The author of this piece has been around since the beginning and it’s lovely that Leila has chosen one of his pieces to Rerun – this is what she said:
The MC in this piece is both a cog in The Machine yet still alive inside. He has yet to confuse cynicism with bitterness, nor has he lost his imagination. So instead of seeing yet another “street-tard” behaving erratically in public, he establishes a metaphorical bond that, in the end, might lead to salvation.
Q: Do you believe that there is a higher power that wants to help, but only comes part way?
Q: You could have easily ended this with a meaningless tragedy and still would have written a valid story, but chose not to. I have a hard time being mean to my characters. Do you feel for your characters, or is everything else secondary to serving the story? (Hah! Now there’s a couple of loaded questions just left lying around.)
Leila Allison
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Dave’s responses:
Q: Do you believe that there is a higher power that wants to help, but only comes part way?
1. I don’t know whether there is a higher power trying to help, but I do believe there is an inner one, which is represented by the maestro in this story.
Q: You could have easily ended this with a meaningless tragedy and still would have written a valid story, but chose not to. I have a hard time being mean to my characters. Do you feel for your characters, or is everything else secondary to serving the story? (Hah! Now there’s a couple of loaded questions just left lying around.)
2. I feel for characters in stories I write, but I have no problem being mean to them if that’s where the story goes. If I feel badly about, say, killing off a character, I figure that’s a good thing because hopefully the story will evoke feelings in the reader as well.
***
literally stories 
I thank you, David, for taking the time to give your insightful answers as well as giving your Fictional Characters a reason to keep a special eye trained on you. Now that they see, IN WRITING, that you have no trouble offing any of them, if it serves the story, it will add even more spice to your future productions.
Regards,
LA
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Leila – A tip of my hat to you as always!!
Dave – As soon as I saw this I remembered your traffic conducting guy!
The question and your answering regarding how we feel about characters is very interesting. I’m not sure how I feel when I write anything. I suppose if the story is based on anyone, then my actual feelings for them may be there. But if they are a pure figment, I sort of ‘watch’ them and try not to think on whether I like them or not.
Thanks guys!!
Hugh
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