“Why did you start writing?”
“I suppose that on some level I probably just wanted to be understood.”
“Is that important to you?”
“I guess that it must be. Why else would I reach out and share it with the world in the first place, beyond just making a living?
“So you’d say that the way others perceive your work really does have an effect on you, contrary to what you’ve said before?”
“It’s not as simple as that. It’s never been about being famous, or being recognized as some great literary figure or even being seen as creative or well read or wise or anything like that. It’s about being known. It’s about being intimate with someone. It always was. Anyone, for just a moment, even though the person reading my stuff might be far off on the other side of the world. People I’ll never meet. And that’s the best part. That’s what worked for me. When somebody read me and felt me, really got me, they were inside of me. Moment to moment, word to word, page to page. There’s no greater connection than that. Reaching someone. Making my feelings their own. My pain, theirs. If only for a moment. I never had to meet any of them to have that for myself. It only ruined it…”
“Do you find that writing a piece you feel has an impact on others negates your… violent outbursts? When was the last time you-”
“Well, it does, and it doesn’t. Part of me despises the people who read my books. The new ones. It’s awful, and it’s all me, but I can’t help myself. I look into the eyes of a fan who tells me this thing or that thing has just changed their life and I want to reach across the desk and the worthless, endless pile of copies of my last novel and I want to grab them and throw them to the floor and jam my closed fist into their gaping idiot mouth and through the spinal column and onto the bloody carpet and scream ‘Has this changed your life? Is your life changed now!’
“Remember what we talked about, Micheal. We can explore your anger here, it’s a safe space, but you are not free to scream and shout in my office. Certainly not while I have other patients waiting out-”
“That’s just the problem, doctor. I’m not free anywhere. None of us are. I’m realizing that again, now.”
“What do you mean, exactly?”
“I mean that nobody is free anywhere. I am so sick of this. Of all of this. I used to write stories that mattered to me. Actually mattered, not just fluffy bullshit that was ‘Publisher approved’ which I had to pretend mattered. You know, I wake up in the morning and I look in the mirror and I don’t even know what I see anymore. Just some thing that sold out and smoothed over. Just another filthy splooge of oil lubricating the fucking meat grinder… I won’t do it anymore.”
“Well, what will you do?”
“Hell, I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll destroy America. Maybe I’ll go home and start drinking myself to death again and tell my cunt wife that she’s a cunt straight to her cunt face so she can finally have the excuse she’s always wanted to leave me and take her piece of the money neither of us really earned. Maybe I’ll swing by your house later when it’s dark and break in and make you listen to me while I recite the unreleased poetry I wrote sober for that dogshit anthology piece. Maybe I’ll fucking kill you after I’m done… I suppose I’ll see where the night takes me.”
“Is that a threat?..”
“It’s not anything, and neither am I. You aren’t shit, either, you fucking exorbitant smug cunt.”
“I’ll be calling your-”
“Here, take cash for this last session. Everybody does, anyway. Tell my parole officer that he can suck his out of my fucking dick after you’re done with it.”
submitted by /u/Verrgasm
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