Dear Reader
By Rachel Swirsky
Dear Reader,
I love you. A second ago, who knows how I might have felt? You and I, we could
be anyone: yin and yang fated to be the worst enemies. But all that stopped
mattering as soon as you picked up my story. Now I love you.
Everything I've done is in your service. See how I've fractured the long
sentences, toned down the extravagant imagery, spoon-fed you short and simple
clauses for easy, fun comprehension? If Character's life was getting boring, I
sprinkled in some explosions and a car chase, maybe a giant spider or two. While
the pyrotechnics fell, I snuck the theme into the corner of a paragraph where it
wouldn't feel preachy.
I left nothing in the subtext. Poor Reader, you might strain your tender muscles
if asked to peel away words to examine symbols underneath. So I killed all my
darlings. I snared the abstractions with my golden lariat and dragged them back
to the surface prose where I forced them to lie down with the cowering figures
of beaten exposition.
I avoided meta-fiction because it confuses you. And where I didn't avoid
meta-fiction, I wrote funny meta-fiction. When writing meta-fiction that wasn't
funny, I teased you and brought you into the fold, joking that I should get the
words "pretentious" and "self-indulgent" tattooed on my forehead, so you'd know
that I knew that you knew I shouldn't take myself too seriously.
O Reader, how I adored the thought of you on draft one when I could hear your
future laughter echoing after every witty line, and how I despised you by draft
six when I anticipated your confused, idiotic questions thumping between my
finely-crafted images. By draft nine, I feared your boredom. By draft 12, I
hoped you would never read this. By the time I packaged my fears into a square
mass of print and pulp, secured with paper or binder clip not staple, I no
longer knew what to think. But I know what I need from you:
Tell me you love my story.
It's all I want-- your fair part in this trade. Lavish affection on me with
critical essays and favorable reviews; clamber for first edition signed copies.
Remember our first heady moments together, back when my unopened cover retained
that delicious new book smell? I let you dog ear my pages, thrilled to the
teasing way you licked your forefinger before turning my pages. I arched my
spine into your hands until it broke. Don't take me for granted! Don't run off
with some big-name best-seller, smearing her ink stains all over your collar! Do
you have any idea how long I've slaved beneath a hot laptop for your fifteen
minutes of enjoyment? Remember my humble prose, my ironed-out paragraphs; brush
your eyes lovingly over my images, my themes, my action, my conclusions. Call me
daring, call me orthogonal, call me innovative, call me harrowing, complex,
unique, ambitious, meaningful. Don't pass my paragraphs with glazed eyes! Say
you love me before I have to start throwing interjections and ejaculations
around the page!
Dear Reader, I am calmer now. I'm sorry. You know I don't mean everything I say
when I'm upset. I don't need all that praise. Just a simple thank you now and
again will suffice.
Can I get you a coffee? A fable? A light inspirational parable? No, never mind.
I'll just stand here silently and adore you. Until you finish reading, and I
fall in love with someone else.
Rachel Swirsky doesn't have kids and the sight of guns
makes her slightly queasy, but she started out her non-fiction career writing
about children and paintball. Rachel's poetry has appeared in Flashquake, Abyss
& Apex, and Talking Back: Epistolary Fantasies, and her short fiction debut will
be appearing in issue #4 of Subterranean Magazine, edited by John Scalzi. She's
a graduate of Clarion West, 2005.
