The Failure

My dad used to say, “There is no failure, there’s only stupidity,” and I’m stupid, but I’m also a failure, I mean I guess dad has what he thinks, but how could anyone think I’m anything other than a stupid failure, I mean I bet all of you do, what else could I be? I mean what happened today I just fucked everything in my life up and almost lost my ability to do the things I love and afford the things I love, like my puppets, I mean without the grant what am I supposed to do about the puppets? And oh god I’m not making sense again, so I’m really sorry for that, I’m sorry that I’m being so stupid right now, at least in writing this.

I was supposed to send in my renewal for my grant to make puppets by the twelfth and my manager kept telling me to but it slipped my mind and I only realized on the tenth that I was supposed to do it but I still put it off, so, well, I did really badly on the essay and I bet it doesn’t get in on time and I bet that I end up with no money because of my incompetence. So I told my manager what happened and he said “I told you so, barbosa.” or something like that but I can’t be sure because I don’t really speak Spanish, at least not very well, though I have some Italian but I don’t like to talk about it because I’m really bad at Italian I just learned it so I could learn more about masks.

But what kind of fool am I? I mean this sucks and I suck and if I don’t get money from the grant there’ll be no way for me to continue with my work and then I’ll be absolutely nothing at all of worth, I mean honestly without puppets all I am is a sad sack man all alone in his room, who’s only talent outside of puppetry and storytelling is tripping over and screwing everything up. Without puppets I’ll be exposed for who I am; a failure trapped alone with his stupidity.