A Paper; Loosed.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t or wouldn’t finish his book. It was the matter of waiting for his muse to come. The wine of the Gods should flow from the heavens, and drown his listlessness. Fact of the matter was that he was wasting his time, his money, and his deadline grew ever closer to this moment. His phone screen illuminated with an e-mail that read,“80 DAYS LEFT FOR FINALIZED SUBMISSIONS.”

His coffee grew colder and his pastry stale, as he sat in his favorite coffee shop. Another week has gone by, and he has yet to receive his golden goblet of musical intoxication. His story sits still at a dwindling precipice. A million letters lay in front of him, but they hadn’t reached his fingertips.

Every night, he retreats to his small apartment to steep in darkness and quiet music. His mind reels in inactivity. The words still don’t come to mind. Notebooks, the typewriter, and laptop all lay barren of his opus. Another day goes by as his book still rests incomplete. The early morning sunbeams dance along the stacks of paper that litter his coffee table, and the moonlight rests quietly on the blank white papers. Again, another cycle, another layer of dust, they accumulate. Mind empty, his hand still, and his eyes stay closed; Nothing continues to come in lieu of his muse.

63: days left. 0: pages written.  $78.35: dollars spent on reams of paper for his printer and typewriter, red pens and sticky notes. The box of red pens has the factory sticker seal, unbroken. Sticky notes still crisp in their airtight plastic wrap. His hands unmarred by paper cuts or ink smear. Nowhere is there a thought, inkling, idea, or a scrap of concept. He is bereft of inspiration. A being devoid of purpose; A listless form resting in a paper nest.

The record player spins another album as He sits on his couch, looking down at the floor between his feet. The grain of the wood lays perpendicularly to his shoes,  in an attempt to measure them in some primitive fashion. He keeps waiting for that click.

58 days remain, and still miles and miles of words to write. Another coffee grows cold in front of him at the corner coffee shop, and he is unable to write. He eyes the barista. She’s floating heavenly within the steam and coffee grinds emanating from the stainless steel espresso machine. Even her cold-brewed beauty couldn’t stir the wordsmith dwelling within him. He dumped the cold coffee in the gutter as he wandered out into the city.  

He meanders past the closed storefronts. They glow dimly in the streetlights and reflect the puddles. At a corner, he catches his own line of sight and looks at himself. He removes his earbuds and tilts his head to the side, trying to catch whispered words. He soon begins nodding, understanding the words that no one is saying. A deal with the devil has been struck.

Write your story; (Perish).

So now his mind inundates with that gold tinged wine of the gods, and the muse kisses his brow, igniting the untended fire of his mind. He hurries home to stain his blank papers with the blessed blood of his creation.

A fury besets his old typewriter. The mechanical arms straining to stamp each letter. Pages of notes scribbled without a smear from his left-handed writing. His printer smoking from printing pages by the dozen.  Each leaf coming out hot fresh from the oven. His words create stack upon stack of pages, and inching ever closer to a completed tome.

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-7 days to deadline. His phone is on the counter, full of unanswered calls. His story rests in a neat stack on his coffee table. His living room window left ajar, and cool afternoon air wafts in. A set of knocks rings out into the quiet of his apartment, where they echo without an answer. A master key scrapes into the lock as the door opens. His hanged silhouette casts darkly onto floor opposite the door. Only a few hours gone, and his flesh still warm to the touch. A hand slides roughly for his completed book within an accordion folder.

The folder is placed on a table and slowly removed of its contents. The first few pages are legible enough even though his handwriting is never so clear. The story unfolds as every great story must, compelling and interesting, and sets its hooks deep in the reader. Page after page, the story blooms into a more beautiful tapestry. The reader cannot look away, gripped ever so tightly by each passing paragraph.

The last chapter begins, and the reader awaits the turn, that revelation of true love and a happy ending. The next page stops them dead. Each page a jumble of letters set by the arms of the typewriter, joined into nonsense covered in red ink scribbles that bleed deep and blot the pages. There is no closure, no release. It only ends, just as the writer had; Abrupt.