I never suffer complete failure. My life is assaulted, flash-mobbed, by tiny little mishaps and accidents. I was going to say that I suffer irony. And I suppose I still said it. But that’s not exactly right. I enjoy irony rather than suffer it, the awareness of it, anyway; but what I mean is that Karma or God or the Great Mystical Turtle has a mean ironic streak, and it’s that streak that I often suffer. God speaks plainly to others perhaps – who can say – but I can hardly make out a word he says, what for his tongue firmly planted in his rapscallion cheek.

While manufacturing these ironies, and being so accustomed to them, it occurs to me that I might be spoiling the end of this.

A man, a faraway man, or perhaps a woman, because he – I will continue to call him he – never reveals himself. A man, a faraway man, approaches me. He offers me $10,000 to reveal myself publicly, to stop SnappedShots, to buy my camera, to return to my discarded social life, and to give up this space. There are enough clues in his curious communications that he is fascinated with me, that he is troubled by me, and that he is, it seems, a little irritated with me. It’s the confluence of all of these, and perhaps more things than I understand, that provokes his offer. I accept his offer. I take a picture of myself, my face in the sun, full frontal, and post it here. The next day I sell the domain name. The day after that I receive by delivery a money order for $10,000. There is no postmark. There is no name on the money order. It’s made out to Cash. Revealed, I am useless and done for. A month later, in a voice much like my former one, SnappedShots returns. He writes just like me. He takes pictures of his habitat. He has killed me – or rather paid me to commit suicide – to become me.

Or:

I announce two months from now that I have successfully quit smoking. On April 29, I go out and buy my camera. It’s fantastic holding it in my hands. I stand in a crowd and aim the camera firmly at me and take the shot. I rush home, out of the thrumming crowds, away from the public trains filled with the sounds and the smells of too many people. And post my picture. The next day I go to the doctor, after missing that sort of thing for a year. I find out, after quitting SnappedShots and quitting smoking at last, that I have cancer. No. I have spoiled nothing here. I never suffer complete failure. I already said that. Cancer is not a tiny little accident. Still, I have heard this story so many times. A committed smoker quits and then finds out it’s all too late. He has cancer.

Or:

In March, a gallery approaches me and says they want to give me a show. Featuring my writing and my photographs. It’s not a fantastically reputable gallery, but still I’m thrilled. It seems like a perfect ending. I’m not even excited about the possibility of money or fleeting fame. I’m only happy that I feel validated. The only catch: I have to speak. I write reasonably well but I’m a nervous speaker; and after nearly a year of hiding, of adopting a fake agoraphobia, I learn agoraphobia has adopted me as well and while I might have the strength and the force of conviction to head out to the show, I give up and return to my cavernous hiding place and miss it.

Or:

[Forgive me, Alex.] I have decided, at the end of things, that I’m really quite fond of Alex_72 and that I might, after all, be ready to trust and to give myself. And when this is over, I decide that I’m ready to face that fear, and that hope; but when I give up SnappedShots, when I finally make myself available, I am no longer safe. And she loses interest. She assures me still that this is not the case. And really we are just having a bit of fun.

Or:

Mysteriously, inexplicably, rather than leaving me off because I’m suddenly available and vulnerable, I discover that Alex is and was always my sweet jellybean.

Or:

I get an email from Ellen’s people. It turns out they’re very curious about SnappedShots but they have realized the intrinsic problem. I would have to give up my sit-in, if only temporarily, to come see Ellen. And they don’t want to be responsible for interrupting and confounding my sit-in. They have thought about inviting me after I give up the project; but by then it will be history and everybody knows history doesn’t sell. So they thank me most cordially for my perpetual interest and wish me luck in my endeavors.

Or:

I get an art show exhibit, an appearance on Ellen, the money to buy a new camera, a book contract with Insomnia Press, all to happen the week after I finish and on May 4, a Wednesday, I go out to celebrate. I stumble out into the night, Thursday morning, Wednesday night and get shot in the back. I’ve always thought – and I’ve said here – I’d die by getting shot in the back. It should happen when I have the promise but not the delivery of success. I’m suitably grieved but, against my wishes, I’m buried. Here lies Silas. Silas lies here. Silas hears lies. Hear Silas lie. At a deceptive yacht club: Sails here lie. On a conspirator’s boat: Sails hear lies. Hear lass sighs. Here lasses sigh.

Or:

As I said on my first day, I am always missing my LuckyBreak. On April 30, I finish. And since it’s the first day of disappearance that counts, it will be May 1 that my LuckyBreak will come by looking for me. And I won’t be there. I will be going to the doctor, or playing with my new camera, or going for a walk without Murphy, or taking Murph to the vets, or getting my teeth cleaned; but wherever my LuckyBreak looks for me on that day, I will be elsewhere.

SS