While he slept he wrote. Page after page of manuscripts, tens of thousands of query letters, a legion of short stories. Until one day, a manuscript was picked up by one of the big New York houses. He jumped, he screamed, he yelled. His wife smiled, his daughter began to cry. He picked her up in his arms, and said, “Don’t be scared, I’m just excited.” She nodded, but was still scared. He didn’t notice though, his mind was in other places.

He learned new words in the emails and phone calls from the New York publisher. Words like, editor, editor in chief, copy edit, copy editor, publicist. Also, scary words, like edit, and deadline and publication date. The word contract was scary but good too, but his favorite of the new words was one that looked fat and green on the page. That word was, “advance” and even though it was a new word, he loved it most of all.

The editing went quickly, and he felt like it should have taken more time. He was a natural, apparently, and the time spent honing his craft was paying off. He got emails every day from different people at his publisher, and from his publicist. He read them all with bated breath, and no matter how often they popped into his inbox, it was never enough, there was a constant craving for more information, more words of assurance. More proof that he was to be published.

His book was released to much fanfare, and the movie deal that his publicist had hinted at was inked, with another advance, of course. The movie people said the same things that the reviews had said, they talked about, “preserving his vision” and how this was going, “to be huge.” After one of these phone calls his little girl asked him if he could read her a story. He didn’t hear her, he just stared into the impossible glowing void made by the screen of his laptop. Eventually, she stopped asking.

On the set of the movie he fucked two extras, the women had been throwing themselves at him, and why should he say no? He deserved this, that’s what everyone said, and he believed them. He stopped taking his wife’s calls. He was busy with the movie, and she had access to the bank account, so what could she possibly want? It didn’t take long with all of the new words around to start forgetting the old ones. First to go was family, next was wife, and last was daughter. He never even noticed.

He woke covered in sweat, it was pouring off of him in rivers. A voice called from the hallway, “Dad, I can’t sleep.” He looked at his wife, she hadn’t moved. He slid from the bed, the dream still pounding loudly in his head, a dull roar. “C’mon, get moving you,” he whispered to her, “back to bed, its late.”

“Will you tell me a story?” she said, “You tell the best stories.”

“Just a short one. Get tuckarooed, buckaroo.” He took a deep breath, ignored the lump in his throat, and said, “Once upon a time, there was a man who got everything he ever wanted, only to find out that what he really wanted, he’d had all along. He…”