Call me Sherlock Holmes and I’ll call you Agatha Christie. Then I’ll smother you in Typhoo tea leaves and delicately lick the nape of your neck. One day we’ll be famous, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make the world see me as you do. This is love, and drive, and passion, and meaning. And it’s out there for the taking, my delicate partner in hope.

Now, listen up, reader. Bend your dumb faces forward and furrow your brow in concentration.

We’d been a song-writing duo for seven years. One male, one female. Romantic angle. Conventionally attractive. Talent on tap. You know the drill. The problem was, the world wasn’t buying it. Not even friends and family.

But that was only how they saw it, and we didn’t give a rat’s ass for their perspective. We had vision, they had day jobs. There’s a charm to seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses, and we sure weren’t prepared to let them snatch these spectacles of delight from our gorgeous faces. It’s one’s right to traverse the world with grand plans. Where would we be without delusions? Still in caves, naked, and fighting over firewood. How unrefined.

But not even we could deny that indifference was a concern. It’s not the little waves of criticism that kills an artist, it’s the ocean of indifference, and we were staring into the Atlantic. Nice view of the horizon, I hear you say.

Fuck off.

I’ll take your bad reviews and feast on them for days. But when you ignore me, I feel a deep desire to throttle you with a bicycle chain. You may say that this isn’t normal. And to that I say, correct. I hope you choke on your normal. All this indifference was about to change though. I’d rather die miserable and alone for pissing off the world than happy and beloved for never stirring up a fuss. We’re born ready to disrupt, then they send us to school.

We resisted.

You can’t indoctrinate a killer. Sure, they didn’t care for our music. But it wasn’t about the music. Talent doesn’t sell. Not anymore. It’s about the stories. You don’t know what’s good, do you? You think you have taste, don’t you? You don’t. You have habits. And right now your habit is to lap up shit. You say you don’t like the Kardashians, but you watch the Kardashians. It’s like sugar, everyone’s giving it up and everyone’s shoving it down their faces.

If you can’t win them over with quality, win them over with bullshit. By any means necessary. I call this the attritional approach.

What sells?

If we’re being honest?

Son, I’ll tell you what fucking sells.

Carbs. Sex. Division. Violence. Death.

Did you notice your partner’s obsession with true crime or were you too busy watching porn in the other room?

Our plan? Alright, alright. I’m getting to that.

We’ll record a cover version of an obscure song by a well-known artist. Then a few days after releasing it, we’ll kill them. Make it look like an accident, of course. Then we’ll wait. Wait for our cover version to be swept up in the customary Great Wave of Public Grief. Tears. Many tears. Then, the gold rush.

Airtight.

Call me Sherlock, and I’ll call you Agatha. Soon, we’ll be famous. Soon, we’ll sleep on a bed of fifty pound notes with the face of our hero King Charles pressed against our genitalia. It’s reassuring to have a man back on the throne. But not as reassuring as the thought of our success. On that, I can survive a lifetime.