=Story of the Day=

A Story I Don’t Remember Writing

If it’s your birthday in the forest and no one is around to hear it, are you any older? That’s what I asked myself, sitting, desk-bound, fiddling around with a Beretta 9000S, the same gun I used to kill myself six years before.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a herd of deer materialized from behind the couch I had back in those days and, each one hesitating where it must inevitably cross my path, accelerated, one by one, towards the kitchen. They were blue with fearful black eyes, huge as teacup saucers, and I knew immediately, “They can read my mind.” They ran off like a strip of autobiographical film I’ll never see.

There’s an envelope on the floor. It is stained with overlapping footprints, as if it’s been lying there, unnoticed, for a very long time. I walk over and pick it up, and think, “How old am I?” Inside the envelope, I feel certain, is a clue.

I sniff: it smells like hair.

And ham.

I go to bed, fall asleep, awakened by the sound of a horrendous car crash: shriek of tires, groan of compressed steel, the wobbling laughter of a hubcap trying to escape the scene.

I wait for sirens.

Nothing.

There’s a smattering of applause. 

If this is your story, please let me know. I found it among my papers. I’ll return it as soon as possible.