by Michael Avila

Created on: May 07, 2008

-You need more description, boy! Description, description, description! It's like location to real estate-there's no there there without it.

-But I always felt the reader could supply his own description-the visualization of the mind's eye...more powerful, don't you think?

-No, boy! I tell you, you must draw it out for him, or he's lost, and he tosses your story in the toilet.

-I don't think we give the reader enough credit...

-Well, then, answer me this: Do you want to be paid? (I nod weakly.) Then describe, describe, describe...

I suppressed a momentary urge to describe my knuckles across his nose and agreed to his demands. The word "paid" has a way of weakening my resolve, anyway. It's like being hit in the kneecaps-I usually buckle over without much of a fight. If only I didn't have to pay the mortgage, or my ex-wife. If only I could live on the air I breathe and nothing else. A good idea for a story, maybe? A planet whose air is nourishing enough to feed its people? A world where artist's pursue their heart's desires and not their creditors? Maybe not.

Still, I need the green, and this guy's the only one willing to pay me; provided I do it his way, and now. With renewed energy, I run the ten blocks home without stopping for air. I'm about to put pen to paper when I remember I had driven my car to his office. Oh well, I'll pick it up tonight. If they tow it, at least it will be in a safe place.

I begin my story:

Orpheus, after another longish day at work (how many more can he possibly stomach?) sits down at his piano (his loyal dog Oscar wrapped in a furry ball next to him) and begins playing Chopin's "Polonaise". As always, he pretends he is on Carnegie's stage in front of a rapt audience. He is a bar or so into the piece when a slight but persistent distraction threatens to jar his otherwise unjarrable concentration. Because he has already started the "performance", he knows there can be no stopping now and continues on with the score, hoping that the annoyance will run its course.

It does not.

What is this annoyance that threatens to mar an otherwise perfectly played Polonaise? (See description to follow.)

-[Author's note: To those who may be reading the story of my story, I decided to insert the insert to bring attention to the description of the irritation that would follow. The publisher, who as previously noted is a bit of a description freakazoid, agreed with me on this point and left the insert in the original story.]-

No thicker than a thread and

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