My new short story collection, “A Shoebox Full of Money”, is out and my Zoom readings have begun. In the Q&A part of my evenings, I am asked “where do the stories come from?”

And my answer is: “From the voices in my head. I take dictation for the voices in my head.”

It’s not that I WANT to write these stories. It’s that I HAVE to write them. The voices within grow insistent, until I am forced to open a new MS Word document and begin. Only then does the pressure subside. Only then are the voices quieted.

For awhile.

And then, once the story is written, the cacophony begins anew. It builds, the cross-talk, the internal arguing — “NO, that’s not how it was!” or “NO, you can’t say THAT in public!” — the psychic pain.

I am my own neurosurgeon, drilling little holes in my head, to let the steam out. So much tension, so much anger, fuels my stories. I want others to know hurt, betrayal, fear, like I do. Why suffer alone?

Increasingly, my stories slant towards aging and death and, perhaps, this is how it should be in this Age of ‘Rona. My dreams are swirls of sadness, mixed in with poison, a toxic Ben & Jerry’s cocktail of doom: “Manic Marty Madness”. The death tallies mount every day, in my stories, as in real life, as we are told that the count from Covid might reach 450,000…500,000…600,000. It’s like a Cheyenne livestock auction: “do I hear A MILLION? A MILLION FIVE!”

The story I am working on now is about a couple dealing with Covid. This afternoon, I will see four Zoom one-act plays about Covid. The front page is filled with Covid. A response I wrote minutes ago to a NYT article about airline travel during the pandemic, and unruly passengers, just got 50 likes in the blink of an eye. Now, it’s up to 110.

It stalks us. It hunts us. It infiltrates our waking hours and our dreams. There is no escape. It is war. A medical war. We are all untrained soldiers, fighting an unseen foe with pitchforks, baseball bats, and slipping facemasks.

The voices in my head scream in deadly earnest. WRITE THIS DOWN! BEAR WITNESS TO THIS TRAGEDY!

I don’t want to write it. But I have to write it. The voices are far to loud to ignore.

Even though I want them, really want them, to shut the hell up. Even though I want, really want, to just let it go.

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My hope for this New Year, 2021, is for it to be just like my Miele dishwasher. It is a mid-line model, not the flashiest, not the most expensive. It just does what it’s supposed to do, unlike the inefficient, leaky machine — a noisy antique — it replaced.

It is virtually silent, this Miele of mine. Many is the time I ask my wife, “is this feckin thing ON?” You can’t hear it. Yet, soon enough, little electronic beeps and boops go off, and the dishes, flatware and glassware are spotlessly clean. They look like restaurant-quality utensils. At least, from what I remember about restaurants, since I haven’t set foot in one since early March.

For 2021, I want a year that uses my Miele as a role model. I want leaders with energy and skill and good intentions to right the ship of state. We have a long list of “must-haves” : a national plan for vaccine distribution, jobs, economic support for people and their employers. Efficiency. Expertise. Compassion. These are things I think we can muster.

At least from what I remember about past administrations.

What I shout every day since early 2016– in the direction of Washington, D.C.by way of my TV — is “cut the rebop”, in my best Marlon Brando-as-Stanley imitation.

Last year was the worst, a maraschino cherry atop a pile of manure. It has been the year of Erik Satie. Let me explain: I’ve been taking piano lessons with a musical genius for almost three years now. Every couple of months, when I have a piece pretty much (ok, “somewhat”) nailed down, we discuss the next challenge.

This past November, without prompting, I asked if we could try Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie Number 1. Boomers will recognize this piece as the opening cut on the second Blood Sweat & Tears album. Yes, this is the one that foisted David Clayton-Thomas and his marzipan-style of singing (a little goes a long way) upon us more blues-oriented Al Kooper-Danny Kalb BS&T/”Child Is Father To The Man” fans.

The Satie piece I selected is dark and brooding. It conjures a wistful moment, a cold rainy day when hope has gone absent. The score indicates “lent et douloureux” and Satie, he ain’t kiddin’ bro: it takes you to the town called “despair” and stops just, and I mean JUST, short of dread.

My piano instructor said the piece would be difficult for me, because of the left hand jumps. It would be a stretch, but I wanted to try. And he agreed, being a reverent admirer of Satie, and of Debussy. I think he is bemused by my bullheadedness. He relented and gave me this color commentary:

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“Have you ever been to Paris in winter,” my maestro asked. No, I had not. Only in summer and fall. “Winter is bleak. Everyone dresses in black, or dark grey; no one is smiling,” he said, recalling his upbringing there and his days at The Sorbonne (for Ph.D #1). “It is cold. It is dreary. It is relentless.”

And, I thought, “well, no wonder I picked that particular piece.” My subconscious knew: It was the perfect soundtrack to 2020. Torrents of bad news that begat bad news. It was Death in “The Seventh Seal”, leaning over the chessboard, while we were all Gene Wilder, in The Producers, snot-sobbing “no…way…out….no….way….out….”

It has taken six weeks, but I am getting the better of this Satie Gymnopedie Number 1. I am mastering the jumps. I am playing it to tempo. OK, “almost” to tempo (but it’s supposed to be very slow, I tell myself).

I am going to master this mofo. Just like I am going to make it through the months ahead, despite the pain, the loss, the tears of the previous year.

No more Gene Wilder gifs for 2021. Next month, pitchers and catchers report; a clean slate of a baseball season. No, for the New Year, I’m thinking more along the lines of Gloria Gaynor’s disco anthem, “I Will Survive”. Hey, 2020: “Go on now, go, walk out the door, just turn around now, ’cause you’re not welcome anymore.”

My Juilliard and Sorbonne trained piano teacher may not go for it, the disco tune, but that’s alright. For 2021, I’m using my Miele as my role model. Not the flashiest. But quietly, I’m going to get the job done, do what I have to do, to the very best of my ability.

What about you? Are you with me on this?