A Bout with Writer's Block

I certainly hope that you, the reader, would find it in your heart to forgive me for making you wait so long in between releasing stories. You see, I’ve run into what we in the trade like to refer to as writer’s block. It’s a concept that I’m sure you’re all too aware of. Even as I commit these words to the page I haven’t the foggiest notion how to tug on that proverbial narrative thread. But to make up for my long absence, I present to you, to the best of my recollection, what has occurred during my unannounced hiatus as I battled writer’s block. What follows after this paragraph is based on true events (mostly).

Poised at my desk with my wrists elevated over the delicate keys of my aged Underwood, the ideas were all but flowing. I looked behind me at the open door to my office and called for Muse. I would not be so presumptuous as to call her mine, but she had seemed to favor me lately. Perhaps I was hers. She doesn’t have a true name so one day I referred to her simply as Muse, a moniker she seemed to find amusing. This particular day her fickle heart brought her—Well, I had no idea where she was. I still don’t. This would not be a problem if I wasn’t so near to the end of a story and was in dire need of her inspiration.

Calling once again to her, I heard the rapid approach of footsteps and immediately recognized them not as Muse’s, but as my faithful friend, Jack. When I brought him home, he was a forlorn pup. Not only was he the runt of his litter at only six feet tall, but he was also born with one head. It’s a most embarrassing malady for a Cerberus but I love him all the same. There never was a more faithful hellhound. I climbed upon his back and we rode north in search of the elusive Muse.

When we were nearly to the Northern Bay there was a shriek as if someone were being attacked. Jack leapt to action before I could direct him to do so and we found the source of the incessant screams coming from the top of a dried, bare tree. One would think that such noises could not be produced by so burly a knight. A rather large dragon was lying down at the bottom of the tree but the source of the knight’s trepidation was not the fire-breathing dragon. Just behind the dragon were the lovely and brave Lady Caitlin of Livermore and her trusted saber-toothed cat, Nesbitt.

“Do you need help there, good sir?” I yelled to the knight.

“Not at all, dear scribe,” he replied with the slightest of wavers in his voice. “You just caught me in the middle of rescuing this fair damsel in distress.”

“Do I appear to be distressed?” Lady Caitlin interjected. Her voice was a stern contrast to that of the knight’s. Nesbitt approached the tree and elicited a whimper from the knight. Nesbitt was a loyal companion as one would be to a woman who, just about a year prior, had rescued the poor cat from river demons.

“I just thought you could use—” the knight added.

“How about you do less presuming about what I could use and leave these poor dragons alone?” Lady Caitlin cared a great deal about all the creatures on her land. “This one is lucky I was nearby eradicating a troll’s nest. He’s just a baby and you were just about ready to slay him. You should be ashamed of yourself!”

“I am, princess.”

“I am no princess. Now get out of here before Nesbitt realizes she’s hungry.” And with that the knight ran down the field towards his steed in the distance never to be heard from again.

“Good morning, Lady Caitlin. And to you, Nesbitt,” I greeted them.

“Are you here to ‘rescue’ me as well?”

“You’re far more experienced with that than I could ever dream of. I’m actually in search of Muse. She hasn’t been around these parts, has she?”

“Can’t say that we’ve seen any muse let alone the one you refer to as such. But then again, I’ve been busy ridding the countryside of would-be knights in shining armor. But I will surely send word if Muse is seen around these parts! I do enjoy your sonnets, good scribe!”

“Thank you so much, Lady Caitlin. I suppose I will head back home and hope Muse will aim to do the same,” I bowed, as did Jack, and we set on our way back home.

Back at my desk, I stared blankly at the curled sheet of paper within the typewriter; its words sprawled about as if looking for a conclusion that may never come. I looked at the stack of pages that yearned to be completed with the final sheet. Words that may never come lingered in the air and there was no way for me to pluck them, no way for me to even see them without my dear friend Muse. I began to wonder if there was anything I said to have offended her or driven her away. But it was futile, for even if I had realized that that was the case there was little, if anything, that could be done about it.

