By Jason Telese

Monty kept his middle finger on that “.” for a few seconds, bathing in the final keystroke of his masterpiece. He looked up from his desk and over his left shoulder to check the time. There, on the nail which used to hang his clock, floated his black coat, like a shabby little ghost. It was his only coat. He shook his head, swung it around his torso, then over his right shoulder. The clock, on the nail which used to hang his coat, showed four forty-two.

Every month or so for the past two years, Monty trekked uptown to that horrid asylum, Barnaster Books, and gave them a manila full of his most inspired work, and every time without fail, his work was rejected, for no other conceivable reason than his modest, below-average-but-still-respectable height. All those rich, corporate dicks in slimline suits and ties like black bones had to duck through doorways, but Monty was a workingman’s five feet and six inches. He may as well have been just a porcelain doll to them, and an outreaching handshake would have to be met with a pointer and thumb pressed together in the same delicate configuration necessary for threading needles and steeping teabags.

He pulled the final page off the carriage and placed it face down on the stack to his right. A roach, who had nestled himself comfortably between the third and second-to-last pages about a half-hour earlier, rubbed his eyes and crawled out from his now-compromised cot. Monty shooed the bug along and lifted the pile of pages, turning it around before tapping the bottoms on his desk. The story had no title yet, but that could be worked out later, he thought. What he was holding was an undeniable masterwork of fiction, and no missing title or lack of authorial height would keep it off a letterpress.

He had only eighteen minutes until Barnaster closed up for the weekend. He couldn’t wait until Monday morning: he had to get these pages on Ben Barnaster’s desk before they had the chance to cool, and this one, he thought, could burn his fingerprints off. Just as well, Monty couldn’t bear the idea of sitting in his shithole apartment with a fresh story all weekend, poring over each page endlessly until he hated it (and himself), and ultimately ended up setting fire to it in the cans out back. He had to get there tonight.

Amidst all this thinking, Monty let a minute slip his grasp, leaving him with only seventeen to get out of the apartment, down two blocks to the train, off the train, up another four blocks, in the door, up the elevator, and in the office of the suit in charge, which was nothing he hadn’t done before, but that made it no less herculean of a to-do list. He pushed his chair out from the desk and waddled hurriedly into his bedroom. After digging a moment in the closet, he affixed a red, patterned tie to his neck. He righted his suspenders before pulling a shoebox from under the bed. Inside was his secret weapon: a pair of evening shoes to which he’d each attached a second sole, ones he ripped off his work boots last week. He’d used some rubber cement to adhere them, but for fear that they might crumble in front of the publishing executives, he drove a few nails up through the bottoms of each. He had forgotten this second precautionary measure, but was reminded when he slipped his heel down into the left shoe and two nails pierced his foot.

“GAH—shit…” Monty dropped his head and, hard as he could, clenched both fists in the air like a boxer might. There was no time to dress the wounds or sit around feeling bad for himself. He took a few deep breaths through pursed lips before pressing his right foot into the matching iron maiden. Another choked-out scream later and Monty was ready to leave his apartment. He limped to his desk, jammed the papers into an envelope, and scratched “My Best Story Yet” onto the front with his lucky fountain pen. The rubber cement, he thought, should come too, just in case the nails fall out, so he pocketed it. Envelope tucked under his arm, he set out to the door, reaching for his coat and instead grabbing his clock off the wall. It was four forty-six. He tossed the clock in his wastebasket, grabbed his coat from the clock-nail, and threw himself out the door, down the hall, and was spit out on the sidewalk with a baker’s dozen left to get uptown.

The city air was hot, fresh poison. Baking piss carried on wind’s wings hit Monty’s backside and pushed him up the street. With each laborious step, his shoes filled a bit more with blood, and by the time he reached the train station, his socks were completely saturated. He limped down the stairs at a foot-racer’s pace and nearly slid headfirst into the blockade of turnstiles. Left arm cradling his writing, he dug his right hand into his pocket for change. Inside, there was no change, but rather a bed of lint, on top of which the weary cockroach from his apartment had just finally gotten comfortable. Monty grabbed the bug, who cursed him profusely, jammed him into the coin slot, and pushed past the turnstile, continuing on to the train platform.

He hobbled his way through crowds of perfectly tall, suited men with posture like scarecrows and wondered if they noticed how tall he appeared in his new shoes which, since he last looked down at them, had sprung several leaks. Arms outstretched, Monty parted the commuter hordes like Moses, red sea pouring from his shoes. He pushed himself onto the train and dropped down between two corporate types. They reeked like rye and cash.

Monty looked to the man on his left. “Do ya happen to have the time?” The man stared in horror at Monty’s feet. Every inch of the train car’s floor within a four-foot radius of Monty was now a deep red puddle. “Sir,” he met Monty’s gaze concernedly, “I think you need medical attention.” Monty glanced down at his shoes quickly and back up to the man. “These are my normal feet, there’s nothing wrong with them,” he fired back. “I just need to know what fucking time it is, please.”

