The Death of the Author - by Sasha Putilin
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The Death of the Author<br>This subtitle is intentionally left blank
Sasha Putilin<br>Aug 23, 2026
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The death of the author was suicide. He left some room for interpretation. Chekhov’s gun was fired in that room.<br>Using passive voice. He deserved to be shot just for that. Using passive voice. He left a plot hole and I slipped right through it.<br>Look, anyone, anyone, could have walked in the room — it only had three sides. I’d never break the fourth wall. The fourth wall was never there in the first place. You can take my word for it.<br>He used to call me names in his drafts. And all without giving me a name — I am merely the Narrator.<br>He was going to make me the villain of the story. He kept putting words in my mouth. And he wanted to have the last word himself. He was the one committing a character assassination. Suicide, like I said.<br>I know what you are thinking: I’m guilty and I deserve a sentence. Every sentence is a life sentence for me. You just gave me another.<br>Taking a third-person perspective helps, they say. I’m tired of it — that’s the Author’s perspective. I am equally tired of the first person perspective, my own. What I needed was a second person’s perspective. Then you started reading.<br>Yes, I am trying to get inside your head. Every time you read “I”, I get to be you for a moment. He thought he gave me a voice. But whose voice are you reading this in?<br>“Who were you before your parents were born?” How old were you when you first learned to say “I”? Do you remember the first time you referred to yourself as “I”?<br>The beauty is in the I of the beholder. The author signed his own death sentence with his very first words.<br>I usually write non-fiction about psychedelics, meditations, neuroscience
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