The Emotional Support Aisle · 2 min read

He ghosted you.

Diagnosis

He is not dead. You checked. He posted a story at 2 p.m.

Treatment

The typing energy has to go somewhere, and it is not going to him. Redirect it. Buy the loudest mechanical keyboard sold to man and write four thousand words of a novel in which the antagonist has his exact haircut and a tragic, well-deserved arc. Every unsent text becomes a sentence. The clack is the catharsis.

Start with a hardback notebook for the passages that should never meet Wi-Fi. Give the villain one recognizable habit and three implausible weaknesses. Make him apologize in chapter twelve, then have the protagonist ignore the notification and go make lunch. Art is allowed to be petty as long as it has structure.

Set a timer for twenty minutes. When it rings, stretch your hands and drink water like a person with a thriving literary career. He gets nothing; you get a first draft and carpal-tunnel-adjacent closure. Blue-light glasses will not improve the plot, but they may help you look like someone who has a process. Save the document somewhere sensible and close the tab before you reread old messages for “research.” The villain has enough material already. Send a page to a friend who knows the backstory and can be trusted not to suggest you text him for an ending. Give the protagonist a better haircut.

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Side Effects

You may finish the novel. He may not recognize himself in the villain, which will be the most infuriating part.

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