My lungs empty of air and rattle against my ribs, my throat opens like a tunnel, and my jaw stretches down to my collar as I scream across the neighborhood. I collapse on my knees into the mud, hurling my fists at the sky clutching a clump of hair torn from my head. Every fiber of my being releases its fury, hate, and agony upon the sound waves. The scream carries on until my body is about to cave inward and vanish. Then I fall silent.
All along the street lights began to turn on in windows and dogs started barking. A lady in slippers, a bathrobe and hair curlers steps outside curiously. A siren wails somewhere downtown. But I am numb. I catch my breath then go back inside and make coffee.
My study is a threadbare closet upstairs. A half-inflated mattress sits beneath a window which lights the room only dimly during the day. It’s a luxurious bachelor’s pad considering what welfare earns someone. I cannot sleep. I sit at my desk and read the little pink slip beneath a lamp on the desk. “Thank you for submitting your short story A Place to Call Home,” it states in diminutive print, “but it didn’t catch our interest.” I adjust my glasses and read it again. I rub the whiskers on my chin and read it another time. I inspect every corner, turn it upside-down, flip it over and inspect the back. I read the slip in the mirror. I drip lemon juice on the paper and light a match beneath it. Absolutely nothing.
Those fools obviously can’t recognize a brilliant meta-fictional allegory when they read one.
I crumple the slip and chuck it over my shoulder. It arcs across the room and lands among more crumpled pink slips overflowing from the trash bin and spreading out onto the floor. I groan and rub my temples, then put my face in my hands and glare down at the floor, receding into a dark stupor. The house settles. Through the window the last azure strand of dusk recedes behind the housetops. My eyes begin to flicker and the room grows fuzzy around the edges. I close my eyes. The clock on the wall chimes but the sound is distant.
I am startled awake by the sound of my type writer sliding and the keys clicking and plugging faster than I’d ever pressed them in my life. Then all I can do is stare agape, because the typewriter has been turned around and a tall man hunched over on the other side of my desk, typing, immersed. His nose his small and in the lamplight I can see his hair graying. If I’m not mistaken, I think he’s Stephen King.
I dare not speak. I just watch his fingers. They punch the keys, and every letter is given such care, yet he keeps a rapid momentum. It’s like watching a musician.
Suddenly he pulls his hands off the keys and reclines back in a chair I hadn’t known was there before. An hour must have passed. He glances towards me through wide-rimmed glasses, the first time I think he’s acknowledged me.
“I see you’re having trouble,” he says. His voice has a nasally edge to it.
I confess that I am. I even ask if he can help.
“Nope,” he says. “Already wrote a book about that.”
He stands up with a groan, his hand against his hip; he’s slow, yet every movement he makes seems abrupt, a small shock. He walks towards the window with a small gimp in his step, mumbling something about a fucking blue van that nearly killed him. All is calm as he watches the night through the window.
“Do you have talent?” he asks.
“Of course I have talent,” I reply, “I earned fifth place in my fourth grade poetry contest. I was born to write!”
He heaves a sigh, as if remembering the good old days long passed, brooding and contemplating. “Kid, I don’t know what else to tell you,” he says. Then he turns towards me. “You just need to have perseverance.”
The clock chimes again and I wake up. I’m in my chair, alone in my study once again. I look back at my desk. Heat rises from my coffee in faint wisps and the typewriter is still where it should be. My manuscript is still in front of me.
I feel like writing.
I push the chair close to the desk and set my fingers on the keys. I remember Stephen’s fingers, his performance. I am on the edge of imagining something. Something beautiful and grand.
I wait.
Absolutely nothing comes to me.
I pull my hands away, thinking that perhaps the story isn’t ripe yet. With nothing else to do, I decide to file the rejected manuscript, so I stick a paper clip on one corner and head across the room towards a blue file cabinet on the opposite wall. The first drawer contains taxes I haven’t paid. I open the second drawer, chock full of manuscripts, and I can’t fit this one in. I open the third drawer and that one is full, too. There is a cardboard box in the corner and I go there, only to find that it too is filled to the brim with my rejected manuscripts.
Perseverance…
I leave my study and head downstairs. The table in the dining room has not an inch of space, it is so cluttered with stacks of paper. I look under the couch and find papers there as well. I make my way into the kitchen; there are stacks of paper on the kitchen table, papers littered across counters, piles sitting in the pantry, bundles in the refrigerator. I have no choice but to move into the basement. I turn and descend the stairs, flick a switch and push open the door.
A beam of light pours into the basement. The room is dank, dilapidated, and utterly filled with boxes of manuscripts. I wade through the mess. There is still one place I have.
Perseverance…
I reach the other wall and brush myself off. There is a small electric dial on the brick wall. I enter a code and stand back. Air pressure is released, lines form in the wall, and a hidden door dilates open and I step through.
Sharps lights turn on one at a time across the chamber. It is a colossal vault expanding seemingly beyond sight. I am surrounded on both sides by mighty towers of paper, rising up to harrowing heights, disappearing into the shadows of an unseen ceiling. I make my way through the chamber.
Perseverance!
At long last, the other end of the chamber is in sight. I approach a bare spot on the floor which had not seen the weight of paper. I blew the dust away and gingerly, with ardor and compassion, I set my manuscript down.
“One day they will see you,” I coo, “one day the world will discover your magic.”
