I'm ready.

I'm ready.

I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.

Writing used to mean something material you could feel. You could feel the scrawling of the ink on the paper as the auteur pulled the words from the ether through their brain to their hands and where the ink spills out in lines and curves and hack marks. It was things.

You can type furiously too. Jam a typewriter because QWERTY has nothing on you. Type in a flow state till the keys on your keyboard pop off. Things smashed.

But copy-paste is absolutely manic.

I'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm readyI'm.

Or voice-to-text. Just send the voice note at that point.

One of my friends came by last night. Some names and details have been changed to protect privacy. ReadyI'm is a good name. He's always ready, even if it's not always clear what for it is that he's actually ready.

I guess he hadn't seen me in a while. I hadn't thought of him in a while, and then I did yesterday morning. Sometimes I think I can telephone people telepathically. It feels that way. But maybe I'd been thinking of a different friend that morning.

Anyway, he came by. He said he wanted to check on me. I don't socialize like I used to, but who does?

It went like this: what he wanted to check on was, first, the content of my fridge (mostly empty but he found something that had only just expired that he could eat), second, my liquor cabinet (the shelf in the kitchen where I keep the alcohol, better stocked than the fridge), and third, my job. Sometimes it felt like my friends weren’t sure if I could hang on to it. It wasn’t that difficult, I’m still not sure exactly what I do, but no one really talks to me and when they do they seem satisfied. ReadyI’m didn’t ask for money.

I told him to tell me a story. He had about a dozen books he always said he was going to write but it seemed like all he had was the titles. They were big ideas, which he liked. He went to one of the Boston schools. He’s an amalgamation.

Most of his stories, he was a main character type even when the situation didn’t call for it, most of his stories revolved around him.

Somebody had tried to kill him. Threw a metal chair at him at the park. It missed by several feet but sparks flew. Had I heard about it?

-Who?

-Kairos.

I knew he didn’t like him. (I love English)

-Man, I said. Leave it alone.

Of course ReadyI’m never left things alone. Otherwise he wouldn’t be worth amalgamating into someone worth telling you about. It takes work to keep yourself a main character. Everyone’s in the potential cast of supporting characters.

If nobody knew me, I could just be. Let me be free. I don’t want to be a main character or a supporting one. I just want to be. There’s no such thing. People make things interesting.

You have to have some drama in your life. Another friend told me that, Seg. We wouldn’t amalgamate him into this one.

But you can’t direct all the drama. Not even in a one-man show.

I don’t know for sure if anybody knows me, or even whether I do. How would I be able to tell? How would anyone?

What’s me is what’s left when you cancel out the world. What’s you is what’s left when I cancel it out. We’re all what what is of us when the world is through with it. Maybe that’s nothing.

-He’s not trying to kill you, I told him.

Mostly you have to let people direct and wallow in their own drama. There’s no use giving notes or reviews. All the world’s the stage. You can have your plots, your plot twists, your characters and even your settings. It feels like you’re using the world but it’s still using you.

-He’s not trying to kill you. But if you’re telling everyone he is.

Careful what you’re ready for, it could come true. It’s not manifesting, or, you know, it would work on pleasant things.

Every drama is a comedy, from the right perspective.

-I’m gonna kill him first, he said.

-You won’t, I said, grabbing the bottle from him to take a swig. Is that why you haven’t been around?

-I’ve been around. You haven’t. Holed up in here when you’re not holed up at work.

Sometimes I think my friends preferred when I was unemployed. I probably did. You don’t cherish the free time until you lose it. Until it’s precious.

-Why’d he throw the chair at you?

-Because he’s crazy.

-Is he?

Just a little push back. Who among us?

-Did you do something?

-No.

-So you said something.

-Not to him!

The chair might not have missed.

-I was on the phone with Skull.

Sometimes I had no idea who these friends my friends had that they were getting involved with. Acquaintances.

-I just told him who was at the park.

-Somebody named Skull?

-Yeah, you know Skull, ReadyI’m said, starting to describe him.

-Man I don’t mess with anyone with a name like that. Don’t ever tell him where I’m at either.

I knew a guy named Filfth once. Real stand-up dude, but nobody liked him.

Sometimes life’s a drama, sometimes it’s a comedy.

But somewhere in there it’s pretty much always a horror.