Chelsea Station Magazine

 Excerpt from

“Post (Script) Mortem”

-published 07/05/2018

Chelsea Station Magazine

“My good Randy man,” Truman said with a small squirm in his seat. “Writing is truly the worst profession anyone could be condemned to doing. You struggle with every word to find the perfect interpretation, hoping to make the reading a simple, engaging endeavor. There’s little gratitude to be found in the process, and one has to work on their own without guidance from anyone, other than the elusive Muse you’ve dedicated yourself to follow. Then you share what you’ve written, only to have those with vicious pens destroy the beauty of your creation. Words are the sharpest weapons; their hit is palpable and one seldom fully recovers from their viciousness.”

He paused to drink his martini.

“But,” Truman smacked his lips. “When the Muses are heard and the words flow from your hand like a swiftly running river…there’s nothing like it in the world. It can convey the most absolute in beauty or the most devastating heartbreak. No palace or cathedral compares with the grandeur of a well-constructed sentence or paragraph, and there are no bells that can ring as true. When that rarity is achieved nothing is more wondrous or as permanent.”

“Every time I try to write,” I confessed in a whisper. “I hear the doubts. I question and second-guess myself. I can’t get past it. I can feel these fears biting and sucking the life from me.”

“Those vampires are going to be there no matter what you do,” Truman said. His delicate palm crept forward until he patted the back of my hand. “Look at me. I’m a living freak show and when they give me the glares of disapproval, I stare right back at them, unflinching.”

“How?” I desperately asked. “Where do you find the strength? Someone of your height, or someone of your…disposition. How do you find the power to strike back?”

“I know myself.” Truman said. “That’s the first step in collecting your arsenal. When you are only as tall as a shotgun, you have to be twice as loud.”

Truman sat back and lifted the remnants of his martini. He drank it down with one quick shot and smiled an alcoholic grin. His eyes were glossy. Every word he spoke was soft and concise, and I leaned in to hear him.

“People always make the mistake of underestimating me. They have done that my entire life – usually to their own eventual detriment. I believe that you can achieve anything you want as long as you set your mind, and relentlessly continue to try.”