Prose

The doorbell chime drifted through the cabin before the feminine figure, standing on the Welcome mat as they adjusted their blouse. The quiet country road was desolate at night, headlights the only real evidence than any souls might be between destinations. But one soul, one soul was all they needed.

Camden Callahan answered the door, wearing an Iowa Hawkeyes hoodie and flannel pajama bottoms that were probably older than his kids. The cigarette dangling from his lips spilled ash onto the goals letters on his chest, which he brushed with the veteran deft of a lifelong Marlboro Man. “Look,” he said in an exhausted tone, “if you want an interview, you need to call my publicist.”

“Oh, I’m not here for an interview, Mr. Callahan.”

“And no-”

“And I’m not here for an autograph, either. May I please come in?”

“Nope.”

And he slammed the door in their face. Turning back to the living room, the figure was standing in the living room. “Now, if we’re done with absurdities.”

“Listen, lady.”

“I am not a woman, I simply took this appearance so you’d answer the door. We had already tried with a more masculine appearance and you ignored us completely.”

“If you don’t get out right now-“

“Your call to the police will not go through.”

He picked up the landline, and his farce indicated to them that there was no dial tone. Pulling the cell from his pocket, a relic of a flip phone. “Dead,” he muttered under his breath.

“Respectfully Mr. Callahan, we really need to get moving if we intend to be efficient. But let me introduce myself, I’m Muerta. And I am an angel of death.”

“You’re the Angel of Death?” The cigarette had fallen from his mouth to the rug below. He instinctively stamped it out before realize he wasn’t wearing slippers. “Shit.”

“Well, not the Angel. There’s a host of us. But that’s not important, what is is that I’ve been tasked to help you finish your novel.”

Camden pulled the blue pack of cigarettes from his robe pocket as he made his way over to the kitchen. Lighting the front right burner, then turning it on low, he puffed life into his vice. “What the f- no, not ‘what’. Why would Death Angels want with my novel?”

“Oh, it’s not what we want with it. But it is supposed to be your Magnum Opus, and incredibly influential.”

“But that doesn’t-“

“And,” they interrupted, “It is meant to be published posthumously. That’s the thing that makes it extremely popular.”

“I’ve been working on this for years.”

“And that’s precisely why we’re intervening,” Muerta sighed. They took a seat on the outdated but nearly pristine couch. “It was supposed to be done years ago. Death has given you slack, as you’ve self isolated and it makes it easy to avoid you messing with the flow of time.”

“But now we’re short on time,” Camden puffed. He took another drag, then smiled. “You’re fucking with me, you’re with Penguin. Or my agent. That little-”

Mr. Callahan, I assure you, this is no intimidation tactic.”

“Look, at least call me ‘Cam.’ If we’re so friggin’ pressed for time, that’ll save you some syllables.”

“Okay, Cam. I assure you, regardless of your completion of the book, you and I will still be departing at sunrise.”

Cam put out the now depleted cigarette, pondering his situation. Looking from Muerta to his desk on the other side of the cabin’s open floor plan. “Do I at least get to know what happens if I don’t finish?”

“Well, your children and ex-wife will receive very little. Not just from your will, but from future residuals. This book will keep your grandchildren comfortable.”

Muerta could see realization cross Cam’s face in this moment. “Guess I better get to work.”

The next several hours were a cacophony of clacking, Callahan’s fingers working to the bone on the keys of the ancient word processor. It clearly hadn’t endured this level of abuse in years. The document grew, taking on letters and punctuation like the Titanic taking on water. He’d seemingly accepted “women and children first” as the mantra. Muerta, meanwhile, perused Callahan’s collection of books and magazines from decades past, flipping through them occasionally between grabbing him the occasional drink. They may not have been there as a servant, but who were they to create more roadblocks than solutions.

And it’s not as if Callahan was the best father. Wasn’t even in the running for “World’s Okayest Dad,” as Muerta knew. Hence why both his kids went to college on the opposite coast, and his ex-wife remarried a nice man who owned a small chain of grocery stores in the Midwest. And Callahan, after years of trying to be Hemingway, Thompson, and pre-sobriety Stephen King. But in the end, relegation to self-isolation in his cabin was the only recourse that made sense. 

Had they felt so compelled, Muerta would have offered to read the rough draft that poured in small bursts from the dot matrix printer. But Callahan was so close to the end, the publisher could work out the rest in his absence.

But as dawn crept over the pines, peaking through the bay windows of the cabin, Muerta looked up from the Plath novel on their lap. Callahan had a ream of paper in his hands, sliding it into a large envelope. The smile on his face was reminiscent of those early interviews on Carson from his first book tour. “Welp, it’s done.”

“Good, I’ll make sure it gets to the mailbox.”

“I’m not going with you? Is this not an Elijah’s Golden Chariot type situation?”

“That wasn’t an Angel of Death. And no, you’re meant to pass here. A mausoleum to your life and work, of sorts.”

“Ah, okay.” Callahan drops down on the couch, and pulls the blue pack from his robe. It had been oddly absent during the furious typing onslaught, but Muerta knew that the nicotine had been as much a dampener as an accelerant.

“Maybe enjoy something stronger, you have that box of embargo era Cubans, right?”

He lit up, and ran over to his desk, opening the bottom drawer to look for his stash. In the kitchen, the oven knob that had accidentally been left on Low slowly spun until it reached its maximum. Muerta made their way out the front door, the envelope under their arm.

As the Postal Service vehicle rumbled up the front drive, they held out the package to the worker. “Mr. Callahan wanted to make sure this got handed directly to you. He needs it in New York as soon as possible.”

The worker nodded, handed the junk mail due for the mailbox to Muerta, and headed off on his way. They watched the government vehicle disappear over the hill, then turned to watch the display. For a moment, all was quiet. Even the birds had stopped chirping their morning songs. But in the next, flames exploded from the cabin.

