A magazine told me that
they want to publish one of my poems. This made me happy, but since I have to
provide them with a brief description of myself I am now wondering if this is a
chance for me to attempt some myth-making.
I could tell them that I'm
living in East Africa, where I'm a lion hunter. Do people hunt lions? Even if
they do, I'm not sure I want to join their number. Instead of being a hunter,
I'll be some kind of saviour (the sky's the limit after all). How to tell them
I'm adored while letting them know that I'm extremely humble?
I think instead I might
cast myself as a former soul singer who lost his voice in a carpentry accident.
Cut down in my prime, when the ink was still wet on my record contract, I've
taken to writing bitter doggerel and drinking back the tears as I recall how my
gruff vocals used to soar over the heads of the young and the old as they sat captivated in some smoky basement
bar.
I could hint at danger.
Perhaps I should include a picture of me wrestling an anaconda.
Thinking about all this lying makes me tired. Even if I could bring myself to invent some story about having escaped from the orphanage and
lived feral in the woods for a significant part of my childhood before being
rescued by a millionaire lion hunter, I'm not sure I'd have the motivation to
keep the lie going. It'd take a lot of work. Perhaps it would be best to keep
them guessing; this time a picture of me on a ranch with my followers, next
time some photoshopped pics of me, all ab-tastic, as I work on my kung fu
amid idyllic scenes.
No, I've lost
enthusiasm for the idea. I think I'll keep it simple and tell them how
simple old me leads a fairly simple life. I'll leave out the flashy stuff about
how I sometimes ride my bike really fast downhill or how one day I might try to
take some cooking lessons.
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