When my father began rowing the boat, I felt a surge of excitement.

“Dad! How long will it take to get there?”

“Maybe an hour.”

“Oh. This water looks really deep.”

“It is. I believe it goes down to around five-hundred feet in some places.”

“Wow! Are there any monsters in the lake?”

“Ernest, that’s just in fiction. Monsters only live in the imagination.”

“Do you write about monsters?”

“Try not to. Actually, the island we’re going to is where I wrote my best story. Unfortunately, it was never published.”

“How come?”

“That’s a very good question, son. I’ve often wondered about that. It had everything. Great style and structure. Believable characters. It was a story about an Indian woman who was pregnant and having trouble. A doctor came to help her give birth. After he assisted in the process, he discovered that the father had committed suicide just minutes before. Killed himself with a knife. You see death is a natural thing. Just like life. But it’s also mysterious… almost as mysterious as the publishing game. You just never know.”

“Dad…is dying hard?”

“To be honest, a lot of factors come into play. What a person’s done, for example. Adventures. Scandals. Crazy lifestyle. A person can struggle for years without being noticed. Actually, writing is the easy part. Getting published is difficult.”

“But Dad…what about dying?”

“Oh that…well, of course it doesn’t hurt.”