Floating Staircase

by Ronald Malfi

When you withdraw from the world, you find that the world withdraws from you, too. Then all that’s left is the Grayness, the Void, and this is where you remain.

Those are all good memories. If I could, I would wrap them in plastic and store them in some lead-lined safe in the back of my mind, protect them from the world.

Honest writing, much like honest people, comes without wanting anything in return. I found myself on an exploration of characters—characters that begot story; story that begot emotion—traversing through Edenic pastures and Elysian fields where dead boys frolicked in barefooted bliss on the dew-showered plains, and terminal skies reflected the roiling slate seas instead of the other way around.

“Quite often fiction is the best reality; cruelties are so much easier to swallow when they’re dressed up and capering about like circus clowns.”

February was angry and eager and shook us to our souls.

To be a great writer, you got to upend every little stone and look underneath each one, almost like a detective would. You got to examine all the possibilities. No matter how much you want to force characters to behave one way, you got to let them do what comes natural.”