Thursday 30 September 2010

The Penultimate

All good things must come to an end. That is true, but so too, must ordinary tales of madness, loneliness, and disappointment. One year ago, a small man had a small idea: that he would write short stories, and post them on the internet for all to see. The man was not a writer, but he saw in himself characteristics which one would identify with the writerly type: thin skin, an introspective nature, a bespectacled countenance, and most of all, a deep love of books.
So he began these short stories and committed to a new post every Thursday of every week. Though he was no great thinker, he was ambitious to become a writer, and so he worked hard to improve. Before posting a new story, he would re-read, and attempt to judge his efforts at a distance. Sometimes he would be proud of his offering, and this would leave him buoyant for the rest of the week; sometimes he would so despise his creation, that he would consign it to the trash, mope for a couple of days, and then begin again.
Tales of unicorns, donuts, crocodiles and time-travel began to populate the website. After a short while of producing these fictions, he began to see a pattern emerge: the protagonist is introduced, there is a goal to which the protagonist strives, the protagonist fails. Introduction, hope, disappointment. He wondered why the stories so often ended with disappointment, and yet still he continued, and still the pattern repeated: introduction, hope, disappointment.
Unsure of why this would be, and also wondering what connected all of these seemingly disjointed ideas, he decided to write one final story. The final tale would resolve the whole thing. It would be the ribbon that tied together all of his year’s work. It would be the answer to all the
questions that had been raised, and would leave the reader with a satisfying explanation for all of his labour. The story would be about closure, and about learning, and most of all, it would not be about disappointment.
Apprehensively, the writer turned the page of his journal, smoothed the clean white sheet, and began: ‘Edward talked about his plans for the Entirely Useless Monument long before he actually began working on it…’

1 comment:

  1. Please continue. What will i do with my Thursday evenings if I have nothing to look forward to? Your writing rocks!!!

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