December 5th
“How’d it go yesterday.”
It was like pulling teeth, but I managed to write something relatively straight-forward, narration-wise.
“But then the ending kind of… you can kind of see that you kind of rushed to wrap it up.”
Well, the thing about writing short stories is… I don’t remember how long those stories I used to write for that philosophy class took. But I still had a work ethic back then because I was used to the concept of ‘homework’ and now I just want to sit around and do nothing. And I read collections of short stories or even One Story magazine and all the short stories are like 20 pages long. My stories were maybe 5 pages. I don’t think I rushed to wrap them up either. But now I start writing and realize ‘oh, wow, this is going to go on for an eternity’ which I guess is good for someone trying to produce something of substance - which is ironically because every time I try to write a novel, nothing comes out - but with this idea I had to write a short story a day, I don’t know how to rush the start and then do a normal length ending to balance it out so it seems doomed for quickly wrapped up endings.
“Well, today is the first day of the month you weren’t at work and then you don’t have to work tomorrow either - it’s the weekend - so now that you have more time, I’m sure you can write something today that isn’t rushed.”
Actually, I slept in, went for a walk, then watched a couple episodes of the Twilight Zone, then watched three movies and now it is almost 1:30 in the morning so I was thinking about writing a poem.
“A poem? You don’t even write poetry.”
Not really, no. I mean there’s that one I started, kind of lost my train of thought about, then tried to wrap it up later and had lost the headspace I was in, but I still ‘published’ it on this website. I was emailing a songwriting I am a massive fan of a day or so ago and may have been a bit too forward about not fully grasping poetry so it’s been on my mind…
“And your reaction to telling someone who loves poetry that you don’t ‘get’ it is to then turn around and write a poem because you think it is ‘easier’ than writing a short story? The egos of white men…”
Well, thanks for not interrupting my story yesterday anyway…
“Work on somehow not rushing your endings.”
It took everything in me to not kill him off. I was going to have the guy say that the time-traveler would be injected into him and the whole thing was a plot to just murder him. But I was starting to see a pattern of killing everyone off emerge.
“Well, maybe my criticism is paying off a little then.”
Baby Hitler
Thinking back on my youth
It feels like the world began collapsing in my early twenties
But I was never great at paying attention in history class
And the internet is less forgiving than those text books
So now I spend less time wondering when it all went to hell
And wonder if it ever wasn’t
If you could take a time machine back in time would you kill Hitler
And receive accolades
If you ever managed to explain what you stopped?
Or is there a less substantial moment to revisit
That started it all and so much more?
And what of everything that doesn’t require a time machine?
We spend our time convincing ourselves we would have been on the right side of history
But can’t be bothered to lift a finger for a stranger
American exceptionalism or a close cousin has blinded us to our shortcomings
Because nothing is ever as bad as the way historical moments are presented once we finally decide to collectively condemn them
“Well, do you feel like you accomplished anything with this cop out?”
No, not really.
“But you’re going to stop writing for the night now?”
Yeah, it took a lot of time and energy just to try to figure out what the hell to write a poem about. And by the end of it I realized it’s basically this short story idea I never really fleshed out about a guy in present day who is completely dismissive of everything going bad politically while he builds a time machine to go back in time to kill Hitler.
“Maybe you should have wrote that instead.”
Hindsight is 20/20.