The Summarist

I should have been called the summarizer
But I didn't like the way it sounded

'This July, the only person who can save the world is...The Summarizer!'

I liked being a summarist
It sounded more breezy and...I don't know

Nice?

That's not to say
It was always
A nice job

It was at first
It was purely nice
But then...

See, it was supposed to be just movies

I was the guy who would write
The summaries
On the back of DVD's
Or in those guides you look through
When you're trying to figure out
What the name of the film was
Where Claudette Colbert fell in love with Don Ameche

For some reason, I was always just really good
At summarizing things

In college, my friends would be writing papers
About some book we'd been assigned
For a lit class

And I'd hear them saying things like--

'It's about loss and redemption and cruelty'

And I'd think to myself--

'It's actually just a book about a girl who can't find her shoes.'

Admittedly, I didn't get the best grades
On my papers

English professors aren't big fans
Of guys who spend all their time
Summarizing

But then one day, a few months after graduation
I saw a posting online
Looking for someone
Who was interested in becoming a summarizer

I called and they hired me
Right over the phone

Then I asked if I could be called
A summarist instead

They said sure
And that's how I became what I am

Like I said, summarizing movies was fine
That was easy

This one's about a girl who falls into a vat of nuclear waste and ends up with giant hands
This one's about a talking crocodile who has to solve a bank robbery
This one's about twin sisters who fall in love with the same guy

My job was pretty cut and dry

Then one day, somebody showed up at my house
And asked to be summarized

I thought I misheard them

'You want me to summarize something for you,' I asked

'No,' the guy said, 'I want you to summarize me.'

Now, before I tell you what happened next
I should probably let you know
That, for me, summarizing was almost instinctive after awhile

I couldn't stop myself
It was like sneezing

I'd look at something
And on command
I'd just blurt out a summary of it

This was all part of my job, of course
But it never occurred to me
That one day somebody would show up on my front doorstep
And ask for a summary of themselves

Nevertheless, when someone did
When that guy did
I looked at him
And before I could stop myself I said--

'Dull guy lusts after girl for two years until she marries somebody else and then he marries a doughy girl from Long Island.'

I slapped my hand over my mouth
You know, like a Little Rascal or something
But the damage was already done

Surprisingly enough, the guy didn't seem that upset

He actually looked relieved

I guess it can be kind of nice
To have somebody
Put your existence into a nutshell like that

I'll admit, part of me was curious
And when I could see that he wasn't upset
And he DID ask for the summary, after all
I decided to press my luck a little bit

'Have you met the girl from Long Island yet,' I asked him

'Not yet,' he said, 'But I'm in no rush'

With that, he handed me a twenty dollar bill
And walked away

I put the twenty in a jar
And left it there

I figured I could donate it to charity or something

Now that I was aware I could read the future
It didn't seem right
To profit from it

To be honest, the prophesizing didn't really seem like
The super skill

It wasn't that I looked at that guy
And saw his future

It just so happened
That in order to summarize his life
I had to give him a little of what was to come

It's like that way with movies sometimes too

When you're summarizing 'Titanic'
You kind of have to mention
That the ship's going to do down

Most of the time, people know their endings anyway

Unless your life is a David Lynch movie
You usually know where you're going to end up

And if your life is a David Lynch movie
Then I suggest you find a lesbian to make balloon animals with

I knew where my life was going
As soon as that guy walked away from my house that day

And I was right

People started showing up day and night
To be summarized

Not all of them took it as well as that first guy

One women burst into tears
And started hitting me
When I told her that her summary was--

'Woman loses everyone close to her only to take her own life by diving into a shark tank at the Blue Harbor Aquarium.'

I let her hit me
Part of me felt like I deserved it
That doesn't sound like a movie I'd want to see
Let alone live

Some people got nice summaries
But honestly, not many

Life usually does end with death, after all
And what I remember about Shakespeare from college was--

If it ends with everybody dying, it's a tragedy.

So basically
We're all living one big tragedy

One day I got sick of summarizing
All those tragedies
So I quit my job as a summarist
And moved deep into the woods

I lived off the land
I grew a beard
I only showered when I'd notice small woodland creatures
Running away from me

It was a good life

Then one day, I was fishing in a lake
And I looked down
And saw myself

My reflection, in the water

It was sort of like Narcissus
Except instead of falling in love with myself, I did it

I summarized

When I heard my own summary
It was like...

Well, it was like what they tell you would happen
If you went forward in time
And met your future self

You know how they say
A rift would open up in the space-time continuum
And the entire Universe would explode

Well, it did

At least, for me it did

I died

Right there in the lake

I'm not sure if anybody ever found me
Or if trout just ate at my body
Until all that was left were the bones

My summary didn't include
My post-life

I guess the credits rolled
As soon as my head hit the water

So what was my summary?

Well, that's the strange thing

It was long

It was incredibly long

Complex

It stretched around me
Like ribbon tape
And then went up and up
Into the sky
Like a beam of light

I took it all in
All at once
And I think
That's what killed me

I don't think my summary was long
Because I was some sort of
Mythic figure or anything

Because it wasn't just my summary
It was a summary of...

Well, of everything

And it was expansive in ways...

...in ways...

There aren't even ways to describe
The ways in which it's expansive

And why did I see it
Before I died?

I think it was because
It, whatever it is
Wanted me to see
All the things I'd been leaving out
Of all those other summaries

It wanted me to see
Everything I'd been missing

And then it killed me

I guess my life
Like all the others
Was a tragedy

But you know what?

I laughed

When I saw that summary
The ultimate summary
I laughed

Right before I died
I let out one, short laugh
And that was it

So maybe it wasn't so tragic after all

Maybe it was just complicated

Maybe all of it
Was just a little more complicated
Than I could ever understand