Two thousand words printed on paper, a story, a pair of characters – they all lie still on my desk, stapled and awaiting adoption. I scour the internet to give them a suitable home, a good publication that pays. I’m not asking for much money – just a little dough and a pub credit.

I spent one night earlier this week, drinking sangria and playing with my mind, inventing characters who are part me and part other people and all imagination. I gave them a setting, a scenario – “a guy and his lesbian friend walk into a strip club…” Then I let them roll around in the filth of my mind. When it’s done, I can’t decide a name for the piece nor am I really sure what it’s about – it’s just a scene. The man, he’s in love with the girl but the girl, who loves women but also loves him can’t follow through because he has a dick and she doesn’t want any of that.

I think of a friend who said that she once fell in love with a girl but considered herself straight. “You love who you love,” she said. She was with her girlfriend for a while and I admired that but this doesn’t come across in the story I wrote. The girl still says no but kisses him anyway because she loves him. I gave my poor character this wall because I know what it’s like but the wall also means something else. It means that we often don’t feel desperate enough to be truly free men and women.

These characters, who will go nameless, they’re free with themselves. They drink, they smoke, they do drugs, are promiscuous. they’re like the raging gremlins from the movie who destroy a sleepy little conservative town. I get the message. The gremlins are depraved and without conscience. I guess being an outsider inevitably comes with limitations – society will never accept you until you adhere to their rules regardless how inane those rules can be. It’s a social contract.

My imaginary boy and girl stand on opposite sides of the same issue. The dregs that they are can never conform to society just as their love can never be consummated. No one will ever see how special this story is to me and many will not get past the drugs and debauchery to understand the eventual colliosn that will occur between two people with real emotions…well, the characters aren’t really real.

The story sits on my desk and there is no place to sell it. Maybe Penthouse but it’s not pornographic enough. Not really pornographic at all. There’s only one home and that’s the Whiskey Dregs. How it will pay is the deep question but there is satisfaction in knowing that there is a home no matter how small the profit it may procure. The chance to push something I believe in with my own hands pays me plenty. It should anyway. Unfortunately, the landlord doesn’t accept passion as payment.

It’s easy to see that I’m playing God but really all I want to do is express a moment. If God really does exist, and I don’t know because I’ve never seen him, then maybe we’re an expression of his own creation. He’s published a whole universe with all of us in it, praying for a happy ending. Juxtapose my snuff story and what does that say about me? What does it say about God?

A writer said to me once – “Creative people need to do their own shit, and go where they need to go, regardless of market trends. It’s okay to be alone in your quest sometimes..”