epilogue

I have pieced together the preceding story from a box of papers, letters and diaries handed to me by a woman I met at a Buddhist sangha shortly after I arrived in Austin, Texas. We were at the same weekend meditation retreat, during which I mentioned that I was a writer struggling to complete a memoir about my depression which came on after my performance career and primary relationship ended. The woman had been holding onto the box of writing for ten years and didn't know what to do with it, and hoped that the memory of her deceased friend could somehow live on. She gave me permission to do whatever I felt inspired to do with the writings. I spent several months reading and rereading the contents of the box, then spent some time trying to track down August Collins, but with no success. The letters written to him by the woman who gave me the box had all been returned, bound together and marked "NO SUCH ADDRESSEE," so it isn't clear if there really was a performance artist named august chagrin, or if he was a creation of Randy Reardon's imagination.