I want to write a story, you say.  You want to write a story because sometimes you’re standing at the bank or on a bus or at the post office and everyone is waiting to go somewhere, anywhere, everywhere.  The line isn’t moving, but everyone is so jittery and restless that it feels like it is. Damn, you think.  People want to get off this bus or get their money or send that package, but where the hell are they going and what time do they have to be there?  The line inches with every minute and I just want to write a story because wherever I think I am going or whatever time I think it is really isn’t.  Get me out of this line, you say. I just want to write a story.

I want to write a story, you say.  Just me and this paper, this pen, this computer, this typewriter – not you, not her, not him, not anyone else.  I want to write a story because my her, my he, my she, my they, my is can say/do/think/be whatever he, she, they wants to do/think/be.  I want to write a story because I didn’t mean to say that to you, so rather than continuing to say things that I don’t mean, I’ll just erase, erase, erase until I mean what I say.

I want to write a story, you say.  I want to write a story because my mom used to withhold chocolate, soda, and chips from me, make me yearn for it.  She said it would pepper my lips in blisters, cover my skin in its badness.  So all I could do is stare at it, think about it, obsess about how sensational and satisfying and delectable each morsel of sweetness and saltiness could be.  How the mere touch of it on your tongue would excite the shit out of the neural pulses in my body.  I couldn’t have it, so I wrote it because I wanted it – and it made me want it even more.

I want to write a story, you say.  I want to write a story because sometimes you stand in a grocery store and you’re like, fuck, there’s so much to buy, so much to eat, so much that I need.  Now, you can grab all the chocolate, soda, and chips that you damn well please, but it doesn’t taste as sweet, as salty, as delicious as you wanted it to be when you couldn’t have it.  You want to write a story because everyone in this grocery store is anxious to leave this line, to walk back into a world where what you say is not really what you say, with groceries that don’t taste as good, that will never taste as good.

Whatever, you say.  I’ll write the story even better than what it is.