This is where the words go

This is where the words go. Close your eyes and try to forget the howling coyotes and the screaming whatever it was they were killing last night and how terrifying it all sounded way out there in the woods under all those cold cold stars and snowflakes, and when you open your eyes again there will be words here. That's how writing works. Ask any writer how writing works and I guarantee they'll tell you that's how it works. That's how Shakespeare wrote Hamlet and that's how Dante wrote Divine Comedy and that's how God wrote the Bible and if you don't believe me then you're going straight to hell. See? It worked. I've already forgotten what point I was trying to make but that doesn't matter because there are words here now. At this rate I'll have my novel published in no time and I'm sure Disney will have purchased the rights by next spring if war and pestilence and wild animals haven't done us all in by then. Of interesting note here is the fact that a part of me really wants that to happen, and another part of me really wants it to happen too. Is that funny, ambiguous, both, or neither? I sure can't tell but the thought of other people reading this paragraph and feeling confused gives me a deep sense of satisfaction. I'll never forget, when covid first crashlanded on our planet a couple springs ago two things immediately occurred—the world collectively lost its shit, and I completely lost all my symptoms of depression. There was something curiously fell about watching society flip out all around me and start panic-buying worthless resources that just really cheered me up. It's a bit twisted, but I know I wasn't the only one who experienced a drastically improved mental state in the face of a seemingly inescapable killer disease. So maybe I'm the one who's going to hell here? A part of me hopes so. I suppose I'll find out soon enough.

In the meantime, though, this is where the words go. If you pick enough of the right ones and put them all in the correct order here then people all around the world who you don't even know will click buttons that increase your personal wealth and online reputation. All you have to do is figure out how writing works. Now close your eyes and imagine a quick brown fox jumping over two lazy dogs. A key component of the picture is missing but you can't quite put a finger on it. The narrative is so scrambled it might as well be alphabet soup. You do a double take and realize that the two dogs are not so much lazy as they are dead, and an Austrian-Irish physicist holding an empty box is running down the road screaming with a pack of howling coyotes hot on his heels. Open your eyes. See? It worked.