by CLAIRE SCOTT
Once the book is finished the last period dotting the last page, the story is finita. Frozen like Arctic ice. All edits completed, paper and typeface selected, acknowledgments approved, the publisher posts my book on Amazon for $26.95. Crosses her fat fingers.
Let me give you some advice, dear reader. In case you buy the book. Which I don’t recommend. Rest between page 31 and 32, you will need it. The story lurches to the left. No longer a tale of little failures, minor mishaps, slight hiccoughs in the road. Be prepared for refractory depression. Suicidal screams. Knotted nooses. Maybe murder. Definitely treachery. Skip chapter 12 altogether. Not believable. Chapter 22 is filled with needles and sirens, ambien and empty bottles of Jim Beam. Tight dresses on street corners. Be warned.
The pages are thin (cheaper to print says my publisher) so you may hear a whisper pass through a page before you turn it. Listen. Some voices are haunted. Some are hostile. Some are the voice of a child who learned too soon. You decide.
I am locked up in this story, a prisoner in a paper cell. At times I wonder if I can crawl out of page 122 or page 237, creep unnoticed into another book where the heroine lives happily ever after. I would be happy, dear reader, to be paid minimum wage to simply stand to the side and hold her tiara.
About the Author
Claire Scott is an award winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.
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