Early this morning, when I stumbled out of the bedroom all bleary-eyed second-guessing my idea of getting up before the sun has come up, I sat myself down at the table to check my email. It’s a little maneuver I do to keep from going back to sleep on the couch. This morning my email inbox gave me a simple missive: “Thank you very much for submitting work to [Magazine]. Although this submission isn’t right for the magazine, we hope you will keep us in mind for future work.” The end. No surprise there with this rejection, as it’s a kick-ass magazine, but still my reaction was, Why not?

Why couldn’t that have been a yes? I mean, would it really have messed with the balance of the universe if my story had been accepted for publication? I doubt it. Please try to explain chaos theory to me, because I don’t get it.

To most everyone, it would have been the blink of an eye, this yes. No one would have noticed. But to me, it could have meant the world.

I don’t understand the universe sometimes. Seriously, how could it hurt? Seriously, why not?*

*I guess the story wasn’t good enough. But still!

I just realized that I went down a notch in their rejections. The last one said: “Thank you very much for submitting work to [Magazine] and our apologies for the delayed response. This piece isn’t right for the magazine, but please keep us in mind for other pieces. We are interested in reading more of your work.” Now I don’t even merit the last sentence!

You know what I’m going to ask: Why not?