Till Tomorrow: a Parable

“Hey ZP, do something for me, will ya?” His voice was pretty friendly, and I had a little time, so why ever not?
“Sure thing. What’ll it be?” I asked.
The Editor paused. “Nothing much,” he said finally. “A column on procrastination—holding off till tomorrow what you should be doing today, that sort of thing. Needn’t be very long, even. Just get it ready.”
“Deadline?”
“Soon as possible, thanks very much.” The Editor smiled gently. “Let me know if you need any help. As for the words you write… not to worry. I’ll handle the changes, get it through the works.”
“No problem,” I grinned. I hadn’t any intention of ticking the Editor off—after all, he’d let me work in his publishing house, take in whatever manuscripts I could churn out. “That’s all wrong, ZP, that’s all wrong,” he’d smile, reading through my latest effort. “But,” he’d always add, “I can fix that, if you like.”
And he would. Sometimes it felt good, knowing the Editor was in charge. Other times it sickened me to the core as he slashed deep into words and hooks and meanings, ripping out what he didn’t like, chopping whole paragraphs, eliminating flaw after flaw I’d never noticed.
Then he’d step back. “It is done,” he’d announce. I’d watch as he unfurled it, showed it around the press office—had it even been my own piece at all?

Now I thought “soon as possible” constituted “yesterday” but as it turned out I got neck-deep in my own work for the next two weeks. Sure, I did get scribblings in here and there, but sitting at a computer and actually typing out something on procrastination… it seemed the day I got enough free time at a stretch would one day come.
“Tomorrow. I’ll make a note, get it written tomorrow,” I told myself one day in the Resource Office where I work, ten hours a day, five days a week. “At least other writers have their own computers,” I told myself. “When I get home…”
When I got home that day, well, I was so tired I had my dinner, played F.E.A.R. (I’ve to wind down, I decided) some, showered and went to bed. “Tomorrow,” I murmured, “tomorrow it’ll all come together. I’ll show why procrastination is so damned bad, like how about this sentence, “The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing, but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.” (Proverbs 13:4)
As my camp only has restricted Internet access, and I could only write at home, I decided Mondays were too much of a pain to write on. “After all,” I reasoned, “I’ll be too down in the dumps, knowing my week’s only just begun.”
I returned home late that Tuesday. “I’m so tired,” I thought, “all those guys doing their in-processing, working on that proposal for my boss… maybe I’ll take Tuesdays to refresh myself, keep everyone in prayer, y’know, take stock.”
In NS, they make you stay the night when you’re on duty. Wednesday I sat at my desk and scribbled. “When I get home,” I told myself, “I’ll key all this in.”

Thursday dawned, bright and early. “When I scribble I can’t go back and make changes without a hell of a lot of trouble,” I grumbled—why had I even accepted the assignment in the first place? I threw an idea on my foolscap pad, let it fester… then there was a call from the door. “Lu, print these for me, will you? They need it before out-processing.”
“When?”
“By tonight. I think 300 copies.”
I worked late that night.

Friday? I needed to catch up on my reading. Friday evenings are long, office hours are short… what better time is there?
“The words will pour on the weekend,” I promised myself. “The Editor will understand—he knows how busy I’ve been.”

A few more minutes and I’ll be done, I thought, charging up Red Beach Two, Tarawa Atoll. The date was November 20th, 1943—as I peered down the sights of my Thompson submachine gun the assignment lurked at the back of my head. The Japs were everywhere. “Suppressing fire!” I yelled, running for cover. Jap in the way—I cut him down, hit F5 to quicksave before anyone popped up and hosed me down with his Nambu H92 gun. “Move! Move! Move!” my squad leader called, and I did. A few more minutes, I resolved, again and again.
“Zhengping, come down for dinner!” I heard.
Darn. I quit the game, ate, read a little more, and didn’t get to the computer till it was time for bed.

“I—I didn’t have the time,” I sputtered, several Sundays later. The Editor was behind his desk, fingers drumming on the table. “I mean, I was so busy at work, my brothers were around all the time at home, I can’t be on my own—”
“Would you hold off something I asked you to do?” he asked. He didn’t sound angry, annoyed or upset. He just asked. “If I wanted you to typeset something I wrote, when’d you do that?”
“Right away, sir,” I stared at the floor.
“I was going to add your name,” he sighed. “Add it to my bestsellers’ list. But I never found the time.”
I gulped.
“When I taught you to think, to read, to write,” he went on, counting on his fingers, “what did I plan for you? Lazing? Hating to sit, to put words on paper? What did I tell you about your office work? Everything you do, in fact. Word or deed.”
“It was in your Directives, sir. I read them—do it all as if I were—as if I were…” the words caught in my throat. “… doing it for you.”
I’d been caught out. There wasn’t anything to say. I couldn’t even look at the Editor.
“Yet you presume you can work in my publishing house, Zhengping. I keep thinking…”
You keep thinking what? That I’m a liar, deluding myself into thinking I can write a bestseller? A hypocrite, waiting to tell everyone holding off till tomorrow is as deadly to your life as a time-bomb, all the while clutching it to my chest? A nervous servant hiding his talent in the ground? A layabout ready for the sack?
“… thinking, well, I always include a note in each rejection slip. I’m sure you’ve seen it yourself.”
“I’m sorry,” I choked. “Can’t remember the last time I saw it.”
I dared not try to hide anything. You couldn’t lie to the Editor—he looked as if he knew us inside and out, taken us in despite all he could see in our pasts, presents, and futures.
“Take another look, ZP. That’s an order.”
I complied, pulling the slip from my pocket. It had been in there so long, I barely remembered it. No words for weeks, no submissions. No submissions, no rejections. My eyes ran over the page:
I am the vine; you are the branches. Apart from me you can do nothing.

It was a long while before I could look at him again. I expected him to punish an errant charge, come down hard, fire me before I became a liability.
Instead he stood. “Your computer, my stories,” he said. “Don’t wait.” As he turned and came to my side, I couldn’t believe my eyes. He held out his wrists, crushed and horribly maimed by crude, six-inch nails.
The mark of cruel rejection.
“I believe you’ve already been fired. Which means you need a job and I can hire you, right?” His logic didn’t make sense, but then it didn’t have to. With that he consulted a book on his desk, pointed at my name amidst a sea of print. It was still there, darkly inked as ever.
“Your file’s right here. Gabe?” he called. An assistant came running. “Go get his docket for me, will you?”
Before my heart finished its leap he turned to me and smiled. “You start today.”