[µstory] - What to be (excerpt)

“µstory” (“mu-story” or “micro-story”) is a categorization I use to designate a very short story, a prose-poem, or an excerpt from one of my stories/works-in-progress.
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He had his palm on his forehead, leaning his head heavily on it, wisps of hair jutting out miserably from the crevices of his fingers. "I want to do something...spectacular," he breathed, gazing at the table as though the furrows in the grain shared with him some muted understanding. "But am I someone that can do something real? Something good? A person can do a collection of nothings and be elevated into the recognition of the world. Even be infamous if you can't be famous, notorious if you can't be notable. But I - I don't want to be anything to the world. Just to be nothing, but do so much that it's worth something. So later, you'd look around and say, ‘See, something good has happened, we don't know why or how, but it’s wonderful, it's changed.’ Yes, that’s…”
- He buried his hand deeper into his hair, furrowing his brows, closing his eyes as though the table had blinded him. "Nothing seems to be enough for people to notice the world now. It's no longer important enough, no longer severe enough, compelling enough to hold our attention. No, for that we have fiction. Blink at it, oh yes it’s happened, let’s turn to a far richer experience. A whole, real life isn’t enough, isn’t even worth a sentence; awful, wretched it is! So I can’t… I can’t just put forward some simple amount of good as all the rest like me, some small offering that will sink away… insignificant. To really do something, to shake the world and say, “Look!”, to – to help, it must be more than surreal, it must be greater than turning away, so strong it’s worth being a part of, so unimaginable it fills volumes. I don't want my deeds relegated to the prelude of a novel.”

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- Excerpt from a 'novella-in-progress' (for the pathopoet, everything is in progress!), "London Avery"