There is no story. 

If you’re still here after reading that, stop wasting your time. There’s nothing here for you. 

You’re looking for entertainment, I’m sure. A quick, 5-minute read that’ll inspire you for all of fifteen minutes before you forget all about it and continue on your day. Maybe if it’s an especially heart-wrenching tale, it’ll stick with you for a week. Maybe a month. Who knows? 

You won’t find it here. 

Something tells me you’re still reading, though. 

Fine. 

Let me tell you why there’s no story. 

It’s the eleventh hour of the night, and I’m sat at my desk, pen in hand, and a blank sheet of paper at the ready. Words flow through my head like fish down a river. Sometimes, it’s just a few fish – an idea, a concept. A character, perhaps, or a relationship that needs exploring. Sometimes, it’s schools of fish, packed so tightly together that you can’t tell where one ends and another begins. Tales of bravery, of loss and regret, stories of heroes and villains, men against society, murder, mystery and intrigue. 

They go by so quickly, so eager to reach the ocean at the river’s end, to be lost at sea forever, that I can’t seem to catch even one. 

Not tonight, at least. 

Perhaps I’ve gotten slow? Or perhaps I’ve just caught all the fish before, and they’ve learned how to evade me. Maybe my tools just aren’t good enough, and I need to adapt. Isn’t that what kids are doing these days? Using those new, shiny fishing lines and nets that do the work for you at ten times the speed that you could do it yourself? 

Sorry. I’m rambling again. 

I’ll try not to do that so much. Wasting your time, I mean. 

I feel bad that you’re staying here, listening to me. There are plenty of stories out there, waiting to be read, and you’re just… Here. Not a story to be found. 

I promise, I’ll make it up to you. Tomorrow, I’ll write a story. A real one; a proper one. You spent so much time here, entertaining my ridiculous speech about fish and stories, it’s only right that I pay you back with the one thing you were looking for, before you stumbled across this… This… 

Story. 

Ah, you’ve tricked me. 

I see now. 

You knew that you could get me to write you a story, if you only remained attentive, interested. If you invested yourself into my words, I’d craft a story for you, whether I was trying to or not. 

It looks like I was the fish, after all.