Dear Kira

Dear Kira,

It was Sicily, 1912…

No, it’s far less dramatic than that. It was Wichita Kansas, 2012. Or maybe 2011, time is a social construct.

I may age myself a bit with this statement, but I was in high school and had very little of my own money and I had heard at the last minute that my favorite author, Chuck Palahniuk was going to be in town at the local college.

Now, I should tell you that his books were the only ones that I had read in recent times that did not send me into a complete and total mental breakdown, dissociation and all. I was really into the Ellen Hopkins books that year and they broke me in all new ways.

So anyway, I had started reading Chuck Palahniuk’s books and the way they covered atrocities of the human condition with a satirical lens was just what I needed. So I snuck out of the house and snuck into his book tour.

I clung to the back wall, completely terrified that security was going to bust me, but they never did. When Palahniuk came out from behind the curtain donned in a robe, slippers, and an ascot that really pulled the entire look together, I was instantly amazed.

I listened to him speak with bated breath and hung on his every word, storing them in the back of my brain for a later time when I too would start writing (Those words would begin to collect dust). When he was finished and people began to line up to get their books signed, I crept behind the people who had actually paid for their tickets, my copy of Haunted holding onto my shaking hands for dear life.

When it was my turn, I thrust my book out towards him and he smiled at me.

“What did you think of the show?” He asked.

“I loved it, but I have to tell you, I snuck in.”

He got a kick out of that, which I did not expect, but I thought it was the coolest thing ever. He signed my book and told me to wait as he went backstage. He came back out a few seconds later with a letter that I still have to this day.

He really changed the view that I had on adults at the time, and I knew that whatever I did with my life, I would want to be as cool as he was about someone breaking the rules just to experience something that they might not ever have the chance to otherwise.

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Image: Unsplash -Annie Gavin

This piece was written for day 4 of the Halls of Pandemonium challenge put on by Bradley Ramsey.

You can enter your own here: