I am thrilled to announce that my short story “Humility” has been accepted for publication in Journal X. Journal X is my Bible. Since the moment I learned to read I have voraciously devoured literally every issue of it. Actually, since before I learned to read. Since before I was born. My mother read Journal X aloud to me when I was naught but a zygote in a wee amniotic sac. To finally appear in its pages satiates me so completely that the only way I could possibly feel any more content would be if I crawled back into the womb from whence I came, curled up inside it, and stayed there forever.
A thousand thanks to the good people at Journal X, who have accepted my short story “Humility”! For my own words to appear in the pages of Journal X is an achievement in comparison with which everything else I’ve ever done is a sham. Like that time I saved an old woman from drowning at the pool? So boring. Or when I put out that fire in the animal shelter? So banal. Truly, with this publication I have reached my peak. Nothing I can ever do will compare. Which is why I have made the tough decision to retire from everything, effective immediately. If you need me, I will be in that hole over there.
Words cannot describe my gratification at learning that Journal X has accepted my short story “Humility.” All my life I have written stories, but the countless rejections I’ve received from literary journals over the years have made me want to cut off my fingers so that I can never type again. And then carve out my tongue so that I can never speak again. And then give myself a full frontal lobotomy so that I can never think again. Suffice to say, the editors at Journal X have not just made my day. They’ve saved me from horrific and butcherly self-mutilation.
I am beyond relieved to share the good news that my short story “Humility” has found a home at the terrific publication Journal X. “Humility” spent months — no, years! — roaming the back alleys of the internet in search of a place to live. It slept in doorways, on benches, and under bridges. It survived on scraps stolen from restaurant trash cans at dawn. It underwent a perilous and demoralizing journey — but at last “Humility” is safe and sound, warming its leprosy-pocked hands before the hearth at that sanctuary, Journal X.
I am over the moon that my short story “Humility” has been accepted for publication in Journal X. No, seriously, upon learning of its acceptance I jumped for joy with such vigor that I rose through the clouds, burned up in the atmosphere, became dust that encircled the moon, and fell back to Earth as comets and hail. I don’t know how I’m even typing this right now. It must be that my absolute joy at receiving Journal X’s acceptance letter transformed me into some kind of immortal, bodiless superconsciousness. Thank you, Journal X, for helping me transcend the feeble limits of the human body! I am omniscient now — much like the narrator of my short story, “Humility.”