The meeting was his idea. I murmured questions. 
Why did I want? Why did I wait? How was I lauded and overlooked?
In the 21st century, this was not a bad way to break the ice. 
He seemed pleased. Take extra care, he said. This world, this word, 
is hardly in doubt. At the same time, we are reading into uncharted territory. 
Nothing you do will matter, and yet your ghost might endure 
a hundred years from now. 

You may think you know but here is the author, 
a similar paradox, somehow unrecognizable. Why did you write?
He asked, Why do you live? I said, I didn’t always. 
He smiled, an author and a ghost and a man beneath it all. 
Start with that, he suggested. And continue on, and on, 
until the end. 
.