Someday, I think, maybe someday I’ll write a memoir. It’ll be a story about a boy who grows up to be somebody, instead of just a theory of a person, an idea, an image, an assumption. They’ll know then, that I am real. The memoir (I’ll have to think of a decent title, and it’ll be hard not to go for something easy) will chronicle my life as I have lived it, and it will be interesting and funny and profound, and even if it isn’t any of those things, it will be a best-seller. There is no way that it could not be.
It will have fifty-seven chapters and five hundred pages, and never once will I mention what it’s like to be famous. The first sentence will be brilliant and insightful and quoted for years to come.
People will read it and think they know me, but they will be wrong.
Or maybe I won’t write one after all.
Instead, I’ll try my hand at fiction, or poetry, or songwriting, or painting, or drawing, or abstract-surrealist-avant-garde performance art.
Restlessly, I shift beneath the heavy layer of blankets. Next to me, Draco sleeps, his breathing deep and even. The curtains are open the slightest bit, and the candle on the night table is letting in dull, flickering light. Shadows flutter weakly over his skin, dusting him with gold and starlight.
One by one, I try out adjectives: beautiful, ethereal, angelic, perfect. None of them fit, or maybe all of them do; I’ve never been very good with words, anyway.
Draco stirs and awakens. The blanket slips down, baring one pale shoulder. “What?” he asks sleepily.
“I think you’re my muse,” I tell him seriously.
An incredulous look. “Go to sleep,” he says, and closes his eyes.
Maybe I’ll take up photography.
End
8/02