The Brilliance of Mistakes

In my short story “Happy Halloween,” the narrator starts off hungry from not having eaten for a week. Immediately, his narrative is suspect. As he slides into a drunken state, the narrative degenerates. By the time he spins a fellow party-goer around to ask where the bathroom is, our narrator is pretty drunk.

The party-goer is dressed as a mime, with a bullet-hole in his forehead. Our narrator gets a kick out of this and forgets what he was going to ask. It’s first person, present-tense.

I meant to write, I spin him around and I laugh and I forget what I was going to say.

Editing later, I found I’d written, I spin him around and I laugh and I forget what he was going to say. Oh, perfect – that’s how far gone the narrator is.

I wish I’d thought of it instead of mis-typing it, but I’ll take it.