The Writer
I am a minor talent. I don’t claim to be anything else. And that may be an exaggeration. Authors as diverse as King, Vonnegut, Heller, Melville, Steinbeck, and Christie have nothing to fear. I won’t be stealing their thunder. At best, my books will end up in second-hand bookstores selling for 25 cents of which I will see not a penny.
The days go by, and I sit at my typewriter. That’s right, no computer for this guy, where I hash out stories that no one will read. I really don’t give a damn if they do or don’t. Not anymore. I have an idea in my head, and I need to put it down on paper. It’s a release that wants to escape from within me. Does that sound pompous? I don’t care. I need the escape.
Possibly someday, someone important, some pretentious critic, will recognize my talent and reveal it to the world. Then Peggy, Don’t Go, my first novel will make it to the top of The New York Times Bestseller list, selling over five hundred thousand copies.
Don’t laugh too hard, I am in on the joke.
It would be nice to be recognized for the talent I possess or for talent I feel I possess. But that’s all a dream or a nightmare depending on which side of the desk you are sitting at.
Of course, this is all a joke. If I don’t joke about my failure, I would slit my wrists, and be left bleeding out on the floor of my apartment until one day someone found my body. I spend most of my time in my small apartment writing. I have few friends, no one close. It could take days, maybe weeks, before someone discovered my corpse. It would probably be Mr. Fields, my landlord, looking for the overdue rent.
My dilemma is, if I did commit suicide, should I leave a note? What would I say? And does it really matter? Like the rest of my writing, no one would bother reading it.
