Made a choice what’s blended my real world and the one in my head. I want to make money, you see. Need some. I don’t write anything new but there’s years of material. Goes way back to before any of this. Over a decade of stuff to package up and put out there. Was thinking maybe even emails I can twist up into a story of some kind. Names changed to yadda yadda the innocent. A sort of lowly revenge.

Choice was to tell my bosses that I’m looking to do that. Go for easy money. Big thing in entertainment industries is the contractual obligations. Some places take issue with employees making money on the side. Standard part of the business, like with inventors. Video games in my case, so I wasn’t worried. More of a FYI to get the OK in writing and file it away. CYA, always.

So I said it in an email and thought I’d get my clearance right away. Move forward with the exploration phase. First response from the business guy was quick: “Can you elaborate? What do you intend to write? For instance, is it related to video games in any way?” Well, yea. Some. I explained the freelance stuff I used to do. Video game guides. Not the most lucrative, but got me free copies of games and some beer money. Also mentioned the fiction and short story collections, for the sake of being thorough. And that was the last of it. No peep since. One of the folks—The Boss—is on those emails. This guy’s done well for himself. Knows good writing. Makes me sort of anxious that they’ll ask for further details. Examples. And, admittedly, sort of excited in a way some kid is excited to be an extra on a film. That hope of discovery. The “holy shit, kid, you’re amazing!” fantasy. Just a bit of it, anyway. Grounded at all times.

There’s also a fear. Exposure. There’s a compartmentalization to everything, and it can be delicate, like a membrane. Bitterness on one side and jovial exterior on the other. When one is bitter about life it seeps through in the telling. There’s that thought that any writing sample will be a) not gold, and b) revelatory of the writer’s uneasy psyche. Some are fine with it. Their nature allows for that sort of abandon. Me, I don’t know. Someday hasn’t come.

The camera zooms out of the character’s eye’s pupil at this point. Turns out he is not discovered and placed in a writing position to reach his fullest creative potential. He does not go on to be the next The Boss. The camera pans back and reveals him sitting in his car at a vista point facing the Pacific ocean. The song on the radio is a banjo melody. He watches the water shift. His request has been approved. There is nothing stopping him now. No contract, not another soul in the world.