Mel Oliveira
I’m a horrible writer.
All guides to how to write a short story say that the first paragraph is the most important to catch the attention of the reader. It’s the difference between having your story read or dismissed. And the best I could come up with was nothing but the pure truth.
I really shouldn’t be wasting my time with this.
As a writer I should be able to deceive and manipulate minds into believing whatever I want them to believe. I could be a rocket scientist or a medical researcher on the verge of creating the cure for all ailments. I could make you laugh or cry with my tactically placed jokes or my genuine misery…
At least that’s what a good writer should do but not this writer. The best that I can come up with is the unspeakable truth of my lack of talent.
That sucks.
It is undoubtedly funny though—well, if you are one of those people that find amusement in someone else’s misery—that most of the disappointments we have in life only happen because someone along the way was just too nice to tell us what we needed to hear, and instead told us what we wanted to hear.
It’s somewhat of a cliché but it always starts with our mothers.
Since you are a little boy with no friends but your books, your mother is there to tell you that the other kids don’t like you because you’re too smart for them, or too special.
She makes you feel better.
And when you are a teenager with glasses, braces and zits all over your face, your mother is there to support you in the idea of asking the most popular girl in school to the prom because she’d be a fool not to go with such a handsome and smart young man as yourself.
She makes you feel like a million bucks. So what if she set you up for public humiliation?
And when you come home with a C on the short story you worked on all summer she’s there to tell you that your teacher must be jealous of your talent and if it was up to her you’d get an A+ on such a creative piece of writing. And that’s when she tells you that you should be a writer.
You believe her. And that’s how she ruins your life.
In all honesty who could blame them? They are only trying to be supportive and reassuring like all the child psychology books advise.
Another reason why I hate psychologists.
I’ve seen a therapist for a while. Now that I think back on it, it was really bad judgment on my part to go see a therapist in the first place. Why would I ever pay to have a woman tell me what to do when there are plenty of women out there willing to do it for free?
Anyway, I’m getting off subject. Another unforgivable mistake but yet I did it.
Back to the matter at hand, my therapist used to tell me that all the problems I had were in my head and the moment that I stopped looking at those things as problems and started seeing them as opportunities my life would be better.
That’s cute. But what she really meant was, “Stop whining about nobody liking your book and go write something better!”
And that’s what I don’t understand. When did the world become so polite and politically correct that people won’t say what they think anymore? People have to come up with these articulated speeches, that until twenty years ago you’d only see in cartoons with pink clouds and talking bears, to be able to try and convey an idea to you in a way to not hurt your feelings. I bet even if someone would give you poison these days they’d put a nice layer of sugar on it and a cherry on top.
Most people don’t agree with me though. My ex-wife would say I was too negative, and negative thoughts only attract bad things. One day I replied that maybe that was the only reason why I met her, and a couple months later I was divorced. I guess at least one good thing came out of it.
And that just gave me an idea of how to get a good thing from my negativity.
We’ve already established the fact that I’m a horrible writer with negative thoughts that has lost his hope in the world, so maybe I should kill myself. At least that would be an interesting end for my story.
My only problem will be choosing how I’m going to do it.
Maybe I could try something classic like cutting my wrists in the bathtub while drinking some nice wine but I’ve never been a classic guy. Besides, I don’t think it’d have the same effect if I was drinking beer.
Or I could try something brave like jumping from the tallest building in town. That’d be interesting if the tallest building in town wasn’t the old cinema with only four stories. I don’t need the humiliation of failing even at committing suicide.
I’ve got it. I’m going to poison myself with a layer of sugar and a cherry on top. It has the perfect symbolism and, considering that I’m allergic to cherries, if the poison won’t kill me the cherry will.
So unfortunately here is where I leave you.
If I had thought of killing myself before I started writing I might have written this in third person so I could narrate as the pitiful writer agonizes on the floor while the poison takes away the last breath of his life. But of course I didn’t.
By now you probably aren’t surprised that even if I actually came up with an ending for the story, you won’t be able to read it. But it’s really for the best.
While I go and prepare myself for the last fake sweetness that I’m going to put up with in this miserable life, you can stay here imagining my final moments and coming up with your own ending for the story of my life.
I’m sure it’s going to be better than anything I could have ever done.
© Copyright 2009 Mel Oliveira