DO YOU SMELL ME DED?

You know, yesterday I was getting all stressed about the tons of serious but rubbish words I've been typing out lately for the fencing club's paperwork, feeling quite miserable about the timeflippingsink it is. Today's silver lining: well, at least this work earns money! Alright alright, it's all for the club, but it's money, right?

So, as stress relief I started sorting through my memory box (see piccie below: yes, it a big shiny black box and it gots all kinda memories inside) and came across my first rejection in life. It included the reader report of my far too short and supershitty work of art (hey, shit happens when you're 16). The reader ends his or her short report with a remark that, while my piece was too short for publication, I'm one to be watched.

I might go hardieharr (with black stuff oozing through the teeth) at that particular line now, 20 years later and hung over from all the recent sockboozing. But it does sort of warm the cockles of my heart that there is ... something. Whether that something can ever become something marketable, well... That's a whole different story.

No, the real funny thing is that my brain is a paranoid misanthropic bastard, so for years I never really *saw* that letter when I came across it. I just saw NO THANK YOU and TOO SHORT and NEEDS WORK, instead of QUITE ELABORATE STYLE AND THEMATICS FOR A 16Y OLD, GOOD NARRATIVE SKILLS.
And, it's not like the tealeaf reading I could be doing with the recent rejections; no no, those words are actually there, black on white.

Really, who needs a brain like that?

Black Box