Memo from Corporate:

Greetings employees. As you may or may not know, writing is a genuine passion of mine, and something I look forward to having as a career -dare we say it- someday.

Most of you who have not slept through an English course will know that famous authors such as Mark Twain and Charles Dickens tried their hands at short stories. In fact, in the case of Mark Twain, began their writing career with these short stories.

You can, dear employees, imagine how I felt when I came across this writing contest for 17 Magazine. It is a short story contest. The coincidences here seemed too pronounced to ignore. I have since spent a month or so trying to find a topic on which to compose this [hopefully] soon-to-be-award-winning short story.

To the dismay of many, my subject smacked into me like a loopy pigeon yesterday as I walked to Institute. I constructed most of it in a text message draft as I crossed campus, and finished the rest that evening. The subject matter of this short story is quite unlike anything I've ever written. (Though if you read the previous post, you may be on the right track.)

I beseech you to take the time and assist me to greatness. The steps are easy, as follows:

1. Go to www.figment.com (Sorry if it's not hyperlinked. I still have absolutely no idea how that's done. But as an employee from Corperate, I am not about to openly admit this flaw. Read step 1 again omitting the parenthetical note.)

2. Create a Figment account. (It is very easy, and if you already have a Figment account, please, go on to step 3.)

3. Find my Figment page: http://figment.com/users?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search%5Bname_contains%5D=erica+farnes&x=0&y=0
(If this again fails to be hyperlinked, simply click "people" in the search bar in the upper right hand corner and type my name. I'm the only person who comes up. But it's my full name... So for those who aren't my facebook friends, search under Writings for "What I can't have". I also am the only result for that.)

4. Read my short story "What I Can't Have."

4 1/2. Attempt not to judge me for the subject matter.

5. Click the box that says "heart." (As You can see below I have attached a nice screen shot of what you will be looking at, the important part for step 5 being circled in purple.)



6. Tell all of your friends that won't be offended by my subject matter to follow the steps you just completed.

I hope you noticed, dear employees, that my short story takes approximately 2 minutes to read. That plus the time for the other steps is less than eight minutes, I would wager.

Thank you for your dedication and assistance. And if your assistance is not dedicated, do not fret. You have until January 30th. Congratulate yourself on this good deed. And get back to work or we'll start cutting hours again.

Sincerely,

Erica from Corporate

*to any Figment people that might read this and think I'm breaking the "entrants may not pay people...in exchange for votes" rule: I am not really the boss of these blog followers. I just thought it would be right funny if, instead of pathetically begging them to help me, I made it seem like I was a brute-headed Corperate employee sending another brute-headed Corperate memo.

See how witty I am? You can heart my short story, if you want. The steps are in the memo above.

It takes no time to fall in love, but...

I'll never forget the moment he started meaning something to me: the moment we met. The moment I realized his cute, matured face was the most perfect of its kind. The moment he spoke, the moment he smiled, the confidence with which he held himself. The way I wasn't bothered that he wasn't miraculously toned. His tight pants. His charisma. His eyes.

I could feel how easily we could be something -or more than something. I knew if he would realize it and act, that nothing would keep us from breaking the bonds of solitude and becoming one together. I loved him, coffee cup aside. If ever a girl had such an immediate, over-whelming, all encompassing crush, it surely was secondary to the emotion brewing in me. Surely none loved more than I him.

I will never forget the comfort he instilled with mere eye contact; I'll never forget how his presence infused confidence in myself and allowed me to be true to who I am.

I'll never forget that he loved Jason Mraz, or the way he smiled when I told a room full of harsh eyes that Mraz is my favorite. I'll never forget that he studied at the same performance school as Mraz did for a year. I'll never forget that finally, someone so perfect had such a connection to my heart.

I'll never forget the way the word blazed as I scrolled down his page. Interested in:

Men.

20 Years of Snow

If this was paper the window glass would be rippled, and a waded pile of my mistakes would court the floor.

My ink flask would be nearly empty enough that my quill wouldn't reach, and the candle wick would wait patiently to be lit, as night is drawing fast.

I would push my wood chair back across the wood floor and would walk to the stone hearth.

The fire is dying, I kneel to kindle it, realizing now I'm distanced from the futility of writing that my fingers are stiff and still as boards. I flex them near the fire, shifting my rear to the floor, and forget all but warmth and soft smoke.

If I slept for twenty years would I remember any sorrow? Would the pile of mistakes still lump around?

I look in the corner, where the faded sun still lights on the desk, one final, timid paper peering back.

Would they matter, these crumpled notes of one line or less, would they make all the difference in twenty years?

I suddenly am impressed that in this instant I'm alone enough to have slept for twenty years. I'm as solitary as Rip upon awaking in the woods.

Why did he leave the mountain? Why did he force himself to find existence, to learn his wife was dead, to be heralded by the town?

I come to my feet and pace to the stairway, the room mirroring the place I imagined the black orphan servant girl to labor.

I wish I could go to the elementary school and scan the books until I've come across every novel I ever read in my years imprisoned there. I wish I could find the covers I've never forgotten and refresh the crafted titles.

This isn't paper,the glass isn't rippled,and my mistakes are erased as easily as the wind.

But I still court the lack of ability to write a narrative, a poem, a sentence or two, without sighing and backing it away.

I think I could write better in a solitary cabin, the sun dropping from my rippled window's sight. I'd have to learn better penmanship for the ink to prove well, but the fire would keep my eyes right.

I would write better if I'd slept for twenty years, alone and untethered and free. I'd have trees to walk through and snow to observe. I could live for twenty years with writing.

But I wake up each day in the same place, no mystery men with whom to bowl. I'll never be enchanted or abandoned enough to find solace in more than my mind. Literally, Rip van Winkle is pathetic proposition.

Mentally, I'm sleeping for twenty years now.