Strangely Naked

Something I realized after a few years of doing this is that I can’t find a publication that has any interest in publishing humorous (presumably) non-fiction. So what’s a person hell-bent on self-aggrandizement to do for validation? That’s when I got the idea to start stretching my writing legs and writing fiction. Hopefully it’s entertaining and I’ll try to keep it pithy, meaning the stories will be serialized. I hope you’re up for this. Also, be gentle, it’s a first draft.

To My Unborn Daughters Part I

To my unborn daughters,

This is why I won’t be there to see you born, to see you take your first steps, see you learn to love, help you through your heartbreaks, or pridefully watch you grow into women. It pains me that I won’t even know your name or see the miracle of your births and I curse myself for the failings that led me to the predicament that robs me of you and blesses you with my absence.

The beauty in that pain is that you won’t know the real me or have to deal with me. I thought about lying, leaving you with a tome of fanciful swashbuckling tales, a heroic folklore so you could be proud of your father. But you deserve to know the truth outside of the sensationalism of journalism and, hopefully, learn from my mistakes. Though I am your father, I’m afraid that is one of the very few mistakes I made that I don’t regret. As you have probably learned from your mother, I am–was not a good person. Though all of my actions and decisions were made out of necessity, they were no less predatory.

Your mother and whosoever she may have coupled with, may have imparted some apocryphal tales of my nefarious misdeeds (If either of you do not understand the vocabulary I choose, please, look up the words, I refuse to condescend to you through the diminution of my language. The more you learn and expand your vocabulary, the less people will be able to pray upon your ignorance and confusion.) but I assure you my natural talents were only used to relieve hoarders of resources of a modicum of their fortunes. My sins are–were infinitely mild than those exploiting political power for financial gains or corporate predatory powers. But I’m not here to pontificate on the evils of abusing capitalist structures, nor am I attempting to absolve myself.

Though your mother tried to convince me that I was providing a service, giving people comfort, it seems obvious as I take stock of my life that I was preying upon the grieving. You two created a justification for my heretofore reckless existence. When I learned about your existence, I felt the need to legitimize my practice, to have that one thing to point to that would justify–that would make you proud to have me as a father. Retrospect tortures me in my waning moments.

~End Part I

What will happen to our unreliable narrator? What’s his deal? What’s up with telling and not showing? Should I keep writing or just realize that this half-a-draft ought to be aborted? I don’t know, and I’m the one writing this silly thing. Thank you for reading.