Stand Still As I Stab Your Heart
The man with the red pen and crooked glasses smiles as he beckons you closer, a mad glint in his eye. In the folder on his desk are papers full of writing. Your writing, which you have spent a total of three years, seven months, nineteen hours, seventeen minutes, and three seconds on perfecting one hundred nineteen thousand and twenty-seven words. You counted. And now he stands there with his dark-rimmed glasses, beckoning you even closer.
"We need to talk," he says, and suddenly your stomach explodes in fifteen million three hundred and two different ways. Your hand twitches and you dare not look at his face. You try to say something, but your throat launches yourself in your mouth and all you can do is to make a grunting sound and nod your head. You sound like a pig, a goddamn pig. You wonder if he hears you, but if he does, he doesn't seem to notice. Instead, his eyes wander over until they hit the folder. The folder with your writing in it. Automatically, your head throbs. You grit your teeth and try to ignore it.
"Did you read it?"
Your voice sounds strange, and he jumps as he hears you, glancing at your face carefully, as if he is your father, trying to figure out whether he should tell you the truth. "Yes, I did."
After a moment of silence, you clear your throat. "What do you think?" you say.
"It's crap."
A pause. "All of it?"
He grunts and then hands you the papers. Your fingers are shaking so badly that it takes forever for you to examine one page. You are surprised when you see it. You expected his red scrawl intertwined with courier new, but it is blank, only filled with your writing. Automatically, you start counting the words. Three hundred and forty-two. You look up at him.
"Did you read this story?" you ask. Your voice sounds calmer than you thought it would.
"Yeah."
He waits for you to talk, staring expectantly. You pause and flip through the pages. One, two, three...
"No you didn't," you finally say. Then, in a stronger voice, you add, "There's nothing on it. No notes, not a word on it." Your voice is starting to rise. "Surely, you couldn't have thought this was that bad. There's no notes on it. See?"
"Goddamnit, look at all the rest of the pages. Tell me what you see." Before you can even move, he slams his fist on the papers so that all six hundred thirty-two pages rush out of your hands. He picks one up. "See? No writing. Let's look at another. No writing again!"
"You didn't read it."
"On contrary," he says, turning to you, his bright face turning purple, "I read all of them. And they were all crap. The only reason why I allowed you to come here was because I wanted to tell you personally that I hoped you had another job lined up. Why the hell would you major in creative writing? You can barely string a sentence together! And then you have the audacity to come by here and ask me personally whether it's any good? It's crap!"
"Oh." You feel like crying.
"The only reason why I didn't write anything on it is because I don't want to spend all my time on this piece of shit. I'm sure it would contaminate the other papers in the bin, if I put it there."
"I see." Now you are crying.
He looks up and frowns as two tears droplets drip off your nose. "See? That's what I mean. You can't even handle yourself. How the hell are you going to handle being a writer?"
"I don't know, sir," you say.
"Get out."
"Wait." Slowly, you gather the papers in your arms, trying in vain to straighten them. Then you stand and head towards the door, your legs slowly unlocking as you walk faster. "Thanks for reading," you murmur under your breath.
He only grunts.