Facebook has been used for many fascinating things over the years but I think one of its most interesting uses has been its use as a publishing venue for "Facebook Short Fiction" - fairly short and entertaining stories (Sometimes with a moral behind them) published in a single Facebook Post. Inspired by Craig Svonkin's multiple works of awesome FB Short Fiction, I thought I would take a stab at it myself. I also would like to credit authors such as Svonkin, Melville, Hawthorne and Shakespeare who have discussed the dangers found in an all-consuming obsession with singular item or concept (Monomania). Credit for the use of the word "or" in my title goes to Melville, who really liked to put "or" in his book titles (Not the boat paddling kind of oar, the other one). Any similarity between the protagonist of this story and myself is roughly 95% coincidental.
"Jenna" or "The Girl who was far too Obsessed with Moby-Dick for her Own Good"
When Jenna Sheridan received a copy of Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick" from her Grandfather as a birthday present, she really wasn't expecting this book to have a profound impact on her life. Jenna wasn't much of an expert on Whaling or Whales or anything nautical for that matter, living in the fairly landlocked city of Topeka, Kansas, meant that she could count on one hand the number of times she had even seen the ocean. How could a book that is all about the sea interest her? Jenna carefully placed the book on her shelf, awaiting the day when she would become possessed with the desire to read it.
During her Summer break from college, Jenna found herself with a large chunk of free time on her hands and she decided that she would give this whale book a chance. When it came to finding personal interest in a book about whaling, Jenna had to look no further than the first chapter where Melville reminded Jenna of her own deep love for the sea that she had pretty much competely forgotten about. After this, Jenna found herself hooked in every literal, symbolic and metaphorical sense of the word, on this book. Before she even knew what was happening, Jenna had completely polished off Moby-Dick, familiarizing herself considerably with whales and whaling in the process. After completing the book, she stored in a place of honor on her nightstand and thanked her Grandfather profusely for helping such an inspiring book to enter into her life. In seemed, in all respects that Jenna's voyage with Ahab was over. But it was really only the beginning...
The changes were gradual at first. For example: Jenna developed a strong and undeniable passion for drinking Starbuck's coffee. "Did you know" she would tell her friends as they sipped their Frappuccinos , "that they named this franchise after "Starbuck", Captain Ahab's first mate in Moby-Dick? They almost named it "Pequod" after his ship but I guess they thought that "Starbuck" sounded more like a coffee shop franchise name." Jenna's friends genuinely found this factoid interesting-the first time she mentioned it, by the time Jenna had mentioned this particular fact the 29th time, their interest started to wane-not just their interest in this factoid, but their interest in Starbuck's coffee as a whole, and their interest in Jenna. Coffee wasn't the only new passion in Jenna's life either, she also found that her new favorite animal in the entire world was a sperm whale. After buying every sperm whale related piece of merchandise that she could get her hands on, including sperm whale ear buds (Which were hard to get by the way). She found every single relevant time possible to discuss all the new facts that she had discovered about Sperm Whales. Whether they were watching "Finding Nemo", visiting the aquarium, or even just swimming in the pool, Jenna used this as an opportunity to spout even more information about Sperm Whales. When Jenna's other friends such as Lacie or Starla tried to share some facts about animals they liked such as chipmunks, llamas, or dolphins, Jenna would get visibly irritable and lecture her friends, telling them to stop boring people with irrelevant information. Whenever Jenna watched a movie with her family or read a book, she found some strange way to link it back to Moby-Dick with comments such as: "that pastor guy reminds me of Father Mapple" or "this action movie scene with a guy breaking down the door reminds me of the time that Ishmael thought Queequeg was dead and kicked down the door in order to see if he was ok". Eventually, these comparisons made it into Jenna's everyday interactions with others which became even more concerning to her friends: "The other day I was trying to concentrate on my reading and my brother was so loud, just like in Moby-Dick when Stubb is trying to eat his dinner and the sharks are being so noisy while they are eating this whale". Lacie and Starla exchanged worried glances as they hoped and prayed that Jenna would return to normal once her fall classes started back up again. They missed the old Jenna, the fun Jenna, the normal Jenna that could talk about normal things instead of just talking about Moby-Dick all the time and weirding everyone out.
Unfortunately, the beginning of the semester only seemed to make the situation worse. While Jenna was sitting in her first class of the semester, the professor was doing roll call, when he got to the name "Jenna Sheridan" she responded with "Yes, that's me, but call me Ishmael". This statement resulted in an eruption of laughter from the rest of the class, either because they understood Jenna's direct reference to Moby-Dick or because "Ishmael" was obviously a boy's name an couldn't have been a nickname because it was much longer than her original name. The professor was somewhat perplexed by Jenna's choice of title, but once it became apparent that Jenna was adamant about being referred to by this name for the duration of the semester, he took to calling her "Ishmael" as she requested. When Jenna's friend's realized that Jenna's obsession was only growing stronger with time, they decided to read Moby-Dick and come up with a strong argument from Moby-Dick in order to convince Jenna not to be so obsessive. Starla pointed out to Jenna that being obsessed with Moby-Dick was probably not a good idea because Moby-Dick strongly advises not becoming obsessed with one solitary thing. "Just look at what happened to Ahab!" she pointed out. Jenna gently but forcibly stated that she appreciated Starla's concern but that Captain Ahab's fate clearly didn't apply to her. "After all, Ahab was obsessed with nasty things, like vengeance, I'm obsessed with nice things, like a book, Moby-Dick. Ahab and I are completely different, end of story!."
Starla and Lacie eventually lost contact with Jenna because they simply couldn't take even one more day of her obsessive, self-destructive ranting. But they heard rumors that Jenna had eventually reached the stage where the only way to speak with her was through direct quotations from Moby-Dick, to which she would respond with her own direct quotations. This made it very difficult to communicate with Jenna because Melville was already somewhat ambiguous to begin with and the ambiguity was only amplified by having a twenty-year-old woman such as Jenna, taking quotations and using them out of context to create her own meanings. Gradually, eventually, Jenna drifted away from reality completely. Like Pip, Jenna too was adrift, lost in a sea of her own thoughts and obsessions, but unlike Pip, all rescue attempts had failed, leaving Jenna forever stranded in her own mind.
I like this.
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