The 9th of October, the 2021st year

Before I give you the ravings of this first-class coward’s heart, we must first understand what I mean by “first class”.

This is not to say that I am a rich coward, nor is it to say I am a classy coward. It is only to say that I, through and through, am a coward. I may be a son, a brother, a student, a millennial, or even a lost soul… but before all of this, I am, first and foremost, a coward.

Now, you and I must come to an important understanding. I may be giving you a chance to hear my ravings right now, but this should not, under any circumstances, lead you to the false assumption that there will be another journal entry beyond this wretched 9th of October.

This may be the first and last you hear of me. I am, for all intents and purposes, one who dearly wishes to be heard, yet greatly regrets it every time it occurs, and therefore greatly fears that it should ever happen.

Therefore, it is only natural that this humble beginning may come to a very quick and vicious end.

What does this mean to you?

It can mean an assortment of things. It could mean that you should read these words while they last. Or it may mean that you will have never received my words at all. Or it can mean nothing at all. These are supposed to be ravings after all!

So what do I want from you, dear reader?

I can’t say I am really sure. Solace? Pity? Understanding? Disgust? Secondhand embarrassment?

I don’t know.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

What do I want?

I want to write a story, though it is most certainly not this one.

But then why am I wasting your precious time?

This is a fair question.

On the one hand, I sit here, writing the prologue to my imminent ravings, energy arguably better spent discovering new worlds, finding new heroes and villains, and bearing witness to their inevitable clashes and downfalls… all this so that I may perhaps pass along the wondrous story to you. On the other hand, here you sit with me, bearing the patience required to listen to the ravings of a coward, and are therefore implicated as my accomplice in this crime of wasting the greatest, most precious resource of all: time.

And now that I’ve shown you that we are both at fault, therefore saving me from shouldering all the responsibility on my own, I suppose it is about time I got on to my ravings, isn’t it? About what it means to live day to day as a coward. Fearing your own figurative shadow, trembling in the wake of the sharp-eyed giants that stomp all around you, crawling from one social interaction to the next with great trepidation.

Yet something holds me back… some sort of hesitation… some sort of… cowardice.

Ah! But this is the great misfortune of this whole venture! The unavoidable paradox I alluded to earlier.

How is a coward to rave to the world if he is afraid to do so?

How can I write that which I fear you will read?

I don’t know.

I’ve stared at the blank page of this prologue before me a thousand times for the past few years, and of those times, only a hundred saw words written across the page.

Of the hundred times words flew across the page, only ten reached the prologue’s final sentence.

And of the ten finished prologues, only one survived the jaws of deletion.

And now a question remains.

Will this piece of writing, the one in a thousand, see the light of your gaze?

Will I throw this small glimpse of my heart out into the unknown, where it may either be lifted towards the heavens or dashed against the stones?

If you happen to be reading this, I suppose it means I went through with the deed.

If you see it was posted some days passed, it most likely means that I survived the fall.

And, above all else, if you see a continuation passed this 9th of October, it likely means that I have finally come to believe that you are not the merciless monster of the dark I always feared you to be, but simply a traveler stopping by, hoping to hear a decent story.

Let us hope that in a life stock full of cowardice, at least this one act of boldness can pass from me.

Until you hear from me again,

Your first-class coward,

T.