Dedicated to tough heroes and webwriters

Tough Choice

"A man..." I started.

"A man?!" bursted out SShmurr in excitement. "Your story is going to be about a man? How unusual!"

All his eyes were brimming with purple light, some of them turning happy red.

"Er... It's not such a big deal. Half of our planet's population are men,"

Me, being a proud soul, wouldn't accept praises undeserved. SShmurr dimmed and plopped his whiskered head on my paper in disappointment, an easy-to-do motion with him occupying leisurely my whole desk.

"Then, what would the other half be?" he asked, obviously just being nice, bearing little expectation for such a shithole.

"Those are actually women."

I knew he wouldn't like the situation. It was even worse than he'd thought.

"You are saying some of you are men and others are wo-men, which is very much the same as I see it. Don't take it to heart, I'm just summarizing."

Looking at devastated Sshmurr I didn't have the nerve to tell him we can't even levitate and radiate multicolored rays.

(Sshmurr, murmurs gloomily:) - Why would you do such a thing? Why would you write about somebody so boring?.. Why wouldn't you write a story about somebody magnificent like... me instead?

(Me:) - You? What are you by the way?

Sshmurr rolled on my desk playfully making mobile chargers, pens and spectacles fall down like spring rain on the floor with melodious thumps and clinging.

(Sshmurr, coquettishly:) - What do you think?

(Me, sincerely:) - Hm. A hallucination?

You can definitely recognize a bad answer when your cellular hits the ground and acquires a granny-willow-from-Pocahontas-looking crack across the screen. For Sshmurr, unhappy is very much the same as evil.

(Sshmurr, unhappy:) - F-f-f-f! A muse! I'm a muse! Can't you tell?!

Despite Sshmurr's gorgeous blue-and-orange-and-octarine fur and his iguana-like snout, for some short time I couldn't, but seeing my 10' PocketBook crawl towards the edge to join the cellular, in an instance, could.

(Sshmurr, scornfully:) - Writers! (keeps sulking) ...pathetic... writes about men... doesn’t write about magnificent ones…

(Me:) - You see, it's not about who, it's about tough choices, despair and sacrifice, life and death problems. Important stuff, you know.

"And then what?" my muse asked without excessive interest. "Are you going to walk barefooted but hopeful from town to town telling your story at markets and pubs? Will anybody listen and pay?"

(Me:) - ... Mda...

(Me:) - That's not how we do it here. I will publish it on a website among thousands of other novels, where nobody will read it, and start writing the next part. Meanwhile I'll waste a tremendous amount of time promoting my publications at social nets and conferences where no one gives a damn. To say nothing of writers' communities where millions of graphomaniacs gather in forlorn hope to make other graphomaniacs read their opuses.

Babam! That was Sshmurr, shock-stricken, having followed the cellphone all the way down to the floor.

"What the f-f-f-f?!" he asked in disbelief without even paying attention to his suddenly shifted vertical position.

(Me, afraid and startled:) - Have you hurt...

Sshmurr was struggling to get his elegant and yet well-fed body back on the desktop using the unlucky drawers as stairs and the floor - as a renewable starting point. Now my desk was harmonious fengshui: a mess inside as much as outside.

(Me:) - Have you... (looking around to esteem the damage) I feel like I hope you have... Oh, anyways. My character dies in the end, you know, sacrifice and all, so most likely those teenagers and housewives wouldn’t really care...

"Why would you..." - started Sshmurr again but interrupted himself and took my face in his two first paws.

(Sshmurr:) - You know what? You and your character, that boring man... I really sense big problems, sister. Dunna know about life and death, more like the head and brain...

He took some time to find good words for me.

(Sshmurr, cordially:) - Do not write anything... ever again.

(Me:) - ?..

(Sshmurr:) - Better... rub my belly!

(Sshmurr:) - ... and keep drinking from that bottle for me to never disappear.

Now, that was a tough choice indeed: to continue as a web-writer exploring life and death problems in my masterpieces or to rub Sshmurr's belly. Still, there remained one unsolved matter.

(Me:) - But who will praise me for being a good writer in the comments? At least once a year?

(Sshmurr, already on his back, readily:) - You are a good writer!.. Purrr... Yeah, so good... a bit lower, please.

(Me:) - Say that again.

(Sshmurr, happy and relaxed:) - Next year.

THE END