“What’s your deal?”

“Trying to get this fuckin thing under two thousand words.”

“What thing?”

“This story.”

“Oh. I thought something was really wrong. Like you got an email with bad news or something.”

“Well I kinda did.” He counted the journals in his OpenOffice Spreadsheet. “That makes fourteen. Rejections. For just this one fuckin.”

She stretched out on the couch.

“Why’s it gotta be under however-many words.”

“Cause that’s what they say on their Submittable.”

“Oh. Sorry. What’s their Submittable.”

“That website I use. And it’s not just one journal. It’s just, I’m at a point with this story where every time I look at it I just end up adding another hundred words or so. But if I can whittle it down to an area where it’ll almost be acceptable as Flash Fiction, it’ll at least get considered. Get read, at the very least. I know this is boring to you.”

“No. It’s… not. How many words over are you.”

“Seven hundred and ten.”

Her phone said, “Bark like a dog. Woof.”

“What?”

“Seven, one, zero.”

“I didn’t realize that was still a thing.”

“Word counts? I know, right? It’s fuckin.”

“No, this Tiktok whatever-you-call-it. Where people bark at their dog and record its reaction.”

He didn’t respond.

“Which story is it? One of the ones I read?”

He didn’t respond.

“Is it the one about that kid at his grandpa’s funeral? That first one you sent me? Don’t edit it down!”

“It’s the one about the kid with diarrhea. At school. I sent you a version like two months ago. Don’t think you read it.”

“Oh. I must’ve missed it. Sorry. Send it again. When you get a chance.”

He exhaled. Start at the top. Consider every word as if all of life depends on it.

Does the reader really need to know the story unfolds on a Monday? He imagined himself choking down cigarettes with Jason Robards, legs resting on a cluttered desk, flipping and conferring over a wrinkled printout. If he were a better writer, the story would already have that “Monday” feel to it. And look at all these prepositional phrases and idioms that can also be got rid of.

He checked the word count again. He’d excised fifty or so words but had added about half as many when he included those two lines about Coach Taylor’s breath.

“Fuck.”

“Hm?” she said. “I mean, I agree that it’s a really dumb rule—these word counts. But I can also kind of see the logic to it. I mean, everyone’s got the sense that the world’s ending. Global warming, war, genocide–”

Trimming around the shitstain description could wait.

He said, “Yeah but how many people are actually paying attention to any of that, anyways? I mean, really?”

“–attention spans getting shorter. Like, get to the point already.”

“Yeah, but noone fuckin thinks for a second about watching fifty hours of a tv show.”

“Is that because I’m watching Lost again? I’m trying to help you out. Cheer you up. Don’t take your frustrations out on me.”

“I’m not. I mean, I don’t mean to. And I mean, noone fuckin reads anything anymore anyways. Which makes it even more absurd. Accidentally describe a mop and you can’t even get that pyrric, phyrric, however you say it, dopamine rush that comes with publication.”

The whole section where there’s no toilet paper and he has to use his socks is 277 words long. Get rid of that and you can scratch out that whole interaction later at the principal’s. The call home to the family. But the build-up of anxiety in the stall, up through the bullying scene–there’s a kind of cleansing pay-off quality when the second round hits him in the locker room shower.

Craig Googled “synonym for baptism” because it really was too obvious a word. He turned to Becka.

“You don’t mind. Sorry, you don’t mind reading it do you.”

“No, I love reading your writing.”

He tried to not read too deeply into her wording. She was on Instagram. He could see an image/headline. The president’s talks with Netanyahu were “About to Get Real.”

“But you have to be honest. Let me know what you think. What should be deleted. If anything.”