Defeating My Red Knight: Best Challenge 09

Day 9 of Gwen Bell’s December blogging challenge:  Best Challenge 09

In Terry Gilliam's film The Fisher King, Robin Williams plays a homeless man named Parry who cowers in mortal terror at the sight of an imaginary red knight, the embodiment of his fear.  The film consistently blurs the line between imagination and reality, suggesting that the line is not that important.  It doesn't matter whether or not the Red Knight really exists, it matters only that he be defeated.

My greatest challenge of 2009 was imaginary.  It was all in my head, and it was as real to me as the Red Knight was to Parry.  2009 hasn't been the easiest year.  There were deaths of people I loved, break ups with friends, job losses, but nothing was more difficult for me to handle than this:

After much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, on a sweltering day in August with my back sticking to the leather desk chair, I proofed my script one last time before dripping through streets radiating with thick white haze blooming with sulfur, to get to Kinkos.  Then I handed my packaged script to a kind Fed-Ex worker after checking the address one last time.

That was it.  Red Knight defeated.  Heavy iron armaments fell off my body and clattered onto the concrete.  It was the first piece of writing I had sent out in over fifteen years.  It didn't matter whether or not it was accepted.  I had sent it out.  I would send out more work in the future.  I was free.

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