I am piss drunk. Don't get me wrong here – I’m not a habitual drinker or anything. No, you can stop calling the AA now. Really, I’m just a normal girl. Whatever the definition of normal is, that is.
I’m a normal, ordinary girl. Whose normal, ordinary book got rejected by the publishers.

For the eighth time.

You know, I’d researched so much.
I’d read the experiences of all the first time authors. I was armed. Armed by their consoling words like “It happens to the best of the authors” and “Ultimately, what happens, happens for the best”.
I was armed. Armed with the notion that someday, I’d too be fondly recalling the stories of my rejection over a cup of coffee to the paparazzi.

The first time it happened, I expected it.

I even took it as a good sign. Now I had a story to tell. The story of my struggle. After all, if it comes too easy, its boring. Besides, everyone’s a sucker for the underdog-turned-millionaire story.

And then… there was the second, third, fourth time.

They all told me the same thing. That my book was too ordinary. There was nothing dramatic about it. No romantic cheesy dialogs. No clichéd happy endings. Heck, no glamour or sex either.

Who’ll buy it? Who’ll read it?

One of them even said that it had no “spunk”. I asked him to define spunk. He called the security and had me ushered (read ‘thrown’) out of his office.
I guess he did not know the meaning. And I guess he used that word to reject all the authors he rejected.

Then there was the fifth time.

The publisher said she’d be extremely happy to publish my book. For five lakh rupees. And double the royalty.

I do not even remember the sixth and the seventh time now. I had already lost hope. Reading about J K Rowling getting rejected 12 times is inspiring. Being in that situation feels like shit.

People, have a knack of making you feel like shit.

So that’s my story. Today happened to be the eighth time. Somehow I already knew my book wasn’t going to make it. And I was right. As soon as the publisher started talking about how my book “does not make the cut”, I zoned out.
I don’t remember peeling myself off the chair and dragging my lifeless body out of the publisher’s office, but somehow, I did.

Right into this bar here.

This place feels a lot better than home. Or the publisher’s office. For a change, I’m staring at this glass in my hand, instead of that pathetic manuscript which nobody seems to like.

I drown my hopes, my dreams, my ambitions and my sorrow in this glass.

The drink looks like piss.
Heck, it even tastes like piss.
I guess I know now why they call it being piss drunk...

It burns my throat. But it warms my soul.

My eyes are losing focus, and I’m blacking out.

I have a passing thought as I slowly get sucked into the vortex of my grief…

I’m having an epiphany.
No, no. Wait. That’s just wrong.
Epiphany is such a huge word… Man, I love that word. It almost sounds… Sacred.
No I wouldn’t like to use it when I’m drunk.
I’m afraid I might club it with wrong sentences and then it would just lose all its significance and purity.
Heck, even my Microsoft Office Word doesn’t have a synonym for epiphany.
No. A word like epiphany ought to be used with its other heavy suitable equivalents. Like… Marauder or something.

But wait. That’s not what I wanted to say.

How does it even matter what I want to say? They don’t like what I’ve got to say.

One more drink until I pass out.

And that, was the end of one more writer. Bottoms Up.

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