Career Suicide

The letter was there when he came back from stocking up on whiskey to keep up with Hemingway’s quart-a-day diet.

Buck Moreno sucked in a breath of air through his teeth. He’d sent them his best novel yet, and they were bound to pick up this one after the slew of rejections he’d suffered. He’d show those who’d said his publishing deal was either a fluke or the result of a publisher with little left to live for. He snatched it up and took it to his writing desk. With a flick of his wrist, he slit the envelope’s neck with his letter opener and poured out its insides. With trembling hands, he held up the letter.

‘Dear Mr Moreno, we are writing to let you know that we will not be picking up your horror novel “Grandma’s Got a Chainsaw”. While we admire the self-confidence it takes to submit such a manuscript, we feel that…’

Buck sagged. Again? Man, he could not catch a break. What more could he do? He’d followed in the pros’ footsteps and stuck to their advice. Buck was now a borderline alcoholic. And still, rejection after rejection. All he wanted was to succeed at something, and becoming a famous writer seemed like a no-brainer. Hell, even his name was a damn homophone of the things he wanted to make money from. But even the books he’d sold – ‘Planet of the Capybaras’ (sci-fi) and ‘The Pigeon Did It’ (murder mystery) – had not succeeded. People did not get his work. It was a minor consolation that all the greats found no appreciation in their time either. And he had no doubt his books would find new success after he perished. But he wouldn’t be around to see it. Unless—

The sharp-tongued letter’s sharp edges cut through the silence.

Buck had abandoned many novels halfway through, as poor planning had led to him getting lost in the woods. He had a lot of unfinished business. If he died, he would 100% come back as a ghost. That way, he’d get to reap the rewards of his postmortem career surge. It was genius! The only thing standing in the way of him and adoration was his beating heart. And death from a thousand cuts from yet another rejection letter was rather poetic. The publisher would lament the day they’d shot him down. Buck rolled back his sleeve, positioned the letter’s edge like a blade, and went at it.

Forty minutes later, his heart still beat on.

Papercuts were much too shallow to produce any serious quantity of blood. And the wounds that did bleed soon congealed and scabbed over. Even a million of these little nicks wouldn’t do it. And the letter’s edge had become crumpled and frayed with use. Goddamnit! Even his artistic suicide was a failure. As had happened with his lacklustre novels, he hadn’t thought ahead. The depth he’d aimed for ended up only surface deep. Buck crumpled the letter into a ball and threw it at the bin, missing. He kicked his desk leg in frustration. ‘Goddamnit!’

And that was when the tower of twenty or so unsold manuscripts and half-finished books fell. All thirty kilograms of the papers landed on Buck’s head. They snapped his neck like a backside sitting on a misplaced pencil.

Buck gasped and opened his eyes a moment later.

Darkness. The smell of damp earth and mildewed wood. And there was another smell, too. A musty rotting aroma that—

Ah. The penny dropped like ‘Nunchuck Nuns’ (martial arts, unpublished) had when it killed him.

Buck was dead.

Sure, it hadn’t turned out as artsy and poetic as he’d imagined, but you couldn’t argue with the results.

Operating his newfound incorporeal form with marionette movements, Buck swam to the surface.

The soil of his grave had no grass, and the stone – ‘HERE LIES BUCK, WE CAN’T ALL ACHIEVE GREATNESS’ – had not even a kiss of moss.

Okay, so not quite a moment later, after all. But it also hadn’t been weeks or months, either. This timing was, in fact, perfect. News of his death would have spread, and readers would be reevaluating his work in a new light. That decided where he should go and what he ought to do on his first day as a ghostwriter. He wanted, after all, to know what praise people were giving him after his tragic end had cut his life short. Buck set off on his spectral stroll, passing through a man laying flowers at a grave.

The man shivered, and the woman he was with asked him what was wrong. ‘Just a chill,’ he said. And then he added, in the exact words of the best review Buck had ever gotten (the one he insisted go on the cover): ‘It’s okay.’

Buck drifted through bustling streets and shops alive.

Nobody noticed him, but a few shivered here and there.

Finally, Buck stopped in front of an indie bookstore. It had been the only place his agent – now long gone – had managed to book for him to do a reading and a signing at. (He’d scored a record three attendees.) ‘SHELF INDULGENCE’ read the sign above the window. Buck smiled before passing through the door, giving the faded brass bell a ghost of a chime.

Jerry, the owner, looked up at the sound and then returned to his customers. The three huddled together by the shelves. The usual fare of labels was there – ‘Horror’, ‘Sci-Fi’, ‘Comedy’, ‘Rubbish’. But among the usual suspects was a new sign: ‘GONE BUT ALSO FORGOTTEN’. ‘Yeah, it’s a shame,’ said Jerry, nodding his head.

Curiosity piqued, Buck sidled closer.

‘Truly,’ said the woman, and her male companion grunted in agreement. ‘He might be six feet under, yet he’s still not as dead as his prose.’

Buck winced. What poor sap were they talking about? Had someone else died at the same time?

Oh.

She held a copy of ‘Planet of the Capybaras’, his sci-fi opus that put the human condition under the microscope. He had a copy of ‘The Pigeon Did It’, the twisty murder mystery where everyone was a suspect, including the bird.

Buck’s cold, dead heart sank.

They were talking about him.

Jerry chuckled. ‘I know. I’m thinking of changing this sign to, “You still won’t read it, will you?”’

Buck recoiled. ‘I thought we were friends!’

The couple laughed. ‘I mean,’ said the man, ‘who the hell gave this guy a publishing deal? Were they a secret plant from a competing publisher, hoping to tank the competition?’

‘You just don’t get it!’ Buck roared. ‘It’s too sophisticated for your palates!’

‘Tragic deaths usually help with sales,’ continued Jerry. ‘But Buck died doing what he loved: not selling books. Speaking of, you two wanna buy copies of those glorified doorstops?’

If Buck hadn’t been a translucent ghost, he would have turned white as a sheet.

‘Oh, God no!’ said the woman between tinkling laughter. ‘We just wanted to see if there were any signed copies that might one day be worth something!’

Jerry clapped his hands. ‘Grand! I’ve got cardboard boxes full of signed copies that I couldn’t shift,’ he said, guiding them towards the back. ‘Funnily enough, they sold even worse than the unsigned copies.’

Buck hung his head and floated out the door.

Back outside, night had fallen.

He stood and stared at the stars.

Passersby passed through him.

Buck sighed, feeling heavier than the breeze he’d now become. It seemed that there were no shortcuts to success – not even dying. The only way to get better was by, well, getting better: practising, learning, and honing his craft.

But how was he ever going to do that as a ghost who couldn’t type?