“It starts with a beautiful sentence, something about how nothing remains the way it was made. The story is about change, literally. What we called fractional values back in my day. Little bits of metal, money, that grows wings and flies away. People rush like lemmings after it, right off a cliff.” After I finish speaking silence rules the table.

“Anything literary is too slow. And the plot sounds anachronistic.” Dismissal from the head honcho isn’t new to me, but I had thought, mistakenly (obviously), that I’d done a decent enough job of selling my pick this time. The story is a mountain sticking out of the usual slush usually submitted to me. It deserves to have me stick up for it more but when I go to do so the boss clears throat to talk and I stay shut up. “Whadda rest’ya got?”

Instant chaos around me as everyone talks over each other and I’m glad I’ve been here the longest because at least I’m shown the respect of being rejected first. ‘Smart stress ball that squishes back.’ A drug that sends people to an alternate plane of existence but it’s really the future and that -’ ‘A gorilla-run society because of an intelligence increasing hat-’

“Surprisingly…” Suggestions stop at the boss’ word, everyone paused, waiting for what’s next, “Derivative trash.” I think maybe this is my time to retry, but again, the man in charge keeps talking. “Been quiet, new guy. We don’t keep dead weight on staff at Systemic Fabrication,” He is careful to hit every syllable of the publication’s enunciation, “What’d you bring to the table?”
I don’t expect much from the rookie. The fool brought a single sheet of paper with them, probably a printout but it looks blank, and they look like an idiot sitting there gripping it; I’ve said that any selector worth their salt doesn’t need a physical copy as a reference, just never to them; now that I’m thinking about it, I’ve never even heard their voice.

Excited to do so for the first time I lean forward in my seat, anticipating some sort of high pitch wine suited to the effeminate body type; but instead of saying a word the rookie takes out one of the letter openers used to open the furnace submissions (paper is so much harder to scan than a screen, control-f and the scroll wheel are holy to me.) and –

“Enough with the pomp and circumstance, just tell me what’s been wrote-”

The rookie slides the dull blade across throat. We all see it; no one stops it. We watch the sheet of paper sop up the blood. They take the time, they somehow mananage to stand, straightface while they get soak both sides, but eventually they do collapse, crumble like a mine. The boss runs to their side, but rather than helping, picks up the paper. “Invisible ink.” He says, amazed, “The blood made the story appear and -” Eyes scan, jaw drops, “It’s what’s just been done.” Boss affords a quick smile to the corpse at his feet, “Brilliant meta commentary; this is the one we’ll run.”

That’s when I quit. The game had passed me by. Literature can’t be worth dying for…can it?

End

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