The Last Manuscript

Agnes placed the stack of papers into the box. She ran a wrinkled hand across the cover sheet at the top.

She closed the box and sealed it with shipping tape. With a marker and a careful hand, she wrote her return address on the upper left, then the address of the publisher in the center.

That done, she moved to the kitchen to make her breakfast. A bowl on the counter and a box of cold cereal in her hand, she stopped.

“Agnes,” she said aloud to herself, “you deserve to celebrate today.”

She put the cold cereal away and made an egg, sunny-side, two strips of bacon, and piece of toast with far too much jam to be healthy. Agnes ate her breakfast in front of the radio playing the news from the local public radio station.

After the news, she knew she had half an hour until the post office opened. Unwilling to waste any time, she called for a van. It would arrive in just a few minutes. She stood waiting at the end of her driveway, leaning on her walking frame, the box sitting in the sling strung across the arms of the frame.

The van pulled to a stop and a large door opened on the side, revealing a lift. The driver jumped out and began lowering the ramp. “Good morning, Agnes!”

“Good morning indeed, Hector.”

“Sending another manuscript today?”

“You know it.”

He helped her onto the lift and closed the safety gate behind her. “Feel good about this one?”

“Oh, yes. I think it may be my best yet.” She shook her head. “It better be, anyway, as I think it’s my last.”

“Why is that, Agnes?”

“I’m not getting any younger,” she said, moving into the van proper and sitting on the nearest seat. She patted the box. “These take a lot out of me.”

Hector secured the lift and got back into the driver’s seat. “You promised to sign my copy when you get published,” he said. “I hope that’s still in the cards.”

Agnes smiled. “I don’t have any reason to think they’ll treat this one any different to the others, but I still have to try, don’t I?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Hector pulled out into traffic and began the journey to the post office. “Your determination is inspiring. Every time I think work and school and the baby is too much, I think of you. ‘Agnes wouldn’t quit,’ I think, and I keep on.”

“I don’t know about all that.” Agnes shifted in her seat. “I never had to do so much at once as you.”

After helping her off at the post office, Hector asked, “Are you going home after this, or do you have some other errands to run?”

“I’ll be heading back home. Wouldn’t want to keep you all to myself all day,” she said with a smile.

“I’d be okay with that.” Hector smiled back at her as she toddled into the lobby.

Agnes was the first in line and set the box on the counter. Once it was weighed, postage applied, and she’d paid with bills she’d removed from the neatly folded stack in her purse, she thanked the clerk and went back out.

Hector was waiting with the van running and the lift down. “In a hurry to get rid of me?” she asked.

Hector laughed. “No, ma’am, just didn’t want you to have to wait for me. Instead of wasting your energy standing around, you might have something more exciting planned.”

“This was enough excitement for me, today.”

“Aww, does that mean no drag racing on the way home?”

Agnes laughed. “Thanks for entertaining an old lady.”

Hector jumped backed into the driver’s seat. “You’re my favorite rider.”

“You probably say that to all the ladies.”

“No, ma’am. Only the nice ones.” Hector beamed a smile in the rear-view mirror. “You’d be surprised how many innocent-looking little old grannies are down-right foul-tempered.”

“No, not really,” Agnes said. “You don’t get to be ninety-seven without learning something about people. Everyone has the capacity for good or evil. Most people have a fair bit of good in them, but too many are afraid to let it out.”

“I’ll have to remember that.” Hector pulled to a smooth stop in front of her house. He helped her out and gave a slight bow. “Have a wonderful day, Agnes. And have faith. They’ll want this one.”

“Thank you, Hector. Always such a polite young man.” She took a few steps toward her door and stopped to turn back. “I hope you don’t go flirting like this all the time. Some are not so savvy and worldly as me. Wouldn’t want you breaking hearts.”

Hector laughed. “No, ma’am; no flirting. I’ll behave myself.”

Agnes settled into the armchair in her bedroom, the television showing the local news. To her right stood two piles of manuscript mailing boxes, each with their rejection letters in an envelope taped neatly to the top. The piles, forty years of work, stood nearly as tall as Agnes.

If number eighty didn’t sell, Agnes didn’t think she’d try again. Even though she’d moved from a typewriter to a computer years ago, her fingers still ached after a couple hours of typing. Add to that the annoying sound of the printer when it came time to send a manuscript out….

She wondered what Hector would think if he read the latest. Would he recognize himself as the protagonist? There was just something about him that sparked an idea for her. An heroic tale of a desperate last stand, with “Jorge” defending his family against a tyrannical warlord.

Agnes chuckled. She realized that Jorge was as much her as it was Hector. Not that she was fighting tyrannical warlords, but she might as well be. The publishing industry didn’t want manuscripts from unknown writers with no agents, and agents weren’t interested in an author her age.

She pulled the last box off the pile and looked at the most recent rejection letter. It wasn’t a form letter for a change. Someone had read the manuscript. They’d praised the writing as tight, and the story as engaging, but the tone didn’t fit what they were looking for.

The letter ended with the reader saying they looked forward to any future manuscripts, especially if they were more action oriented. The one she’d just sent off was, indeed, that.

A hopeful smile crossed her face as she nodded off in the chair. She dreamt of seeing her book in print and signing a copy for Hector.

She woke to a sharp pain in her chest, a pounding in her ears. She knew she was drawing her final breaths. In that moment, she also knew that it didn’t matter whether her book was published; what mattered was that she had never stopped trying.