'I think I have come up with the idea for my book.'
'Uh huh.'
'It would be about me. About my struggle to be a paperback writer.'
'Who wants to know about you? Or about your struggle?'
'Why not?'
'For one, you part your hair from middle.'
'That suits me, I have a long bony face. It's the Italian way.'
'Another reason why nobody would want to know about you.'
The night was still young when Jay put the first draft of his suicide note on my study desk. He hovered over me for a while, expecting some sort of reaction from me, but pulled a chair as I got down to underlining some petty spelling and grammatical blunders.
'Last impression has to be the lasting impression', I told him as he watched me with anxiety.
He had been on the first draft for about a month by then, unable to find a reason that won't make his wailing parents, on reading his final words, go- what the fuck! And finally, that evening he saw an old man missing a step, landing on the elbow on the pavement, and then tumbling on to the road a foot below. And that was why Jay was committing suicide, the note said, making the accident sound like his moment of his self-discovery and all.
'How about founding a religion instead?', I made a casual side note in red ink.
Jay and I had been together for sixteen hours a day for three years by then. Friendship was too strange a word for the relationship that we shared. For one, we hated each other. But then we hated the world even more, which made us stick together like nothing else.
'Enough of that', Jay snatched my pen and then his note hastily. And to avoid further buffoonery at his cost, he added- 'what were you saying about the book about you and your struggle?'
'Forget that. Tell me about the old man. Is he dead or what? Or did you make that up?'
Jay didn't say anything but kicked the bucket on his way out. Later that night, on my way to toilet, I found a note from him on the door latch. It read- 'Hospital. 10 o'clock.'
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Chapter 1: http://www.wattpad.com/216295-Paperback-Writer-Chapter-1
