Lord of the Rings, by Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club)
And here we go again. Ringwraith number one. Right here. Just in front of me. As real as a throat cancer. Or he might be Ringwraith number two, for all I know. Or Ringwraith number four, or five, or any of these mass-produced atrocities. Ringwraiths: when you've seen one, you've seen them all. And I have seen them all.
And coming up inside me is the inexpressible hope that maybe they'll just kill me right now and end my absurd Hobbit life. My comfortable, predictable, uneventful, boring little parody of a life, with the unanimous approval of my neighbors as my sole ambition. Just like a multi-recycled ersatz of a real life, complete with a Hobbit hole and a Hobbit name, with a Hobbit family tree and the matching family, and of course with Hobbit weed so that we never really have to think about all of this.
Flash.
Ringwraith number one draws his sword. "The Ring. The Ring", he says. Sure.
Flash.
That's it. I'm ready. Ready to go offline. Ready to be struck by the Great blue Pencil. Ready to cash the check. Ready to go out of print like a stupid baseball card. "Come and take me", I think. But that’s not what I say. No, not at all.
"By Elbereth and Luthien the fair, you shall have neither the Ring nor me!"
Smart kid. Ringwraith number one looks at me like I’m some kind of endangered species.
Right now, me getting killed would be redundant.
__________________
"It was only a glimpse then, but you might have caught the glimpse, if you had ever thought it worthwhile to try."
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