Life Coach
by J. White
since I found my life
coach
i've stopped sniffing
amyl nitrate
and, lately, raping
teenage girls
she taught me tai-chi
and how to go with the
flow
i keep a clear head,
set mid-term goals
so: no more Surprise!
sex
committed to consensual
i regale young ladies,
stroke them, invite them out for
sushi
J. White's time
is divided between massage parlours and Starbucks in New York and Paris.
Mandy's
Calico Foal
J.
White
TO MY PUBLISHER
Sir-
Many thanks for your recent acceptance of my
short
story, "Mandy's Calico Foal". This means more
to me
than is possible to convey in this brief message.
I
hope relations between us will now revert to
their
previous cordial and professional level.
You may rest assured I have no information
concerning your address or those of your family
members. Nor do I have any particular expertise
or even interest in arson techniques.
My muse, who provided the original idea for "Foal", is
also delighted by your change of stance, though she
finds it rather belated. She is now planning to begin
work on a few novels and I would be grateful for your
guidance on these at your earliest convenience.
The working titles she has given me are: Sweet
Plum Wine; The Wild Tingling Rose; Snowdrops in
the Desert; The Chapters of My Heart; Catch a
Falling Star; The Werewolf Who Loved Me. Could
we
perhaps get this last one out of the way first? I
think it might have a constructive and calming effect
if we did.
I regret to say my muse is holding me against my
will and threatens to continue to do so until her
ambitious agenda has been completed. In these
circumstances, you will understand that rejection is a
particularly painful experience for me. If you
decide any of the novels aren't ready to be
published straight away, then I would prefer you
could at least refrain from sending rejection letters,
particularly ones with personalized feedback, as this
will enrage her even more. "Good idea but
execution needs more polish" is the sort of comment to
be avoided if my well-being is of any importance to
you.
Since your "Foal" acceptance, the muse has now agreed
to remove the duct tape for an extra hour a day. This
has always been necessary for purposes of my doing the
actual writing. However, until now, she has done this
on a somewhat grudging basis, and it always hurts my
skin when she peels it off. The use of her stilletto
heel has for the time being been discontinued, though
it remains on view inside a locked glass cabinet out
of reach above my computer screen.
I hope that it may one day be possible for the three
of us to meet without the need for the presence of a
psychiatrist or law-enforcement professional.
Regards,
J. White
J. White sometimes gets bored while in the massage parlor
and scribbles poems and flash fiction on the walls when no-one is looking.
