Scotland Before the Bomb
Page 20
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OPENING #43:
The hero set out on his adventure. Sadly, he was blocked in your country.
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OPENING #30:
The hero set out on his adventure. Hey there! If you’d like to read more of the hero’s adventure, become a premium subscriber. Please review our payment options.
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Not even literature makes waking up desirable.
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I take that back.
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The writer wants paid for her work. The reader doesn’t want to pay for books. The writer wants to be paid to keep writing her books. The reader doesn’t want tax money to be handed to writers in the form of grants and stipends.
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You desperately want to keep literature alive. Yet you refuse to pay full price for a novel, rarely attend literary events, and secretly believe that writers should write and hold down full-time occupations.
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I flung myself into reading and writing with insane, clawing passion. Over the years, my passion for literature has never soured. Before my cardiac arrest, I will utter the immortal words: fuck the philistines.
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The nagging, aching, excruciating reality of other writers writing.
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This book isn’t supposed to upset you, it’s supposed to comfort me.
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If this book upsets you, I take comfort from that.
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Woke up. Remembered I am still an overgrown child with no self-sufficiency. Back to bed.
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If you long to become a writer, and you read very little, then abandon your dream.
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If you’re a non-reader reading this nonbook: put this down, it isn’t for you.
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If I have ensnared you with the subtitle “nonbook”, in the hope you were seeking a read you didn’t have to read, then who is the loser among us?
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Writing without writing.
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Reading without reading.
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I remember you thinking I had written you into a story, and your annoyance when I insisted I hadn’t.
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This an epitaph for my ambition.
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You want to know more about my ex? You’ll kick the plot habit one day.
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An editor’s criticism of a novel I wrote aged nineteen: “tends towards the banal”.
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Literature should never be presented in gaudy, pastel covers.
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Those hours before a first kiss, that might be the best thing.
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Why can’t a writer’s nervous breakdown make for a fun-filled literary form?
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OPENING/CLOSING #4:
My literary construct says: “I want a name.” My literary construct’s name is Faeces Dungheap. “I hate that name,” he says. Faeces Dungheap leaps into his name. “This is revolting!” he cries. I kill him off.
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Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I don’t contradict myself.
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OPENING/CLOSING #98:
My literary construct wants something to do. “I am bored,” he says. I remind him I invented him one sentence ago. “And you still haven’t given me anything to do,” he whines. I launch him head first into a pile of steaming faeces. “That’s better,” he says. I kill him off.
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I used to think writing was a way to escape life’s painful insignificance. But when the books are published, read, received, reviewed, and several weeks later no one cares, back we go again to that void of you.
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What wit, man?
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I have plans for a trilogy of unwritten novels.
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Oh, the plans I have for unwritten novels!
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What is this?
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If have you reacted in any way to this, I can probably relax.
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Who are “you”?
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I prefer to read.
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The sad thing is, I can only do this once in my “career”.
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Is it better to release a perfectly sculpted novel in which you take no emotional risks, or release a raw, embarrassingly upfront document comprised of nothing but emotional risks?
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I think my face is falling off.
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to reality is completely unnecessary.
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I remember you left your blue cagoule in my cupboard.
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Q: Where do you get your ideas from?
A: What ideas?
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Q: How do you have the patience to write a novel?
A: I could punch you.
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If you marry me, I promise to never write about you.
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I can’t promise anything.
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Thanks for honouring your promise to read and review my book.
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I am talking to multiple people in this, but mainly myself.
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This is a nonbook about opening your word processor to a blank page and weeping for hours and hours and hours.
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I simply haven’t made the effort.
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What do I want from you?
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I said I would write until ten o’clock. It’s only 9.19.
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I remember you reading a few sentences of my story and severely wrinkling your brows.
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AN ENDING:
Perhaps all that remains of love, in the end, is a blue cagoule with the market value of £8.27.
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I deleted a better ending.
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No, what do you want from me?
[Excerpts from the “nonbook” of a failed novelist into which Glasgow & Renfrew had been absorbed, transmigrated into the mind of and transcribed by Dennis Pottix, circa 2034.]
“Appendix: The Isles”
[SEE ABOVE]
BARRA
Licked clean by Marie-Anne O’Duffy, September 2021.
CANNA, RÙM, EIGG
As of 2045, these had been acquired by the Russians to store mayonnaise.
COLL & TIREE
Turned into a landfill in 2034.
COLONSAY
Bought by Facebook to store historic status updates.
ISLAY
Islay had not been informed of any political change since the election of James Callahan in 1976. As a result, life there remained the same.
JURA
Towed to Iceland and claimed by that country in 2029, following a secret referendum.
LEWIS & HARRIS
Forgotten in the scheme of things.
LUING
It is still widely upheld that the Isle of Luing is a myth.
MARRAN
It is believed this isle was ruled by brutal tyrant nicknamed “Peppy Tim” who enslaved the populace and culled seven million sheep. By whom this believed is not known.
MULL
Acquired by Paul McCartney in 2020 for last date of the Wings reunion tour. The island was trashed by Keith Richards, following a wild aftershow party, and lapsed into disuse.
NORTH & SOUTH UIST
These items were found by holidaymakers in 2039: an electric kettle, a blood-stained bandage, two litres of kerosene, and a picture of Miley Cyrus. No other human life was found.
SCARBA
It is believed this man (page right) was venerated as a God here. The reasons, and the man, are unknown.
M.J. Nicholls is the author of The 1002nd Book to Read Before You Die, The House of Writers, The Quiddity of Delusion, and A Postmodern Belch. He lives in Glasgow.
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M J Nicholls, Scotland Before the Bomb