“Uh, four fifty-two, sir,” read the man off his watch before standing up and hustling away from Monty’s ever-growing blood-pool. Everyone in the car, sitting or standing, was staring directly at Monty. This, he thought, must be what it’s like to be tall: all eyes on him. He felt large and powerful, reveling in filling everyone’s gazes. Never before in his life had he taken up so much space. Just as well, he’d never quite been in this much pain. He dropped the envelope next to him for a second and fished the extra rubber cement from his left pocket. He unscrewed the cap, jammed his nose inside, and took a heroic drag: a sniff as large as he – Mr. Big Apple, skyscraper-tall Monty, eyes glass marbles and glue fumes seeping out his ears. He had forgotten his feet were even there.

Right as rain, Monty dropped the little glass bottle. The train was heels down on the track, slowing to a halt at the station nearest Barnaster. With his right arm, he grabbed a handle overhead and pulled himself up on numb feet. The train doors cranked open and Monty bolted past a thousand watching eyes, wading out of his little crimson swamp without so much as a twinge of pain.

He hit the platform running but made it only a few feet before realizing he had left his story behind. He spun like a top and saw it, helpless on that bench seat where he left it, as the train shut its doors in his face and took off into the dark.

Monty wanted so badly to drop to his knees for dramatic effect, but fearing he might not be able to get up if he did, he simply imagined himself doing so, and it was both an appropriate and gut-wrenching reaction. His eyes darted to a clock on the station wall – it was four fifty-six. There was still time yet for Monty to get to Barnaster Books and, from memory, recite his harrowing and beautifully crafted tale. He had, after all, just finished writing it, and by the time the glue high wore off, he figured he might be able to spit it back at them verbatim.

Up the stairs and onto the street he went, skating over the sidewalk filth past gaggles of working men and women who’d forgone a few cents on the timeclock to reach the trains before five. Monty prayed that the suits at Barnaster Books were frugal, rule-abiding men that would still be in-office when he landed in their lobby. Under his breath, he ran through the important plot points and character notes. He couldn’t risk forgetting anything essential.

Just a block away, Monty finally got eyes on the building. He was ready this time: he was as tall as the Colossus of Rhodes and carried with him a story (albeit not physically) that was sure to make him and the publishing executives very wealthy men. Over the final crosswalk he went and, at last, arrived at the emerald entrance. His feet, which would surely be of little use after that day, were still gushing blood, but he hadn’t felt a thing since exiting the train car. He lumbered through the revolving doors and into the front lobby – the belly of the beast. The receptionist, standing quietly at her desk to his right, dropped the briefcase she’d been packing up for the weekend and lunged for her phone, spinning an extension number on the rotary and waiting a moment before yelling into the handset: “Good lord, he’s back…yes…why yes I’m positive! Just please, get down here!”

Shining, golden elevator – doorway to his dreams; it glowed in front of him like neon moonbeam. Clunkily, he hurtled towards its doors but an errant nail head, digging its way out of his sole, caught on the runner and slammed Monty to the floor. His face would have surely gotten quite hurt had his nose not broken the fall. When he opened his eyes, he saw that same, freeloading roach scuttle on by, flipping Monty the bird as he passed.

The elevator chimed, and from its doors came two block-headed security guards. “I thought we told you last month not to come back here you fucking crazy bum,” sneered the one, swinging a nightstick in his hand. “Yeah, heh, the soup kitchen’s down the block,” threw in the other, who was clearly the follower of the duo and even Monty, in his compromised state, could see that. The elevator doors closed behind them and the machinery whirred, ascending to retrieve the execs. “Get your stinkin’ ass up off our floor before we beat you through it, bum. I mean it,” chirped the leader. He really did mean it. Monty pressed his hands into the ground to lift himself up but he, on account of the acute trauma and blood loss, had become useless.

The elevator began descending. Monty couldn’t let Ben Barnaster or any of the execs see him like this. He tried once more to lift himself but failed, his arms folding like hot laundry beneath him. “I can’t,” Monty cried, “Just please help me up and I’ll leave, I swear. I was ready this time, but I’ll leave.”

“Oh, we’ll help you, gutterpup,” barked the leader. He raised his nightstick to the sky before driving it down, directly into Monty’s ribs. The other guard followed suit. After getting a few good swings in each, the elevator chimed once more, opening to a flock of stone-faced agents and editors. The guards halted their assault and straightened their backs out. The men in the elevator leaned out and looked down at Monty, wet with his own blood like a little boy in pissed trousers. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. No time to waste, the tall men with their skinny ties flooded out of the elevator, silently stepping over Monty’s crumpled body one-by-one. He might as well have not been there at all, but he was. He was right there beneath the gummy heels of all those men who looked just like his father, feeling so, so small.

What a shame to be such a small man with no story to tell.