Suck pen, chew tongue, swallow phlegm, write

People con­stantly ask me — as in no people, not con­stantly and never ask — about my raison d’être for writ­ing. When I write. Which isn’t very often these days, seem­ingly. But when I do, they ask me. And since I am the quint­es­sen­tial shy, retir­ing type, I never reply. I just shift uncom­fort­ably in my seat, turn bright red and won­der if I can stab them in the chest with a plastic fork.

The editor* of a site called Writers’ Bloc, how­ever, tried to per­suade me to divulge at least some of my rais­ons. I chose to ignore his advice and just wrote some­thing com­pletely dif­fer­ent instead. Then I ate my knuckles, crack­ing them between my teeth like small walnuts.

* Yes, I sup­pose I should declare that I am the editor of Writers’ Bloc. In other words, I asked myself. What can I say? It was a quiet week­end and I don’t get out much.