Perhaps, I thought to myself, I can’t undo something said to Muse but there is a very real chance I can undo something said to me. Jack lay still under my desk as I reached down to rub his belly. I tiptoed out of the office to let him sleep and snuck into the garage. What I had in mind would only take but a few moments, maybe even fewer than a few.

It was dusty in the garage. I lifted the tarp and found my most dangerous and prized possession. You would think that operating a time machine would be like riding a bike but I can assure you that it’s a much more complicated process than pedaling. Fortunately, I was a stickler for detail and kept copious notes of operating the infernal machine. I knew the exact day I wanted to visit. I was eight years old and I had just received word that I won an award for a short story contest in which my teacher had submitted one of the first things I had ever written. That was the moment I knew I wanted to become a storyteller. I had put pen to paper and have never stopped since.

I knew that if I could convince my younger self of what’s to come, then I can avoid the having to seek out Muse each time I wanted to complete a story. However, my younger self had something else in mind. I didn’t speak much. The words I used were never spoken, only written. Words of poets and novelists who were long gone before I had even been born were stacked neatly around my tiny bed. The picture books I never learned to let go of were always under my pillow. They were stories that I knew I could depend on when sleepless nights were aggressively sleepless. And then there were the comic books. There were first editions and collections that lined the shelves. Clothes were foregone to make more room for books that I would never have time read. The bound stories, paperback and hardback, surrounded the younger me like a shell that I used to protect myself from the harsh reality of adulthood.

There was no way I could convince my younger self that writing wasn’t worth it. While I basked in the warm light of nostalgia, I was dejected that I was stuck with a story in need of a resolution. And that’s where this story ends. Perhaps by the time your eyes meet these words, I will have found an ending to my novel. Who knows? Maybe Muse found it in her heart to lend me a hand one last time. But until then, I apologize, once again, for boring you with the banality of my life in the absence of writing.

Conjurer of Words

They call what I have a condition as if it’s a sickness to be cured but the longevity or quality of my life has not diminished in the slightest because of it. I physically see two different versions of the world simultaneously at any given time. Initially, doctors thought it was an ailment of my eyes but they would later discover that a unique network of synapse connections related to my sight is what resulted in my so-called condition. The first of the realities I see is the same world that most of you see every day: a tree looks like a tree, a car looks like a car, and people walking down the street are just people walking down the street. But imagine a second layer over that, a layer in which words are literally floating in the air like specks of dust, seemingly random at first. That’s how I see the world: draped in words.

Some of them are small, simple words, and some of them are large complex words that nobody has used for hundreds of years outside of dusty old books. When a certain something catches my eyes like a squirrel in a tree or a beautiful building downtown, certain words gravitate towards that something like a reverse explosion of abstract vocabulary. Those certain words, I learned early on, described the object of my focus perfectly. I’ve learned to quickly remember the face of a pretty girl walking down the street before she is swarmed by a multitude of words, some of which would make me blush if I were to tell you what they were.

“It seems your subconscious has materialized itself in your sense of sight,” the doctors told me, “Your thoughts seem more concrete and contextualized to you in this manner. It’s fascinating. There’s never been a case like this before.”

“Will he live a normal life?” my mother asked.

“I’m afraid not. I’m sorry but it’s likely that he’ll see the world like this for the duration of his life,” the doctors responded. I thought that was silly. Why should anyone be sorry? The condition is in no way a hindrance to living my life. In fact it’s a great boon to my aspirations to become a writer. It’s sad that it has become safe to assume that seeing the world differently is a something to be pitied.

After some research, I found that my ailment has been around for centuries and the data suggests it has been around for thousands of years. Because it is a condition of the brain while the eyes get most of the blame, many past cases were dismissed as either dementia or witchcraft. The older carriers of this genetic “defect” were wise enough to recognize, as I was, that it was more of a gift than a burden and they used this to convince everyone that they were wizards who could conjure up words, words that no one had ever heard of, for any and every possible scenario. Of course that only amounted in what were essentially writing positions. But in medieval times that was a relatively powerful position. But today the roles have reversed where you know what a writer looks like by the measure of natural sunlight they don’t get.

