There's a moral to this story somewhere. I can taste it.

I finished writing a short story this afternoon.

It was not the one I'd intended to write. It was not the backup to that. Nor the second backup. Unlike fear, surprise, and phonetical devotion to the Poh-pay, it was not among the chief stories I intended to write today.

It's a story.

It might even be a good story.

I feel good about it, and I feel good about having done it, and I feel good about letting go of my other intentions long enough to do it, and those three things are not the same.

I guess we'll see what the smart people who think about these things think about this thing.

But anyway: it's better to light a candle than to trip over the end of the same dresser that's always been there and dislocate your knee and add crutches to this whole sorry spectacle.

Or something about darkness and cursing. Something like that anyway. There was darkness and cursing in this story. Mostly cursing, since it was "Carter Hall Gets Two for Roughing." Anyway, you do the things you can do, and this is a thing I could do. And I will not give up on the things I couldn't do so far today, necessarily, but sometimes I will give them a rest for awhile and enjoy the hockey.

That's probably the moral right there: give it a rest and enjoy the hockey.

I guess I will let the hockey be a metaphor just this once if you absolutely insist.