The Published Writer

The noise of scrubbing the bathtub was drilling in his brain and the smell of the bathtub cleaner was making the headache behind his eyes even worse.

This morning, before leaving for work, his new girlfriend – the little red-headed daughter of the president chirped, “Hon, be a good boy. Please clean the bathtub.”

“Of course honey…Have a great day at work!” he remembered now replying. He suppressed an urge to vomit when he pooled her hair from the bathtub sink. 

She wasn't beautiful, she wasn't even “presentable”, as they say in these latitudes, but she was the grand-daughter president of the university where he was an assistant professor of creative writing.

When the bathtub finally looked…well, presentable, he washed thoroughly his hands while looking in the mirror.

His dark eyes, still alive and full of dreams, focused on his bushy hair of a young man that he was. He could now easily spot the first snow on the top of his head even without his glasses. “Thirty years on the planet… Twenty back home, ten in America”, he was thinking. “Still “the American dream” is far, far from reach.”

Sure – his first book was now a fact and it was now translated in 10 different languages. Still if it wasn't for that almost-a-joke on-line submission for that competition on the other side of the ocean, his manuscripts would have still been collecting dust on some big-ass publisher’s assistant desk here in the States.

But now, everything has changed. “I am signing my own book.” He was thinking, “People know me here and also back home.”

But things didn't really change. Did they? I was decided that the book will be selling for US $14 and the total print number was… well, presentable. But when the publisher, the agent and all the rest of the monkeys on the branch are factored in…

His bitterness wasn't young as he was. It was 1331 years old – like the country he came from ten years ago. “For $14 you get 240 dense pages or roughly 69,000 words. That’s 4,929 words for every dollar; a penny for every 50 words…”, “4.8 oz. 136 grams. 6 years of my life spent writing. For $14?”  

“Well, at least this is a good start, a possibility, a resume buster if nothing else. Also, I would love to see the face of Preacher when I hand him a signed copy of my book.”

“The preacher”… This was how he was calling his girlfriend’s grandpa - the church leader, turned University President. Or was it vice versa? In person of course he was calling him “Sir”. After all he was the president of the University with the presentable ranking number 574 where he was teaching the gun loving, bible reading youth how to write creatively in their own - mother tong language.

He closed the door of the tiny bathroom, now smelling offensively, behind his back and sat down behind his Mac. It was early morning and the huge, heavy Texan sun was already trying to burn this land full with sin as it was full with churches and pastors. He turned the power on and while waiting for his computer to boot, he directed his mind eye to the place now dark and cold.

In the place where he came from now was night and a freezing one too, as he learned from the on-line newspapers earlier this morning. It was the past of that place and his past too was where he was looking. 

He closed his eyes and quieted his mind, waiting for inspiration to come.