Spring

I was born in the winter, on a relatively warm day in February. I became a writer because it was easy for me, and I was capable of making a living off of it, and because I wanted to.

My ideas were frozen on the city streets when I was younger, but when I grew older all the ideas that filled my world as daydreams spilled out, pouring off the ink of my quill. They didn't start out as particularly good ideas, and as they progressed I grew more and more fluid in my methods. For me, this was like spring, with the huge thaw; I was born in winter, frozen, and thawed. Or rather, my writing changed like this. The problem with the above metaphor is that I am equating myself with my words, as though I had no life outside of them.

I do, of course. Any character in a written piece is necessarily flat and lifeless. People are really quite infinitely complex, enough that even a five-novel analysis of a person is not enough; our lives, at least if we are interesting people, are composed of the contributions of parents, friends, change occurrences, our childhood homes, our professions, our siblings – and so on. Impossible to enumerate, impossible to understand.

To give you some idea of who I am, and why anything I write should be listened to, I will give you three excerpts, real or imagined, from my life; this is commonly known, in the trade, as chiasuro. I shall attempt, through several small moments, to demonstrate a greater picture.

Reflecting upon my previous statements, I realize the arrogance of this exercise. It presumes, of course, that the examples, showing dozens if not hundreds of external influences upon a single character, are most important in their relevance to my life, rather than of their own merit. As though I were the focus of all the events. As though among all the thousands I have met or who have had some effect upon my life, I were the most important.

The truth is, I should not be listened to for any merits of my own. Read this brief note, not because I wish it, but because there is something here. Something you need to hear. When I was young, I was told by a man I much admired, "I became a teacher because I wanted to be a writer, but had nothing to say. Only devote your life to something if there is a purpose to it; you need to have purpose." My people were always particular about everything having a purpose.

And this is mine: I write. I write because I have something to say, that cannot be said in quite this way by anyone else. Instead of what this all says about myself, what does it say about you? Or your people? Or my people. As long as it has relevance, and purpose. Whether this entire message about purpose has more to do with writing technique or life I could not say.

But here they are, though I am not sure if they have purpose or point anymore. That is the difficulty, sometimes, in writing.

1

My sister used to put me to bed every night, tucking me in tightly. Her fingers were short and stubby but beautiful, because she put copious amounts of lotion on them every night before going to bed herself. My sheets were softer than her hands, but I never appreciated that as much as I should have. I didn't appreciate my sister enough either, though I understood her more the older I got. It took me longer to understand the value of material comfort; some things we must do without before we understand their value. What I am ashamed of here is that when they both were taken away, the thing I missed more were the sheets.

2

My father was a barrister, and was there when they executed the serial killer of the century with a blow to the skull from a warhammer. It was apparently a quite messy death. I'm not sure if that is a key detail, but he came home that afternoon and first killed my sister and then himself. With a knife though, not a hammer. I was away at school, and found out about it during Public Speaking.

3

Imad the Sane is listed in the history books as the death of my country: the death of Es-Annon. My city was beautiful in the way a hummingbird is beautiful, in that its true appeal lay in its fragility and motion. Its wings fluttered for a few thousand years in a flurry of motion and jeweled flashes, and then was crushed by the careless motions of the planes. Or by a dictator so sane he was insane; he crushed the fountains and the hanging gardens beneath his feet because they were not orderly enough, and killed all my people because they were unhygenic. My city was transient, and passed quickly out of time and mind.

4

I know I promised only three, but I cannot restrain myself. The main question here, for me, separate from any lesson to you, is this: If all my people are gone, and my city dead and forgotten, why am I still here, writing about it?

There is a logic fallacy here, I suspect.