An Apology

  by m. james moore

  It seemed that everyone but Winston Mitnick had an original idea. Either that, or all of his ideas simply came too late.

  It had been not two years ago, after he’d just conceived the most extraordinary idea for a novel while strolling through JC Penney, that he strolled into a bookshop containing a large cardboard stand-alone display of a book based on that very idea.

  Not a week ago, he’d determined he would become a famous writer for his award-winning, critically-acclaimed adventure of an archeologist on the hunt for treasure, only to discover than Indiana Jones debuted that same day.

  Only a thousand or so instances per day seemed to happen such as was his luck, but he came to reason that if at least he knew they were his own creation, just thought of by someone else first, he began to rationalize that his creativity must be exceptional.

  Soon, he began to simply look up titles in the “coming soon” posters in bookstops and movie theatres, noticing all of them bore close resemblance to ideas he’d had that very day, having never seen those announcements or anything like them but in his own imagination.

  However, the day before his tragic fall from grace that landed him a permanent residency in the Richmond Home for the Mentally Distressed, he’d decided to write an autobiography. This, he thought, couldn’t possibly have been imagined before.

  Sorry, Winston.

  THE END