My first visions of floating vocabulary occurred sometime in high school during the awkwardly necessary rite of passage known as puberty. While others either coasted through the typhoon of hormones and others embraced their awkwardness, I succeeded in enjoying the shroud of anonymity. A dance was approaching and the few friends I was fortunate to have urged me to ask out this girl that they, somehow, knew I had my eye on for some time. However, I noticed early on that words would swarm anything or anyone I would be focused on which made reading facial expressions difficult. The words would get in the way and I would have no way of knowing if someone was impressed or annoyed with me. That was when I realized I could use writing to my advantage. I wrote a short note and discreetly slipped it into her locker.

It would be a few days before I got a response and to everyone’s surprise she agreed to go to the dance with me. Unfortunately the joy of my first date would be short lived when the following school day she publicly humiliated me by agreeing to go to the dance with someone else over the school PA system. What I thought was a step in the right direction towards a more normal life turned out to be a ruse for a group who happened to be as cruel as they were bored.

That little stunt made college miserable for me as I had trouble trusting anyone that wasn’t in my inner-most circle of friends. Eventually I had trouble even trusting them as they went on to find their own callings. In hindsight, I know it was premature to mistrust them for finding their own life’s path but I had enclosed myself in my introverted shell, away from the rest of the world. There was really no one left to console me except, of course, for my words. And they sheltered me from all the pain the world had to offer. Unfortunately, that meant keeping me from taking the risks necessary to leading a happy life. I assured myself that I wouldn’t be making any more mistakes in life and the words would all agree with me because, well, the words were mine. But that all changed when I saw the concept of mistakes from a different perspective.

I knew words. I had been surrounded by them my entire life and no matter how crazy life got, words were there for me my entire life. I grew fearful of making mistakes until I realized that “mistake” is just another word. And I can change words when I wanted to. Realizing that a mistake is just an opportunity to learn was the greatest epiphany in my young adult life. It was then that I learned to tame the words that I had allowed to hold me captive for most of my collegiate career. I decided to take a creative writing class and hone my abilities and I soon mastered the swarm of words that had once plagued me. They were now my allies.

In no way do I claim to have figured out the meaning of life or figured out some great wisdom that wouldn’t have otherwise been found in some older or more eloquently written story. If anything, the lesson I hope you take away from my story is that life will always be difficult but living doesn’t have to be. Sometimes the universe decides to give you some sort of disorder that makes you different, or maybe the cruelty of others decide, for whatever reasons,  to bear down and crush your spirit. But you can always choose to move forward and learn from your circumstances rather than become a victim of them. I hope to continue to hone my skills as a writer and maybe one day I’ll take a place among the conjurer of words upon whose shoulders humanity’s libraries were filled. And while the rest of the world pities those of us who seem to be different, we smile knowing what they’re missing out by trying so hard to be the same.

Mr. Porter's Last Supper

Mr. Porter is a man of great influence, well-known throughout the city for his power which he acquired through means both legal and not so legal. At 6’5” and 300 pounds, his mere presence was intimidating. But his cordial demeanor went a long way to smooth things over with people who were fortunate enough to be on his good side. He recently received the news that his estranged daughter and only legitimate child is pregnant. Having been the conqueror of all he surveyed for so long, Mr. Porter decided it was time for him to step down from power and become a true family man for the first time in his life. He would get to know his daughter better, help her raise the baby, and ensure that his grandchild would never want for nothing.

Noble a move as that may sound, it creates one rather messy problem: stepping down is seen as a sign of weakness and Mr. Porter has acquired many enemies on his way to the proverbial top. It only took a matter of hours for news of his retirement to reach the ears of his fiercest competitors in both the corporate world and underworld. Mr. Porter knew that his corporate rivals were of no consequence, and his lawyers have ensured him that there are no more connections between him and his criminal empire (at least none that can be proven in court) so the FBI was nothing to fear. But it only took one day after he announced his retirement to his staff for Mr. Porter to learn that one of his enemies had hired an assassin, one that goes by the name of The Fox. No one had ever met The Fox in person and if it wasn’t for the fact that Mr. Porter had hired this mysterious mercenary once or twice, he would have little reason to believe such an assassin actually existed.

