The Sort of Story I’d Prefer, Probably

In most stories most people look for a great number of characters doing a great number of things. Just a man is fine with me, a man that’s a bit confused and not too too bright. A man who sits about and tries briefly to puzzle things out and then gives up on them entirely. A man who is reticent, probably, but who we will never see interact with a soul. He will be ugly too, though this fact will be of no great importance to him or to us. It will be a story with just one man sitting about doing a few simple things. He won’t do them particularly well, but then we won’t have expected him to do them well. He will either finish them or he won’t, and again we will not mind either way. Just so long as we become acquainted, however cursorily, for a time, and then after a time part. The amount of time will be of no real significance either. Just simply knowing that we witnessed a man doing something – something done neither well nor poorly – and that he, for his part, allowed us to witness him doing this, or at least didn’t complain about it, or perhaps did complain but, ultimately, could do nothing to stop us. Yes, that is it, a story in which we witness a man that cannot prevent us from peeking in on him, who has no choice but to submit to our gaze, &c &c. In short, I don’t care for stories with many characters, or perhaps I do, but I’d prefer a story with just a man, a man that’s a bit confused and not too too bright.