The Samaritan – An Excerpt
A year passed. I could keep it up forever. I got a piece of notebook paper and wrote on it, “Today’s the first day of the rest of your life.” I put it on the fridge.
People believe in that shit, and if I saw the note every day, maybe I could start to believe it. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll wake up and take my vitamins, wash them down with a whole liter of mineral water. I’ll eat a low fat, high protein breakfast and chase it with a fiber shake. In the morning, the television will stay off. I’ll write a few chapters of my Earth-Shattering-Bestseller-To-Be in the morning that chronicles my ability to regrow my fingers and how, with those fingers, I could touch lives. In the afternoon I’ll work one hour towards a charitable cause. All laundry will be done. I’ll keep the house clean, the car clean, the lawn manicured. Agents will bump into each other, wanting to be part of something that will, as the book blurb is destined to say, “change the way we look at America, at ourselves. A chronicle of our times. Dale Sampson has his finger on the pulse of our culture, and this novel will live forever as a classic work sure to move the soul.”
The book will be done. I’ll be thin and fit, and I’ll tour the country, touching people’s lives with my own unique brand of revitalization. I changed my life, you can too! I’ll tell them. Late night hosts will joke with me. Stars will ask for my autograph. Audiences will gasp.
And to what end? So that when I pass, I’ll have a headline on Yahoo! news. So folks can Google my name and results pop up. So when someone sees the handwriting on the liner to my book, they become excited instead of merely annoyed.
A year later, I wrote “You’re one second away from turning it around.”
Perhaps it was true, sure, a year had gone, but still I’m one moment away. One day, I’ll go into my local Wal-Mart to sign my blockbuster book instead of buy cereal. I can still star in a blockbuster movie, or save a life, or score a touchdown in the NFL. Sing a chart topping song. Maybe win a poker tournament on ESPN. Win an Oscar. Present whatever rapper is hot at the Billboard Music Awards. What will any of that mean? Nothing. Everything. The suffering in human potential comes from the lack of a true pinnacle.
A year later, I wrote “There is no try, there is only do, or do not.”
I saw it on Star Wars, Yoda said it and it sounded like pretty sound advice. Worked for Luke, so what the hell, right? But I would open that door up each morning and get the milk out for another bowl of Captain Crunch, seeing the note, telling myself tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
That one didn’t work either. For my next attempt, I would freewrite. I would take a Post-It note and write down the first thing that came to my mind and hang it on the fridge.
“Buy a gun as soon as possible, then take this fucking note down.”
That one felt about right, as if I had finally figured things out.