When it was confirmed that The Fox was the one hired to take him out, he knew there was little that could be done to escape imminent death. He made sure his affairs were in order. He named the successor to his businesses, both legitimate and otherwise. There was no easy way he could tell his daughter face to face what was about to happen so he wrote her a letter to be given to her when he died. One does not attain Mr. Porter’s position without being prepared for such matters so when the day that a hit was actually put out on him there was little else to do than to have his last supper. He knew exactly which restaurant, which meal and which courses, which wine to order, and he even knew which suit he was going to wear. A part of him wishes he could spend his last meal with his daughter but she was visiting her boyfriend, father to Mr. Porter’s grandchild.

“Is there anything else I can get you, sir?” the waitress asked as she poured him his wine.

“That should be all. Thank you,” Mr. Porter responded as the waitress hurried back to the kitchen. His eyes wandered around the room deliberately, a habit that has kept him alive in his earlier days. But old habits die hard even if he has had a cadre of bodyguards following for the past few years. It’s a good thing too because his experienced eyes spotted a single person who didn’t quite fit in that particular restaurant.

Mr. Porter spotted the tall, thin man before he sat down and thought it was odd that the stranger was wearing tinted glasses indoors. Where this thin man was sitting, he had a perfect view of Mr. Porter’s seat. This may very well be The Fox, Mr. Porter thought to himself. He didn’t anticipate being killed this early. The thin man wore a smart suit that was expensive but did not attract too much attention other than the pale ivory cufflinks and beautiful silk tie. While the tinted glasses hid the thin man’s eyes, it was pretty clear he was looking straight at Mr. Porter. The thin man sipped at his espresso. The waitress then came out of the kitchen and served Mr. Porter’s starters. When she left his table, the thin man approached him.

“Yes?” Mr. Porter asked the thin man without looking at him, perturbed at the thin man’s audacity.

“I know you’ve been expecting me,” the thin man replied. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”

“You’ve got some balls, pal,” Mr. Potter answered. “Can’t I enjoy this meal in peace, at the very least?”

“Mr. Porter, if you don’t wish to eat with me that’s perfectly fine. But know that our business with each other will be seen through by the time you finish your dinner regardless if I’m permitted to sit down or not. I simply came over to tell you how much I respect you.”

“This doesn’t seem like a move you’d normally make. It seems messy to me, if I’m being completely honest with you.”

“I hardly ever do this. But for you I’d make an exception.”

“What’s so special about me?”

“Let’s just say you’re business has helped my business.”

“So what about me do you respect, exactly? What makes me so special that you show yourself to me before our little transaction is complete?”

“You’ve led quite a life, Mr. Porter. But for you to walk away from it and right the wrongs with your daughter is very admirable.”

The waitress came and took Mr. Porter’s empty dish away. The thin man watched as the attractive, young waitress hurriedly walked past. He took off his tinted glasses and put them in his inside coat pocket.

“As you can see, it’s not exactly going as well as I’d hoped,” Mr. Porter responded, “being interrupted in the middle of dinner and all.”

“I understand,” the thin man said as he was about to turn around, “I’ll let you finish your dinner.”

“No,” Mr. Porter stopped him, “You can sit. If this is my last meal I might as well take advantage of the company. Even if it is you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Porter,” The thin man took the seat directly across from him. The waitress came by and served the main course. Mr. Porter offered to pay for another espresso for the thin man who politely declined. “I know it sounds silly to admire someone like you even if it is for something as noble as taking care of family.”

“There’s no shame in wanting to get out of this dirty business. I’ve thought about it many times.”

“So why did you wait so long to actually do it?”

“I’m not going to lie. I really loved the power and the money. When you get that at the rate I was getting it, and at a young age too, it’s really hard to give that stuff up. Every so often you’ll run into a girl that will make you want to leave the life.”

