Issue 237, Summer 2021
A PAPER
And so it goes, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and empty; and on its deep face was darkness. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, and He was pleased. And God divided light from darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And light stole the darkness of the night from the paper. And the writer saw the whiteness of the paper and that it was empty. And the emptiness of the paper filled the writer with emptiness. And the writer called the emptiness of the paper the death of the writer.
And the writer was sad.
PUBLISHING
In a neighborhood inhabited by crime, two writers were born. They had scars on their faces that might disappear with the passage of time.
The little boy looks at the big man and sees him carrying a book. He is a writer who reads. The big man looks at the little boy and sees him carrying two blue eyes in a brown skin that will turn bronze under the sun.
He is a boy who plays.
The criminals love the little boy and the big man, who tried their best also to be loved by the criminals.
The big man, who left the neighborhood a long time ago, has returned for a visit. Amid stories about killing, stealing, or other crimes, laughter prevails. The big man laughs loudly over the criminals, who only smile.
He tries hard to laugh the loudest.
Laughter brings a smile.
From afar the little boy hears the laughter and holds tightly to the paper.
In waiting there is no difference between shortness and longness. Waiting is long, and the little boy decides to come forward.
The road to the writer is full of kisses from all the criminals, and the little boy walks it. The big man stopped laughing and smiled at the beautiful boy. The little boy whispers to the writer that he should go far away and read the paper alone. No one should see it, other than the writer. And after he is reassured by the writer’s solemn promise, the boy gives him the paper with caution and flees.
The big man put his promise on top of the rest of his forgotten promises and began to read the paper in a loud voice to the criminals. “I hate lying. I want to be excellent. I am shy when a person greets me. Everyone thinks that I am little. I am sad when I see dead birds.”
The big writer read what was on the paper with a smile and the criminals laughed loudly, and they said that this little boy must kill a bird immediately. The big writer began, too, to laugh loudly.
From far away the little writer hears the laughter but it does not bring a smile.
On one of the big writer’s secret papers was written: A relationship between the written and others is what brought death.
ABOUT WRITING
Y: How does writing happen? How does the shift from writing a daily schedule to writing occur?
A: In the beginning I wrote. After that I had a diary to write my daily schedule.