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Dream Job

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Today I helped a girl in fifth grade with her multiplication and division.

In between problems she sometimes asked me questions about my life.

She asked, “What is your dream job?”

I stayed quiet, so she said, “Like, if you could do anything, what would it be?”

I tapped my mechanical pencil and looked at her.

She deserved a real answer.

I said, “I’d be a writer.”

She said, “You’d write books?”

I said, “Yeah.”

She said, “Like science stuff or stories?”

I said, “Stories.”

She said, “You’d write the stuff I see in bookstores?”

I said, “Some of it.”

She looked at the long division problem I wrote on the loose leaf paper in front of her.

Then she said, “That would be hard.”

I knew she wasn’t talking about the problem.

Today was her last day. She said goodbye and left with her mom.

They drove away in a nice sedan with tinted windows.

I walked to my trusty coupe, chewing on almonds.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she said, “That would be hard.”

Because it is hard being a writer.

It’s damn hard.

September 29, 2011 11:26 pm

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