“Of course, of course,” the thin man watched as Mr. Porter methodically devoured the perfectly cooked steak. The waitress came by and poured another glass of wine. “Obviously none of them had a lasting effect.”

“Not exactly true. One girl nearly convinced me to get out of the life completely: my daughter.”

“What happened?”

“Her mother didn’t exactly want me in her life. She took off with her. Can you imagine that? She was my daughter too and she just took off with her. I sent people to find them but my ex-wife refused to be found.”

“So when did you reconnect with your daughter? How did you find her?”

“She found me actually. It was a few years ago and she was just out of high school. She wanted to know who her father was so she hired a private investigator. I seriously thought it was a fed. Nearly had the guy killed too.”

“But you didn’t. I would have known about that.”

“No I didn’t. It’s messy business to have someone killed anyway, expensive too. Obviously there are no do-over’s so you better be damned sure the guy you want killed deserves it.”

There was silence for a minute as Mr. Porter continued to eat. It was obvious he was enjoying it despite having an unexpected guest.

“You don’t seem afraid of me,” the thin man said.

“I don’t see any need to be. A situation like this was bound to happen the way things were going. I just wish I had more time to spend with my daughter. When she first found me, I was caught off guard. I had no idea what it took to be a good father. I ended up just throwing money at her whenever she came to talk to me.”

“Men like you aren’t built for family life, anyway.”

“Men like us, you mean,” Mr. Porter remarked as the waitress brought out the dessert.

“No, Mr. Porter,” the thin man clarified, “I’m not like you. I don’t indiscriminately throw a man’s life away as if it were a simple plaything that happened to be in my way. I feel every death that I’m responsible for.”

“You get numb to it after a while. Trust me.” Mr. Porter devoured the desert. He sensed his end was near and decided there was no reason to mind one’s manners at this point.

“That’s what’s different between you and me. We take lives all the time. But I have no choice to live the way I do. You made your choice to be a crook.” The waitress came by to refill Mr. Porter’s glass with wine one more time and left the check at the table.

“I don’t know if it’s your reputation or the fact that you’re about to kill me, but I admire the guts you have to talk to me like that. It’s been a while since someone has. But you’re wrong.” Mr. Porter took a swig of wine into his mouth.

“Wrong about what?”

“I was built for family life. I did my best to take care of my daughter the only way I knew how. It was the wrong way, sure, but I tried my best and you can’t fault me for that. At least, with me out of the picture, my grandchild won’t have to know about the monster who was his grandfather.” Mr. Porter savored the last swallow of wine.

“Are you ready?”

“I was born ready. Can I ask you something first?”

“Of course you can, Mr. Porter.”

“Aren’t you afraid of being seen here with me? You got a lot of eyewitnesses around.”

“I don’t think you understand, Mr. Porter.”

“What don’t I understand?”

“I’m not here to kill you because I’m not The Fox.”

“Then who the hell are you?”

“I go by many names. But many people refer to me as Death. These other people here haven’t been able to see me since I approached you.”

“What? So I’m dead already?”

“Soon.”

“How? How soon?”

“A minute or two, and a man of your know-how should be able to figure it out, Mr. Porter.”

Mr. Porter closed his eyes when he realized that his antiquated notion of “hitmen” had deceived him.

“The waitress,” Mr. Porter finally said.

“The waitress,” Death confirmed.

“I would have never expected The Fox to be a woman. Is she going to shoot me?”

“She doesn’t have to. She’s a bit more subtle.”

“Poison? I didn’t taste any--”

“You wouldn’t have tasted anything different. The chemicals she used, alone, were completely harmless. But used together, it is quite a powerful poison. It’s quite elegant approach if you ask me.”

“I thought that waitress was a little too good at refreshing my wine,” Mr. Porter said as he chuckled to himself. “So that’s it. Is it going to hurt?”

Death didn’t respond. He just got up from his chair and Mr. Porter joined him. The two shook hands as Mr. Porter looked back and saw his lifeless body slump over and fall off the chair. The strange duo walked out of the restaurant to the sound of panicked patrons screaming.