The era of Camden Callahan had ended, his most beloved work yet to be published. But for now, Muerta’s work was over, disappearing into the smoke and up to the heavens.

This story takes place not long ago, probably only a summer or two. It was a picture perfect Fourth of July weekend and my family and I were spending the weekend at our camp, and with us on this fine weekend was our dog, Lacey. Being that Lacey had only been up to camp a handful of times and seemed talented at getting into trouble up there, we were a little nervous at how the weekend would play out. However, this particular weekend Lacey seemed to have turned a corner, she had been an angel the entire time. My mom and I were so proud of her, my dad on the other hand, thought that she was, and I quote, “still an asshole.” Since it seemed she was on her best behavior my family and I decided to go out for ice cream and leave Lacey behind in our trailer, as we’d only be gone for no more than twenty minutes. What could go wrong in such a short time frame? So, we put Lacey inside and locked everything up, leaving just a small window above the kitchen counter cracked. We all piled into the car and drove off without a second thought. We enjoyed our frozen treats without a care in the world, and it was not until we came back and saw Lacey sitting in the front yard that we realized something had gone terribly wrong.

As we got closer, we could all see that the window we had left innocently cracked had been pushed open and the screen busted through. We put two and two together and concluded that Lacey, who by the way is no small dog, jumped up onto the tiny kitchen counter, walked on top of the even tinier stove, somehow pushed the window open, and flung her chunky body out the window to sweet freedom. According to our neighbors, who were probably our only saving grace that day, Lacey was running in a frenzy all over the campground trying to find us. As they tell it, they happened to see a random dog running around for a few minutes before one of them realized it might be Lacey. As confusion set in since they had just seen us leave, one of them called out to her, and she came running up to them so happy to be reunited with people after a long and agonizing few minutes alone. As our neighbors were trying to figure out what had happened, one of them decided to put Lacey on her tie out in the yard, and we pulled up not long after.

Now the thing that still haunts me to this very day is how she was able to get the window open. The window in question slid from side to side and had a slippery plastic covering that made it difficult to open. She must have been wildly pawing at the window for quite some time before it finally budged. At any other time, Lacey has the IQ of a bag of rocks, but on this particular day, she was smart enough to come up with and execute an escape plan of Bond villain proportion. I also still cannot get over how a dog of her size, about sixty pounds, was able to walk on the barely there kitchen counter and then squeeze through that tiny little window.

In a strange way, I find the actions of Lacey’s great Fourth of July escape endearing. I mean its not everyday that you come across someone who would fling themselves out a window just to be with you. Now, having said that, even if I know I am only going to be gone for five minutes, I always have to make sure that all the windows are completely shut and locked.

I’ve been hearing a lot from the grapevine about creativity. It’s a rather sour branch. “Creativity is dying!” “We’re losing our creative touch!” Quite bold accusations. In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that the world no longer has a strong enough creative base in the conversation to continue ignoring it.

Of the top 15 top-grossing movies in the United States last year, 14 of them were sequels or adaptations. An utterly detestable number. Years of studying film trends has turned magic into science. Original films are deemed risky and are therefore shunned. R-rated movies vanished for the far more marketable PG-13. The film industry, once renowned for its creativity, is now ruled by a corrupt establishment parading around the guillotine of sequels. The blade always hungry for a franchise.

Beyond the graveyard of Hollywood lies the factory of social media. Social media stabs… mutilates, interesting ideas into insulting, insipid, infections. To steal a quote: “If you have an interesting idea, it won’t be yours for long.” The factory has a bootlegging epidemic, vultures eager to mass-produce a successful idea until people get physically repulsed by it. Ideas are not ideas, but “content” to be exploited. This “content” is bloated with run times running multiple hours, but yet nothing interesting to say. “Content” engineered to be just interesting to keep you around, but not entertained.

Of course, video games are not to be forgotten. A war has been waging for a decade, against just about anything in video games. A circle of hell that envelops its warriors as they fight back and forth, appearing as nothing but a violent sea of red to a bystander. You are expected to pay 70 dollars for a video game that is riddled with technical issues, and perhaps be given the generous offer of bug fixes if the developers are feeling generous.

Whew. Those are some sour grapes. It’s easy to feel this all-consuming void, that the good days are long behind us. That creativity is dead, and that the establishment killed it its quest to refine the ultimate product… but I’ve got a secret. Something I haven’t told you. It’s always been this way.

Disney’s been pumping out worthless sequels since the ‘90s. Cinderella II, Lion King II, the list gets depressing the further you go down. Worthless sequels used to be a dime a dozen, the once short life of copyright flooding the market with sequels so bad they’ve been memory-holed from public conscious.

Bootlegging isn’t a new industry; you just didn’t know about them because they’ve been culturally forgotten. Star Wars ushered in a titanic wave of imitators, but yet only Spaceballs has had any hint of cultural staying power.

Video games were so rampantly exploited that it financially killed the industry for 2 years. Bargain bins were full of buggy, incomplete garbage being sold for less than 10 dollars. Nintendo had to market their console as an “entertainment system” to skirt being lumped in with Atari, Intellevison, the Odyssey, and a landfill full of other failed consoles.

Forums on the internet of old would make today’s Social Media blush. A rampant toxicity involving constant drama between the heads of the website, often getting the website shut down as a result. Want me to turn the clock back even further—

Creativity isn’t dead. Looking up something on the internet is no different than consulting your neighbor on why that stupid screw won’t fit. Creativity has been allowed to soar to new heights with social media. Creativity is by its very nature… new. You just have to look for it. So, the next time there’s something new and weird on your recommended tab… give it a watch. What’s the least that could happen? It can’t be any more sour than that grapevine.