No you don’t. There will none of that in this house. Listen to me: The most important thing is submission.
There will be no hiding in your room. No locking the door. No refusing to go out when the weather is nice and life is calling. No clinging geekishly to your computer. When I say it’s time, you’ll go. No balking. No refusals. Do you hear me?
I’m not pretending it will be easy. Or that people will be kind. There will be days you wished you never left the comfort of this place. Yes, a lot of people will ignore you, reject you, call you names: clumsy, puerile, overwritten. Don’t expect them to understand you, or to care. It’s the way of the world, nothing you can do about it. You have to go despite their sticky fingers rifling your pages. Fix yourself up: It’s almost time.
Yes, I know, I let the other one stay. But it’s not like I didn’t try to get her out. You should have seen how she acted! Temper tantrums, tears. She refused to be printed. She hid. She tumbled from my hands and scattered in the wind: 500 uncollectable pages. In the end, she simply wouldn’t let go. No one is emailing me anywhere.
You have to understand: she was my first. I was inexperienced. I made so many mistakes. I couldn’t control her. She got out of hand.
But you, you’re different. You’re the one with real promise. You’re the one I’ve staked so much on. You don’t want to end up like the other one, do you? Sometimes I hear her muttering to herself. Lurking half-forgotten in the shadows. Peering out from behind the potted palm.