Confessions of a Storyteller

Dear Readers,

Today is the last day of this year, a day on which one typically reflects on the year gone by, and makes resolutions for the one on its way. I have been avoiding any reflection over the last few years, as I know reflection will lead to remorse, and eventually, recrimination. For the bare, stark fact, my dear readers, is that I am a criminal, and I think the time has now finally come to confess my sins to the world.

 My crime is the most heinous of all for a man of words, that of stealing someone else’s words, and calling them one’s own. Yes, I am a thief of the worst kind, and I have finally gathered the courage to admit it to the world.

For years now, you have been hanging on to every word of mine breathlessly, gawking at times at the sheer audacity of my writing, recommending it unceasingly to your friends, but alas, you have been deceived by a myth, a chimera, created and propagated by a ruthless  and shadowy publishing machine that rules the way you think, act and react, without you ever becoming aware of it.

However, now, the time has finally come when I reveal the naked truth to the world. The tales that I have told you are a product of someone else’s imagination, the words that wowed millions belong to someone else’s mouth, the sentences that have become legend are someone else’s legacy, and that person, the real author of everything that I have ever published is….

“STOP!” cried out a commanding voice sharply, and the man reading the letter aloud froze immediately.

“You will now destroy this confession immediately,” the Archbishop instructed his most-trusted agent.

The agent would need to disappear, of course, which was a pity, but he could not take the risk of him opening his mouth even accidentally. The identity of the real author (God Save Her!) of William Shakespeare’s plays would disappear forever with him.

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