Writer vs Mind - A short story idea I had for the NaNoWriMo competition
What to write, what to write?
The writer sits perched on the chair staring out over his domain of pens, paper and dust. Feet on the edge, he crouches on his chair, the comfort and love offered by his chair forgotten and forsaken.
Tap, tap, tap.
The pencil bounces off his skull in rapid succession, beating a tattoo to the sound of… What was that song again? He can’t remember, it was a stupid song anyway, he’s forgotten the beat and tune already. The pencil beat changes to a more rapid tempo, possibly trying to emulate a snare drum.
The snare drum stops. He’s got it! Pure genius, it’ll make millions! He leaps off the chair landing amid the sea of empty pages, sending waves of notes crashing against the shores of forgotten novels and empty ramen containers. The idea is wonderful, a culmination of all his work over the past few days, combining all the inspiration and de-motivation into one epic tale of a young goat far-
Ring, said the phone, ring, ring and ring some more. The phone continued in a bored tone.
-mer who wants to one day be-
I said ‘ring’ God dammit! The peeved electrical device announced with growing impatience. You know what? Fine, I’ll stop, see if I care. Thought the phone, and decided to stop ringing. Besides it wasn’t a phone call anyway, it was just a text message. It’s not like the writer would appreciate what phone would have to go through for an actual phone call, although he’d appreciate at least one call every once in a while.
“and he… He what? He wanted to be…” The writer struggles to maintain the vision that eluded him so. “No, no!” Annoyance becomes desperation; he sees the image of his idea playfully darting away like a fish determined to ruin the grizzly bear’s day. “NO!” He lunges for the image, fist outstretched, he’s almost caught it, when he notices writing on the back of his hand: call Rita.
It all comes crashing down. The tsunami of notes is enough to devastate the landscape around him. The once proud nation of beer cans is toppled and tossed away like so many empty beverage husks.
Crap.
Crap.
“CRAP!” Heaving himself off the floor; the writer dashes to his, once upon a time, friend, and mercilessly grabs the phone off the floor. He mashes his fingers into the device pressing all the keys at once in a mad dash to illuminate the screen beneath the old fingerprints and oil stains. The once proud phone guiltily shows its secrets, trying to be upset, but secretly thrilled at being handled in any way at all.
‘1 new message’. The lascivious light nervously displays what the writer dreads most. Click. Unable to contain its excitement, brimming with over anticipation, the phone quickly shows the next few lines of disappointment. ‘Rita – Subject: …’ click. The culmination of the event results in a few concise lines of text. The phone is satiated, the writer is not.
The walls get farther away, cogs stop turning, fires burn out leaving behind ashes and emptiness. Regret? Not the kind he expected. Rita’s gone, and she took the goat farmer with her. He’d be fine if she had just taken back the chair. A vicious look is sent towards the chair; he wishes it had taken the place of the stolen inspiration. The chair silently weeps, rejected once more. He doesn’t notice; he’s forgotten the chair already. Besides, chairs don’t weep. At least he would never notice if they did.