POV: Roger

    Hey there dudes and dudettes. I'm Roger one of the three points of view (POVs) telling this story. So, you could say I'm one of three fictional authors, four if you count Farley who is the fictional persona and pen name of the real-life author Joe. This can be confusing, and I will explain it a bit more, further on in this note.  

But first, I just want to remind you to be sure to check at the start of each chapter part to see who the current Point of View (POV) is that is telling the story. The point of view for each part will be indicated at the top of that part by "POV:" followed by the name of the narrator all in bold type. You need to keep the particular narrator's perspective in mind as you are reading. To help you with this, I will now introduce you to each of the three narrators, Ritu, Roger, and Smiley.

Rituparna Das known as Ritu to her friends is a lovely young third generation American of Asian Indian descent. She is a freshman at the University of Nevada Reno and although planning on a pre-med curriculum, ironically, she has found herself on her first day at UNR in a class on Native American culture.

Roger Ryan, that's me, is a handsome carefree young man trying college for the first time who also finds himself in that same class. (I was torn between saying handsome or brilliant. I was not sure either would survive the rigorous scrutiny of my co-narrators.)

Smiley Coyote is a reluctant smart-ass spirit animal who finds himself tasked with guiding this unlikely pair on a rather unique vision quest. Yeah, one of the narrator's is a coyote. I'm going to explain how that works in the next paragraph.

The fictional author, Charles Farley, does not provide his own point of view, but rather is transcribing the points of view of the three characters mentioned. He is able to do this because we have a shared consciousness made possible by our spirit animal, the coyote with whom the real author, Joe has also communed in real life.

The fictional author's name, Charles Farley, is the pen name of Joe the real-life author. The fictional author (Charles Farley) is the same one whose exploits are recorded in the mostly fictional "Sharing Afflictions" trilogy on Wattpad. The exploits of the real-life author (Joe) are recorded in the nonfictional memoirs, "Stories from Under a Bootheel" and "Pretty Sure I'm Dead" also found here on Wattpad. Plugs for his books aside, you need not have read any of his other books to enjoy this one. You will want to bear in mind that Farley and Joe are conceptually two different people one is fictional, and one is real.  

This fictional author (Farley) and the fictional me (Roger) become very close friends in the mostly fictional "Sharing Afflictions" trilogy. The story I'm about to tell you is both a prequel and sequel to that trilogy as it covers time periods both before and after the trilogy giving a more complete picture of my life. In this book, the period covered by the trilogy is only referred to briefly as the events during that period of my life only indirectly impact this story. There is a timeline at the end of the book if you need it. Actually, you don't need any of this info to enjoy this story. I'm just providing it for sticklers like the real-life author to help him keep it all straight. He says his brain is not what it used to be. Judging from his writing here with all the different perspectives, you might think he suffers from possible dissociative identity disorder, but I assure you he is simply employing a clever literary technique of multiple points of view. My brain is having its own problems due to PTSD which will be explained in this story.  

The real-life author (Joe) and the real-life individual I am based on (Eddie) were very close friends in the very real past as documented in Joe's nonfiction memoirs.

If any of this confuses, please feel free to comment. We need all the help we can get. If all this doesn't confuse you, then welcome to coyote consciousness.

Now let the quest begin.