To have someone believe in me like that, even as a kid. I still love it when Fjoork goes all shall on me. The two of us standing at the place where the road splits off into three paths.Ī second path across a creek and into a valley.Īnd the third toward the north, up into the foothills and over the mountain pass, on the other side of which, as told in legend, lies the Eternal Coast of Pause.Īnd then Fjoork, all of three foot six, turns to me like he’s known me all my life and says, without a hint of emotion Like if I hadn’t come along, he might have been waiting there forever. He was just a teenager then, nothing on his back but a thin piece of leather armor, just standing there like he’d been waiting since time immemorial. I can still remember the morning I found Fjoork in that wooded area near the Portal of Start. When I think of everything the group has been through together, the early days grinding it out in the coin farms, to where we are now, I get a little blue in the aura, I really do. These guys are literally killing themselves for what? Fifty points a dog is what. I don’t want to alarm anyone in the group. I could definitely use a whole chicken right now. Three realities might seem like a lot for one short story, but my sense is, if we ask him for it, Charles Yu could handle a few more.Įlectric Literature’s Recommended Reading If you’ll allow me a moment to wax philosophical: “Hero Absorbs Major Damage” began as a story with two simultaneously existing realities, and here, Yu has added a third. And as a result, our heretofore unquestioned Hero gets his comeuppance from one sardonic elf. But it took Charles Yu’s intrepid creativity to unlock our harebrained idea, and show us the humor, wit, and endless possible directions a few marginal comments can take. A secondary character could finally have her say an older, wiser narrator could look back on his misspent youth.
When the folks at Genius and I first discussed the possibility of annotating fiction, we were excited about the possibilities. (Just click the highlighted text to see what Fjoork says.) This special presentation is a result of a collaboration between Genius, whose annotation system is used here, and Electric Literature. Here, the story is presented with new commentary from The Hero’s thief, navigator, and chef: an elf named Fjoork. Or, a man plays a video game in his underwear. A hero, know only as The Hero, leads a small but devoted army across a magical landscape, battling orcs, sustaining significant damage, and, of course, searching for chickens.
Charles Yu’s “Hero Absorbs Major Damage” was already an extraordinary story.
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