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THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF DAVID GERROLD
by David Gerrold

Now that we have a message board online, we’ve stopped flirting with the
notion of adding a letter column to the magazine. So when this long letter
arrived, it went in the manuscript pile ... which turns out to be something of
a fortuitous mistake after all.
Should the map that accompanied the letter ever be needed, it can be
found pinned to the board over the editor’s desk, between the Danny
Shanahan cartoon and the postcard from Harlan Ellison.

****

Dear Gordon,

I apologize in advance, but this is the only way I can think to tell anyone about
this. After that last weird experience, trying to convince people that my kid really was
a Martian, I’ve learned that the only safe way to report stuff like this and have people
take it seriously is to present it as fiction.

Right, the irony of that doesn’t escape me. The only way to get people to
believe the truth is first tell them it’s a lie. What is it about human beings
anyway—that we only believe the opposite of what we’re told? (Remember when
people used to tell me, “You’re not as big a jerk as I heard”? Except most of the
time, they didn’t use the word jerk. Wow, what a terrific acknowledgment. That’s
why I love people so much. So, okay, thanks. I got the message. That’s when I
started announcing at the beginning of every speech, “I am not a nice man. Don’t
expect it of me.” And that’s when they started coming up to me afterward to
whisper, “You are too a nice man.” See what I mean? People are always looking for
the hidden agenda, the conspiracy, the real truth.)

Never mind. I digress. That’s why there are editors. (Thank you.) But, here’s
the timeline, follow this:

End of February, right on schedule, I’m finally coming out of my usual
post-Christmas depression. Don’t ask. Every year the Capitalist Feeding Frenzy gets
worse than the year before—or maybe, every year I get ground down a little more.
So here I am, with life piled up at the front door in big uncollected piles and I need a
shovel just to get out to the car. So I climb out a window, throw some stuff into the
back of the camper and start driving north. I figure I’ll find some little cabin
somewhere, hide out for a few days, and just sit and type and type and type until I
was physically and emotionally exhausted. Maybe I’ll even write a story. Some
people meditate. I type until it flows and then I type until it stops flowing and I know
when I’m done, because I’ll have a post-orgasmic smile on my face so peaceful it
could make Buddha jealous. Kind of like what you see on the face of a really
well-carved chocolate bunny. (Pope Dan says “hi,” by the way.)
 I turn on the music, the player is set for random, and I get Hubert Laws doing
jazz variations on traditional Bach pieces; I don’t even remember when I ripped the
disc, but it’s the perfect sonic wallpaper, it doesn’t demand your attention until
you’re ready to listen, and then once you fall into it you don’t want to climb out