UNPLEASANTVILLE, MY COLORLESS WORLD

There’s only one reason why I’ve chosen a childhood picture of myself relaxing in bed casually smoking a cigarette, let me whisper it softly into your ear: rejection. Oh, I know you don’t care about my sex life—Did I just say that? Let me start again.—I know you don’t care about my writing welfare as much as you do about my health. My guess is that you’re straining your eyes right now to see whether I’m actually holding a Pall Mall unfiltered in my left hand (yes, I’m an evil left hander). I’ve learned a long long time ago not to underestimate my audience. You’ve probably already come to the conclusion that I’m holding a crayon. Did the plastic cup give it away?

I could’ve been clever. I could’ve photoshopped a Penthouse magazine over the coloring book and blurred the cups contents into a nice liquidy foam, but then again, you’d know better. I’m a child. In a bed. Wearing one piece pajamas. So here’s the real scoop: I received rejection letters this month from the Apple Valley Review, Cezanne’s Carrot, Flashquake, and Mindprints, A Literary Review. Count’em again. Four. One for each week of November.

I lost five smackaroos entering the Mindprints “Flash Fiction Contest.” The editor, Paul Fahey, said they had over fifty submissions and selected three top winners and eight honorable mentions. With those type of odds, approximately a twenty-percent chance of making the publication, I’ll be back next year. I can’t cry over it. I’ll keep plodding away at my work. I’ll try to stay within the lines. Speaking of lines, I’m thinking of The First Line . Why do I continue to torture myself?