maybe it would be a constructive writing space if not for Chaz, but she’d never know because he seemed to take over the class from the moment he walked in that first day. Joanie never had a chance, green-eyed, curtain banged, slight and barely 5’2”, she tried to make herself big in her red polka dot dress at the front of the room by putting her hands on her hips and standing with authority. Chaz looked her up and down, still wearing his uniform, and tossed his backpack on the nearest table before loudly removing a notebook and chewed-up pen. He made sure to spread his arms and legs wide so that no one could possibly sit next to him. The rest of the class was forced to squish themselves together at the remaining two tables because god forbid the man make space for someone else. Joanie had planned a brief introduction to storytelling, expounding the importance of character and plot, followed by a brief writing exercise in character development to be shared there and then. Francine was panicked but did her best imagining a beautiful, cool California yoga instructor named Dahlia who was something of an anarchist. She was proud of it, thinking she created a pretty out-of-the-box character, especially considering that Chaz wrote about a beefy dude named Chad who was a real cop with a real badge and a real gun. Of course, that didn’t stop him from tearing apart the details of her Dahlia in that initial review.

That first class basically laid the groundwork for their dynamic for the following eight weeks, but she was determined to see this thing through. After all, it was her first moments of independence in several years, she was hardly going to let some idiot keep her from enjoying it. At least that’s what she told herself. She found that her recent work was mostly about familial obligations, stressors, issues. The first story she submitted to the workshop was about a young woman who grew up on a remote island community off the coast of Ireland who simply walks away from her father’s expectations for her future: marrying an island boy and having island babies and continuing the island life. She felt proud of that one, like she did with this latest story. It was even well-received, though Joanie did say she’d like to see more about how the girl’s decision to leave impacts her and her family. Chaz hated it, of course. He said cruel and inaccurate things like, “those Micks don’t know anything about strife,” and “how cowardly of the girl to choose herself over procreation. That’s a woman’s job.” Meanwhile, his first two stories were nearly identical in their idiocy, the first—a heist poorly ripped off from Ocean’s Eleven, the second—an inexplicable western drama somehow combining every Clint Eastwood movie she could remember. His poor writing and storytelling skills did nothing to curb his audacity when it came to workshopping. He was always insulting, always unhelpful, always cruel. She had resolved not to let him get to her, but the laughing fit really sent her over the edge. But he was a big man and it was dark by the time class was over, and she didn’t feel safe walking to her car knowing he was around, so she kept her mouth shut, vowing to seek revenge in a more subtle way.

“Unfortunately,” Joanie said gathering her papers, “that’s it for today. Francine, I’m sorry we didn’t have time to appropriately discuss your work. I’m happy to share my notes with you after class if you’d like. Everyone else, let’s reconvene next week with new stories and a fresh attitude concerning workshop.”

Her feeble words barely registered with Chaz. He snorted as he shoved his things back in his backpack, burped as he got up, noisily cracked his back and said, “see ya, losers,” on his way out.

The weeks were organized as follows: on Tuesdays, Joanie would give a lesson on some important element of writing: voice, narrative, etc., followed by an in-class exercise and discussion; on Wednesdays, each writer would submit that week’s story for review via the online portal by 9pm sharp; on Thursdays, they’d workshop said stories. Francine was energized by the construction of the course and mostly felt like she was really honing her craft with the help of Joanie’s expert eye.

The following week, Francine submitted a story about a family Fourth of July barbecue that ends with an obnoxious secondary character blowing off his mustache with illegal fireworks. Curiously, Chaz came to class missing one entire eyebrow, the other singed and scabbed over. He refused to elaborate about what happened to his face, but he did have a lot to say about how she couldn’t possibly get the details about burning facial hair right in her writing. His story that week was about a former CIA agent gone rogue named Jaxon Mort and he did not take kindly to the callout about its similarities to a certain Matt Damon vehicle.

Next, she shared a story about an overrun emergency room plagued by one patient in particular with explosive diarrhea. Chaz, clammy and green, was quieter than usual. He looked like he’d lost weight since they’d last met. His stomach gurgled loudly and awkwardly during the ebbs in conversation. His story was more of a stream of consciousness deal likely typed out in the notes app on his phone about an Uber driver that just would not shut up, obviously taken from a real experience, as a clear find/replace missed one instance of “Chza” when he renamed his main character Hank.

