I will ask you to read my work. That's probably why I put this here, just so you'd know I was thinking of you when I wrote it. For you, I wish it was better. It's not, though, and our shortcomings, while disappointing, would be easier to manage if they were only ever ours to bear. This is not the case, though. If you don't read my work I'll become despondent and mean. If you do, I'll wish you hadn't. It's best that you trudge through it, suffer its failures, and make minor mention of it in casual conversation. Make no positive or negative assertions. Respond to queries on its quality with a gentle, "I'm still thinking it through. I can't decide how I feel." This will satisfy me.

As with everyone, I'm never satisfied. I couldn't be trusted if I were. That I am untrustworthy is the single trustworthy thing. Set your watch to it. Align the astrolabe and know any course to be true against which my nature is the fundamental constant. I will leave is what I mean, but before I do there will be honest moments--tender things no less valid in the coming light of my actions. You must take measures to understand in advance that what you understand to be real remains such despite the things to come. All that will have come is some new real, less real than this real now and that real back then, but only in the way that the writing in dreams is less real--it's only because we haven't got decent eyes for the task of reading.

Disregard everything I say. Know that I will do the same to you on your behalf.

Timestamp: 06.05.07 at 01:21 PM. Filed under: Fiction.