I don’t even know why I’m thinking about this now, after all these years. Seventy-six years, nearly. Seventy-seven next spring, God willing. It’s just… it’s one of those things, you know? Like a little burr under the saddle that you never quite work out, just keeps rubbing. I mean, it was decades ago. Decades. But sometimes, especially late at night like this, when the crickets are going something fierce outside and the house is all settled in its creaks and groans, it just… it bubbles up. A real wellspring of regret, I suppose you could call it. A kind of pervasive dysphoria. It was when I was young, living downstate, before I came back up here to the quiet, to the family farm after… well, after everything. I was an illustrator, you know. A real go-getter. Or I thought I was. Had my little studio apartment, a proper drafting table, shelves overflowing with art books. I was so proud of it all. I’d scraped and saved and worked myself ragged, freelancing for little local papers, doing portraits of people’s cats, anything to get by. But my dream, my REAL dream, was always to illustrate books. Children’s books, mostly. Something with whimsy. Something that made people smile. And then, it happened. A proper contract. Not just a one-off, but a whole series. With Sterling & Finch. Sterling and Finch! Can you imagine? They were the crème de la crème, the absolute top tier. I’d sent them samples for years, always gotten those polite, formal rejection letters. But this time… this time, they called. Said they loved my “distinctive whimsical sensibility.” Whimsical sensibility! My heart nearly burst right out of my chest. It felt like… like I’d finally, finally cracked the code, you know? Like all the rejection, all the doubt, all those times I thought maybe I wasn’t good enough, it was all worth it. I even called my mother, which I didn’t do often back then. She just said, “That’s nice, dear,” in her usual way, but I knew she was proud. Or I hoped she was. The project was a big one. A whole new fantasy series for middle-grade readers. Dragons and fairies and little mushroom sprites. Exactly what I loved. The editor, a brisk woman named Ms. Albright, she was very particular. Very, very particular. She had a very clear “creative vision,” as she called it. And I was supposed to be the one to bring it to life. We had a series of meetings, all very formal, very precise. Early mornings, usually. And I was always there, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, coffee in hand. I was so… so invested. So absolutely committed. It was my chance. My BIG CHANCE. Is that weird? Does everyone feel this level of intensity about their work, or is it just a particular kind of neurosis? Then came the final meeting. The one where I was supposed to present the finished character designs, the full palette, the complete conceptualization for the first book. Everything. The culmination of months of work. I had stayed up for days, truly, just fueled by coffee and sheer adrenaline. Tweaking a curl here, adjusting a wing there, making sure every single detail was perfect. I was so… so tired. But it was a GOOD tired, you know? The kind where you feel like you’ve given everything you have. I had all my boards laid out, my portfolio pristine. My outfit was even pressed, which was a rarity for me back then. I wanted to make the BEST impression. And then… I just… I don’t even… I mean, I set the alarm. Or I thought I did. A little wind-up travel clock, sitting right there on my bedside table. A very reliable little clock. I’d used it for years. Never failed me. But that morning… nothing. No insistent rattling, no shrill little ring. Just… silence. I woke up to sunlight streaming in through the window, the kind of harsh, bright sunlight that screams “late morning.” My heart just… it just seized up. A cold, hard knot in my stomach. The meeting was at nine. It was already nearly eleven. I remember scrambling out of bed, my mind racing, a real cascade of adrenaline and pure, unadulterated panic. My hands were shaking so bad I could barely dial the phone. Ms. Albright’s assistant answered, her voice cool, distant. “Ms. Albright was expecting you, Mr. Finch,” she said. “She waited for nearly an hour.” I tried to explain, tried to apologize, mumbled something about a faulty alarm. She just said, “I’ll pass that on. Ms. Albright is now in another meeting.” And then she hung up. Just like that. A click. And then, silence again. I didn’t hear from them for a week. A whole, agonizing week. I called every day, left desperate messages. Finally, I got a letter. A very formal, very polite letter. It stated that while they appreciated my initial efforts, they felt there had been a “misalignment of expectations” and they had decided to go in “another creative direction.” Another creative direction. It was a euphemism, of course. A polite way of saying “you blew it.” My one big chance. Gone. Just like that. Because I overslept. Because of a stupid, silent alarm clock. Or maybe because of my own hubris, my own exhaustion, my own inability to manage my own damn schedule. I mean, I don’t even— whatever. I never got another contract like that. Not with a major house. I did some local things, illustrated a few little pamphlets for the historical society, even did some caricatures at the county fair for a while. But it was never the same. The spark, the absolute conviction that I was meant to do this, it just… it diminished. It flickered and died. A kind of professional bereavement, I suppose. I eventually moved back up here, to the quiet, to the land that had always been. It’s a good life, don’t get me wrong. Peaceful. Everyone knows everyone. My neighbors bring over pie. But sometimes, when the crickets are particularly loud, I can still feel that knot in my stomach. That cold, hard knot of what-if. What if I had just… woken up? What if I hadn’t been so tired? Would my life have been… different? A different trajectory. A different self. I don’t know. I just don’t know.