Thought Purging:

I am rejected today. A brief message in my inbox. Unkind. Unwilling to negotiate. Ungiving of a mercy named “Potential”, or of another, “Promise”. Its sender is named Pete Fannor, if you find him. The magazine's address is 4068 13 avenue. He seems to me cruel from online pictures, too. Anyway. Thinning brown hair. In his forties, looking. I say he is cruel. His eyes are, if you see him you’ll agree, I think. Smug, a kind of cruel. And if you do, please tell him: Writers are not little moths to crush between his pointer and thumb. Ask him: Do you prefer us, whose talent threatens, as mothy ash? Ask him: Why are you afraid? In his response, he wrote “I’m afraid it wasn't right for us.” I'd like to know. Pete. Who is making you afraid? Ask him.

Moving on. I remain focused on appearing to you very soon. Have I done it? Pete says in his online blog that readers need to be engaged the whole way through. Have I done it. Are we engaged?

On the roof of a skyscraper in….Shanghai, I see just the back of him, looking out to a lighted city. “I’ve come to kill you.” I say. We are so, so high up. I did not think it would be so high. There are no supports to latch on to in this scene. I’m wobbling and visibly tense. 

“Who the hell are you?” He turns around.

There is silence, or human sounds, between dialogue. 

“You don't know who I am, do you?”

He's frozen up. 

“No. Who the hell are—”

I shot the man, “boomboomboom!”

“Goodnight, Peter.”

Peter looks offstage, and to the audience—Poor Peter is confused. What is the first rule of the theater!

“End scene!” I say, and bow.  Clap.                         Clap.

Clap.

Moving on. The performance was not taken. Kindly. Or willingly. Or givingly. An intriguing concept, I was told, but. Told. Why can't I told people things? You simply are not talented at this. I reject you. And I’m afraid, too. 

Pete hates me. Peter hates me. My former theater troupe hates me. And more people have hated me. And more will. And more do. Sometimes I hate me, even. Still.

Still. Still. I am not deterred, reader. One must not let the Petes and Peters of the world keep us apart any longer.

Here is a story:

“Today”

Today a cat looked at me. And I, she. Whilst perusing the discounted shelves of a bookstore in Kensington, she blended into a velvet, creamsicle-orange cushion on a rocking chair. I do not know if cats have breeds, like birds and dogs—or if like cows and hamsters. The chair was not rocking. And I spotted her. A ginger, white-striped cat. I had a cat kindof like this one when I was a teenager. I have many books to read at home. I like the feeling of a bookstore, and of the cat's back like a loaf. I go to the opening line of a new book, and I make sure it is a popular book, and I read the line, the next. I flip to another page, elsewhere in the book. I take a few little sips. Spit. Spit. These are the people Pete accepts? Cat was sleeping when I petted her back gently. And her eyelids were unveiled. And she looked up at me with eyes of some color—disgusting! They jeered at me—and she sprang from the chair that finally did rock. He waked up the kitty and it ran away! A little girl to her father.

Today I walked home from that cat's dayhome. I never choose the right clothes. Some people can really do this. But I wore shorts when sun was in the window, and then rain poured down later as I walked, sure not to stop onto the cracks between each square of cement along the sidewalk. I will take great leaps or small steps to avoid falling through, or being unlucky. A child on a cloud poured their bucket of sand down on all of us today, if I were blind and only listening. But I could see that the sand was see-through, and some of it was white and icy little pieces of sand. 

I was surely thinking about my book of stories. How would the cover look. How could it appear to you, reader. I was surely thinking about the money the magazine pays the writers they publish. I was surely sure of the money and of my name beside the title, above the story, on the page, the website, in your hands and eyes. 

Pete Fannor was my very first reader. I’d like to ask him what about me he hates. I’d like to read his own work. Should he be the one tolding?

I wish he weren't my only reader. I wish you were my very first, reader. My second reader will be a judge of this contest. They will decide, then, if they hate me. I reject you. Or. I accept you. Could I pass through to you, my third? And you, my fourth. So on. 

I have not been rejected so cruelly like ten minutes ago I was by Petey. I am quickly looking for acceptance, to restore the equilibrium up here. I am slightly frazzled and rambling now. 

I’d like to travel around, sipping from clear glasses of water and sitting in soft leather chairs next to another chair on stage. We are so so fortunate you made the time to be here with us today. My first question is. I’d like to be told and asked these sorts of things.

I’d like to have an unnamed thing chained to a pipe in my cellar and a typewriter in my cellar. I will scout this thing out, and net them one afternoon. Promising writing talent goes missing. Swapping of the places. I will be promising, then. Up there, they say you’re really a talented writer. You understand, I’m sure. One cannot wait for things like talent and perseverance. 

Moving on. This is not my appearance. This is thought-purging. Not real. But do not forget about me, reader. I am not immediate. 

Dear you,

Thank you for your submission. I'm afraid it wasn't right for us, but I wish you all the best in placing your work elsewhere. 

Kind regards,

Pete Fannor

Editor-In-Chief

New Dawn Review—

4068 13 Avenue.