Interview with an Artist

Photo by Nemesia Production on Unsplash

By Michael Neal Morris

You lay the iPad on your chest. You start to fall asleep, but don’t quite get there. Setting into the hard pillow, you begin to tell yourself variations on the same story. You are deep, an artist, and you are being discovered, finally. A nice man interviews you, says he wished he’d discovered you much earlier.

You have wise words for the interviewer, but they don’t come, so you just lay there in your mind being philosophical and genial about nothing in particular. There is a voice over and images of you -- having dinner with your partner and children, speaking at a seminar, you volunteering for the animal shelter, people talking with you, you in quiet reflection as you create -- play in a montage as his deep baritone intones like a cantor something about your value.

But your back aches and you turn uncomfortably on the bed. You remember your age and try not to repeat the number and the old voice tells you should be ashamed. That no one is interested in your work or will be. That it’s just the breaks and you haven’t done anything in years, nothing to get excited about. That if you are honest, you’re a hobbyist, and the worst kind: someone who talks more than produces.

You get up. Your partner is sleeping quietly, light snores coming from her tired face. You stand and put the iPad on the night table. You go into the bathroom and without turning the light on, piss with practiced precision.

Entering the living room, you push the tiny button on the remote and turn the television on, quickly lowering the volume, lest you wake anyone up.

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Michael Neal Morris has published several stories, poems, and essays in print and online. He lives with his family just outside the Dallas area and teaches Composition and Creative Writing at Dallas College’s Eastfield campus.
Michael Neal Morris:
Notes from the Overground, Books on Smashwords, This Blue Monk, Blue Monk Music