I turn to leave and walk down the narrow aisle, double-track, and then walk out of site. The manuscript remains on the floor, hidden, alone. The light shuts off and the paper disappears in a shroud of darkness.
All along the street lights began to turn on in windows and dogs started barking. A lady in slippers, a bathrobe and hair curlers steps outside curiously. A siren wails somewhere downtown. But I am numb. I catch my breath then go back inside and make coffee.
My study is a threadbare closet upstairs. A half-inflated mattress sits beneath a window which lights the room only dimly during the day. It’s a luxurious bachelor’s pad considering what welfare earns someone. I cannot sleep. I sit at my desk and read the little pink slip beneath a lamp on the desk. “Thank you for submitting your short story A Place to Call Home,” it states in diminutive print, “but it didn’t catch our interest.” I adjust my glasses and read it again. I rub the whiskers on my chin and read it another time. I inspect every corner, turn it upside-down, flip it over and inspect the back. I read the slip in the mirror. I drip lemon juice on the paper and light a match beneath it. Absolutely nothing.
Those fools obviously can’t recognize a brilliant meta-fictional allegory when they read one.
I crumple the slip and chuck it over my shoulder. It arcs across the room and lands among more crumpled pink slips overflowing from the trash bin and spreading out onto the floor. I groan and rub my temples, then put my face in my hands and glare down at the floor, receding into a dark stupor. The house settles. Through the window the last azure strand of dusk recedes behind the housetops. My eyes begin to flicker and the room grows fuzzy around the edges. I close my eyes. The clock on the wall chimes but the sound is distant.
I am startled awake by the sound of my type writer sliding and the keys clicking and plugging faster than I’d ever pressed them in my life. Then all I can do is stare agape, because the typewriter has been turned around and a tall man hunched over on the other side of my desk, typing, immersed. His nose his small and in the lamplight I can see his hair graying. If I’m not mistaken, I think he’s Stephen King.
I dare not speak. I just watch his fingers. They punch the keys, and every letter is given such care, yet he keeps a rapid momentum. It’s like watching a musician.
Suddenly he pulls his hands off the keys and reclines back in a chair I hadn’t known was there before. An hour must have passed. He glances towards me through wide-rimmed glasses, the first time I think he’s acknowledged me.
“I see you’re having trouble,” he says. His voice has a nasally edge to it.
I confess that I am. I even ask if he can help.
“Nope,” he says. “Already wrote a book about that.”
He stands up with a groan, his hand against his hip; he’s slow, yet every movement he makes seems abrupt, a small shock. He walks towards the window with a small gimp in his step, mumbling something about a fucking blue van that nearly killed him. All is calm as he watches the night through the window.
“Do you have talent?” he asks.
“Of course I have talent,” I reply, “I earned fifth place in my fourth grade poetry contest. I was born to write!”
He heaves a sigh, as if remembering the good old days long passed, brooding and contemplating. “Kid, I don’t know what else to tell you,” he says. Then he turns towards me. “You just need to have perseverance.”
The clock chimes again and I wake up. I’m in my chair, alone in my study once again. I look back at my desk. Heat rises from my coffee in faint wisps and the typewriter is still where it should be. My manuscript is still in front of me.
I feel like writing.
I push the chair close to the desk and set my fingers on the keys. I remember Stephen’s fingers, his performance. I am on the edge of imagining something. Something beautiful and grand.
I wait.
Absolutely nothing comes to me.
I pull my hands away, thinking that perhaps the story isn’t ripe yet. With nothing else to do, I decide to file the rejected manuscript, so I stick a paper clip on one corner and head across the room towards a blue file cabinet on the opposite wall. The first drawer contains taxes I haven’t paid. I open the second drawer, chock full of manuscripts, and I can’t fit this one in. I open the third drawer and that one is full, too. There is a cardboard box in the corner and I go there, only to find that it too is filled to the brim with my rejected manuscripts.
Perseverance…
I leave my study and head downstairs. The table in the dining room has not an inch of space, it is so cluttered with stacks of paper. I look under the couch and find papers there as well. I make my way into the kitchen; there are stacks of paper on the kitchen table, papers littered across counters, piles sitting in the pantry, bundles in the refrigerator. I have no choice but to move into the basement. I turn and descend the stairs, flick a switch and push open the door.
A beam of light pours into the basement. The room is dank, dilapidated, and utterly filled with boxes of manuscripts. I wade through the mess. There is still one place I have.
Perseverance…
I reach the other wall and brush myself off. There is a small electric dial on the brick wall. I enter a code and stand back. Air pressure is released, lines form in the wall, and a hidden door dilates open and I step through.
Sharps lights turn on one at a time across the chamber. It is a colossal vault expanding seemingly beyond sight. I am surrounded on both sides by mighty towers of paper, rising up to harrowing heights, disappearing into the shadows of an unseen ceiling. I make my way through the chamber.
Perseverance!
At long last, the other end of the chamber is in sight. I approach a bare spot on the floor which had not seen the weight of paper. I blew the dust away and gingerly, with ardor and compassion, I set my manuscript down.
“One day they will see you,” I coo, “one day the world will discover your magic.”
I turn to leave and walk down the narrow aisle, double-track, and then walk out of site. The manuscript remains on the floor, hidden, alone. The light shuts off and the paper disappears in a shroud of darkness.
No comments:
Post a Comment