We Also Advertise In The Back Of The Local Alternative Weekly But Are Not Exactly An Escort Service

Muse work is hard work, inspiration never came easy to anybody. But I was hard on cash, and the ad on Craigslist said 'No Experience Needed' so here I am in your apartment and you expecting a beautiful girl to help write your screenplay.

I should explain, it's a service I work for, we get a three by five card with an address written on it and we drive wherever and inspire people to greatness. Most of it's distasteful--anybody who needs to call a Muse that makes seven dollars and fifty-three cents an hour is obviously in a pretty bad way.

So you didn't get what you were expecting. Maybe you can work that in there, disappointment or something. Maybe go in sort of a sitcom-y direction, there's not a lot of good sitcoms on nowadays, right? That's a gap you could fill. You could write the next Friends or something. Shame how none of those people found good work after all that ended, but I guess it's like Star Trek or something where you play one role for a decade and everything gets unpleasant. You know, you could just put in a part ready made for like David Schwimmer or one of those guys, get a name people know but one you can get on the cheap. You could half sell a pilot on that, the way they do things down here and all.

That helps? Yeah? Feeling inspired?

Figured it would.

Listen, I better be going. You seem to be set, and I got a speechwriter to cajole, some rot about the war or something (politics nowadays) and you just know that's gonna be most of my day. You let me know how that screenplay works out, okay?

Life In These Confederate States

"You see, my dear, you shouldn't worry about changing history at all! What we did in the past already happened--they were writing that little gem into Twilight Zone episodes long before we realized it was true--it was supposed to happen and don't you forget it. Why, if the South ends up winning the Civil War, lucky for them they got the one time traveler who listens to Lynyrd Skynyrd!!"

I chuckle into her silence, the haughty laugh of a jaded jet-set time traveler.

"Excuse me, but Lynyrd who?"

I am awestruck. This is the worst date ever. I am going to be alone for the rest of my life.

There are four words written on my thigh in red scar tissue: DON'T MAKE SKYNYRD JOKES. It is a very embarrassing scar, I keep it under a bandage when I shower. They were written by my Second Grade teacher, when I was in Second Grade. I remember myself, a confused seven year old, as Mr. Smith traced on my skin with a soldering iron while all the other kids were at recess. What I remember most is how Mr. Smith spoke to me, how he reassured me in calm, even tones that everything was going to be alright. "This is all for the best, Jimmy." "I'm sorry Jimmy, but science has proven that the best time to give a child an embarrassing scar is when he is in the Second Grade, the skin is softer and the kids aren't as mean."

At the time, I didn't understand. The cops went to arrest him for child abuse, but he had vanished and was never found again. The state paid for some very good therapists and I had largely come to grips with what had happened to me until just this moment.

As my last chance at true love saunters out the door, I dig out a picture of Mr. Smith from my wallet. It's strange that he looks so much like me.