As their sixth week approached, Francine was beginning to feel a powerful certainty when it came to her writing. She wanted to expand her horizons and try something new, so she wrote a Groundhog Day type story about a man who wakes up exactly the same way every single day, looks in the mirror to see his hair perfectly buzzed into that weird rectangle certain men seem to love. He loves his hair, feels proud of it, thick and would-be luscious if he’d let it grow out, he liked to run his fingers through his hair at any given point during the day. He takes his hat off, runs his fingers through his hair. Has a difficult conversation with a coworker, runs his fingers through his hair. Eats his lunch, runs his fingers through his hair. Watches ESPN, runs his fingers through his hair. Falls asleep each night running his fingers through his hair. Only on this particularly nightmarish day, whenever he runs his fingers through his hair, his hand comes away covered in strands, until finally at the end of the day, he’s completely bald. He’s beside himself but gets to sleep with the help of sleeping pills, only to wake up the following morning with his perfectly rectangular buzz cut and thus the cycle begins and eventually he goes mad.

Chaz came to class that day wearing a busted Mets cap, scowling in an eerie way at his fellow writers. When it came time to discuss Francine’s story, he growled and all eyes turned in his direction.

“Yes, Chaz? What did you think of Francine’s imaginative story,” asked Joanie.

He spread his hands wide on the table, set his feet firmly on the floor and looked directly at Francine, “Woman, what are you doing to me?”

Francine was taken back, “Excuse me?”

“I know what you’re doing and I don’t like it! You’d better stop!”

“Chaz, I’m not doing anything to you,” said Francine calmly, “I’m just sharing stories with the class, just like you.”

“BULLSHIT! YOU’RE DOING SOMETHING TO ME AND YOU HAVE TO STOP,” he cried and removed his cap to reveal his patchy scalp.

Joanie, ever the mediator, said, “Chaz, are you alright? Maybe it’s stress?”

He turned his fury on her, “It is not, STRESS, Joanie. It wasn’t STRESS that blew off my eyebrows two weeks ago. It wasn’t STRESS that made me sick to my stomach last week, and it isn’t STRESS that’s making me lose my hair now. SHE,” and he pointed at Francine, his hand like a gun, “IS DOING SOMETHING TO ME.”

“That’s impossible,” said Anita, a retired nurse who thought a workshop would be more fun than spending her nights putting together jigsaw puzzles, “this woman is doing nothing of the sort. It’s got to be coincidence.”

“While I can’t speak to the unfortunate situation with your eyebrows or hair,” said Francine, “might I note that you do work in a mall? It’s basically a cesspool. I’m sure it’s rife with norovirus. You must’ve just caught a bug.”

“YEAH, A BUG ALRIGHT,” screamed Chaz and he gathered his things and ran out of the room.

There was an uncomfortable silence after he left. They listened as he ran down the hall and threw open the exterior door to the building, slam the door to his 1982 silver Camaro, and drive away. Joanie elected to end class early that evening, asking everyone to return next week refreshed and ready to discuss their forays into fiction. Though they knew Chaz was gone, the class decided to walk Francine to her car as a group, just to be sure she was safe.

As she drove home that night, she felt elated. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought that maybe she actually was doing something to him. She’d certainly been imagining him as she wrote those characters, but she couldn’t understand how her words could be affecting him so physically. Francine didn’t have time to really think about it further because, as she pulled into the driveway, her husband rushed out of the house, two year old wrapped in his arms, yelling something about a fever.

For the next week, Francine was trapped in a nightmarish cycle of her own. Her young daughter caught a terrible summer flu and just as it seemed like she was finally over it, her four year old caught it, and then her husband, and then herself. Between sleep deprivation, vomit, and fevers, she didn’t have a moment to think about writing, and certainly not the fact that somehow her stories were coming to life and messing with Chaz.

She missed week seven of the workshop, and she was sorry to, but she was so sick and couldn’t come up with anything anyway, so she emailed Joanie and decided to rest. Then she noticed a Camaro driving slowly by her house. She saw it again the next day, and the next, very conspicuous. For all of his bravado and obsession with law enforcement and the CIA and FBI and undercover operations, Chaz was pretty shit at the art of invisibility. How he figured out her home address, she couldn’t be sure. Maybe there was a student directory, or something. Whatever it was made her uneasy. She couldn’t risk him parking that car and making his way into her space, putting herself and her children in danger.

For her final story, Francine submitted a moving piece about a dolt of a man who just couldn’t get it right. He was obnoxious, rude, and hateful. The story was sensitive, heartfelt even. She humanized him in a way that gave even herself as the writer empathy toward him. The man had kind of a It’s a Wonderful Life type of experience, where he wished that he’d never been born. Only in Francine’s version of events, the wish came true and he wasn’t able to reverse it, simply because he did not exist and there was no angel showing his loved ones how worse their lives would be if he was gone.

She was greeted warmly by Joanie and her classmates that final Thursday evening. They said they’d missed her the previous week, asked how her family was doing. Curiously, she noticed that they were spread out evenly across all three tables. Chaz wasn’t there, no one even mentioned him. Her story received glowing reviews. Everyone asked her what inspired her to write such a horrible, difficult man. Everyone, except Joanie, who quietly watched the discussion with a twinkle in her eye.

How’s that for an ending? thought Francine.