July 7th, 2025 - The Silence

Dear TNY,

Fuck “The Silence” and fuck you.

I made it through, word for word, the first paragraph.  Which I then compressed to see what I could do with it because it was so pointless and overwrought.  I got it down to one sentence.  And then I started scanning the rest of this story to see if I could find a receiver for the pass that I threw in the first paragraph.  But the original author, nor the editor, placed any receivers on the field so there is nothing in the story to arc to. The pass cannot be completed.  The story is a fucking trash donkey, which is an insult to donkeys.

I stayed up until two talking to a buddy.  It was great. Reminded me of what passion about writing was. But I’m dragging today. Still, it was great.

I leave this gig I’m on this evening and I will go camping for two days with my son.  Also great.

The insanely spicy chicken I ate the other day did not give me diarrhea.  Another bout of greatness.

Once I fell in love with a woman and I sculpted her, from memory; it was the most lifelike sculpture I’ve ever created and I tried to give it to her multiple times, the first being a flat out rejection, her saying that I should have it, this being after I lied to the whole party about her flight time so I could sneak her out early, at her request, and when I drove her over to my place she cried and told me that I should move to her city, to not sign a lease, that we could start a life together, but she was a liar about that it turns out, I think she mainly just wanted to see how much power she had over me, which, that power was a gift I gave to her, like the statue, just she wouldn’t take the statue but definitely took other, so I moved to her city and I had that statue on my windowsill and she still wouldn’t take it, often coming over and breaking things in my place or leaving messes, and finally I was able to locate enough self-worth that I said no, a big resounding no, and that sculpture got wrapped up in a dishcloth and didn’t resurface until I was in another important relationship, but that woman didn’t want the statue in the house with us, which, when held up against the fact that her dead boyfriend’s ashes were on display in our house behind a photo of him, seemed…odd, so the statue remained in the dishcloth in the back of a drawer in a $10 desk in my kids’ makeshift room and that relationship grew and then wilted on the vine, making way for another, which also went the way of the dodo, and soon I was leaving that house and going through everything and I found the statue and thought of many things I could do with it, mail it to her, leave it at her house, sell it, ask if she wanted it (again), or any manner of things, but what I chose was walking out to the porch and calling my sons over and unwrapping the cloth and I saying, “I made this, by hand,” and we all marveled at how accurate and lifelike it was, then I walked down the fourteen poorly laid concrete steps and threw the motherfucker in the trash, because that’s the only way to win in a scenario like that, you don’t let them know that you think about them, like fucking at all, and that’s what I should do with you, stop letting you waste my time with your bullshit stories, and stop trying to fix you when you so clearly want to be broken; I’ve written some dumb letters in this FTNY project, some funny shit, and some Art, all while trying to get your fucking attention, but you don’t want my statue, man, you just don’t fucking want it and if I was smart I’d start barking up the right tree, even though I don’t know which tree is the right tree, but I’m not smart so I’ll keep pissing in the wind and get mad when that piss is all over me and I’ll blame you, the wind, even though you have no idea what you’re doing to me or anyone, and maybe a couple of times a year with this project I’ll write something that glances at being profound, right here on these pages, can you imagine, and one person, probably the wizard of kindness, will see that statue and my whole life won’t have been for naught.  And that, that will be great too.

But probably not.

Nick

P.S. I just reread all three of these letters from the fiction issue, and I will continue to edit them for clarity so the intended meaning comes across a little better, but I will not remove the part where I look like a fucking loser. Like, I’m the pathetic one here. I’m the angry man shouting. I’m the asshole. No one cares what I have to say and maybe I should shut the fuck up because I’m sick of hearing my own voice. Hell, I haven’t written anything creative in quite a while either. I don’t really have much motivation for anything. Except drinking beer. What a loser. What a certified platinum fucking loser.