The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone

Dudley Stone is a man of infinite literary talent. A master of poetry, stage, screen, fiction, how-to books, short stories, and so on and so on. He is monumentally prolific. As he signs his latest work at a bookstore, a man, a failed novelist, hands him a note. It says he is there to kill Stone. Stone tells him to wait till the next day and do it at his house on the seashore. The man backs off and, sure enough, is welcomed by Dudley Stone into his house the next day. What transpires is pretty weird. He asks the young writer to help him destroy all his new work by throwing it into the ocean and, hence, killing him. He is tired, he says, and this will allow him to look at the truly wonderful parts of life. Twenty years pass and there is a memorial party, attended by prominent and not-so-prominent writers. Interesting conclusion but a little disappointing.