The Man on the Sofa

Every time one of Gabriela’s stories came to life, her hands cramped and her vision blurred. With every story that escaped her mind, a part of her left with it, and bit by bit it was tearing her apart.

“But why?” her most recent main character, Aethelred asked her. Aethelred was a prince from the Kingdom of the Nine Suns. He had just been sworn into the kingdom as their ruler after the very sudden and mysterious death of his father. “Why would you do this to me? I loved my father.”

The writer looked him in the eye. “I couldn’t help it,” she said. She was seated in her desk chair with Athelred across from her, perched upon the arm of her sofa. The computer screen was bright with nothing but the whiteness of paper and the scribblings of black font. The writing was small but clear. Aethelred’s name was displayed at the top, his entire life composed within the hard drive of this young woman’s computer. Gabriela kept trying to explain herself, but when she said it out loud, none of it seemed to make sense. “My father… he was an awful man… he…”

“My father was a great man.” Aethelred shook his head, “Yet you murdered him in cold blood.”

“I’m sorry!” her face fell into her hands, and all she could do was cry. She felt Aethelred’s anger as if he was real, as if he was there… because, to her at least, he was. He touched her shoulder. She could hear him breathing. This can’t be a gift, she said to herself, this is a curse, and it should never be inflicted upon anyone. Gabriela looked up from her hands and Aethelred was gone, likely never to be seen again. The computer screen was completely white now, and all the words were gone. He was gone. His world was gone. Gabriela sighed and sat up again, her eyes still red, and she started to type.

All around her, worlds appeared. Kingdoms, provinces, homes and magical worlds surrounded her. Every character talked at least once, asking simple questions like ‘What is this place?’ and ‘Why did you make me this way?’ Every time they did she broke down, familiar words overwhelming her and slowly ripping away at her sanity.

“Why did you do this to me?” The voice of her father replaced them now, and every character was him. The worlds, they were her old home, strewn with trash and empty glass bottles, some of them shattered like her own heart. He asked her questions, waved his arms, and threw his beer. She picked it up, took a broom and started to sweep it, but he wouldn’t let her. “That’s your mother’s job to clean up my mess. It’s too bad she’s gone, isn’t it? We wouldn’t have to live in this filth.” He spat on the ground and sat on the sofa, arms crossed. Gabriela sobbed in her desk chair. For a moment this was all that happened, until her dad spoke again. “You could’ve saved her. You could’ve fucking saved her, if you hadn’t been so pretentious.”

“I…” She choked on her words. She could barely talk through the tears. She hated this place. This home. This room. This desk chair. She hated all of it. She turned around and tried to write again, but every word was about him. Her characters were all him. She couldn’t escape. For once, she couldn’t get out.

“I’m waiting,” he said. Now he was all around her. She wrote too much. He was everywhere. “Tell me how you feel about yourself, you piece of shit.”

She kept typing. Suddenly, she was in the car, her mother in the passenger’s side. Her mother was always so beautiful, her graying hair still a gorgeous mix of white and black. They laughed together. They talked together. Gabriela didn’t see the truck until it was too late, and by then she could feel it happen around her. The crash was so quiet; she could barely hear the sound of the screeching or feel the impact. It was all muffled. All she could think about was the smell… the burnt rubber smell that haunted her every day for the rest of her life. It was like a sick fire, one that burned the world around it with no remorse. After it was over Gabriela looked to her right. Her mother was there, her head turned away. She was scared. “Mom?” she whispered, but it barely came out.

After that day, her father became the man on the sofa.

“I feel guilty.” She was back with him now. He was watching her as she typed, waiting for her response. “I wish Mom was back, I really do…” and all of a sudden something welled up in her. She saw her mother again and convulsed, her hands clenching into tight fists. She pulled open her desk drawer. In it was nothing but clutter, random things that she felt she would need eventually. She dug through it in search of her photo. It was the one thing she could hold when her mother wasn’t there. A picture of them, after she graduated from high school. Her father wasn’t in it; he hadn’t even come. Gabriela kept digging until she found it, the frame old and fading, the front glass cracked.

Her heart sank. She must have cluttered too many things. The front of it was almost in pieces, hanging by nothing but the edges of the frame. The picture was hanging out of the bottom, loose and slightly ripped. Gabriela pulled it out of the frame and held it, admiring her mother’s beautiful face, and wondering why things always went so wrong.

She turned to put it down on her table and noticed something. On the back of the photo, something was scribbled into the paper. She turned it over and looked, reading the messy handwriting for which her mom was famous.

“Looks like you found my little secret! I cry as I look at this picture. Look at you all grown up! If you’re in college and reading this, just remember that even though I’m not right by your side, I’ll always be here if you need me.”

-Mom

Then it was all too real. Suddenly the sofa, previously beige, was red. Her dad was still there, watching her, smirking.

“Get out of my house.” She stood to open the door, “I don’t want you here.”

“But I’m all you have left.”

Gabriela swallowed and sat at her computer. He was right, wasn’t he? She was alone. She never went to college, she never got a job. She made a living off her writing, however little money that was. He was the only one who bothered to talk to her. Gabriela sighed, but this time she didn’t cry. She turned to face the computer screen, held down the backspace button, and began to type.

She wrote down her next story. Aethelred returned, his vengeance now upon the man who murdered his father. Aethelred took aim at the man, after years and years of searching for him, with his bow. He waited a long time, watching the man, who had no idea he was there. Time stood still. Was this the right thing to do? Aethelred tried to reason with himself. Will he regret this? He thought of his father, and the amazing man that he was, and he thought of the man who took him away. Then, after many long moments of contemplation, he took the shot. The man fell to the ground. Aethelred and his kingdom danced. The threat, the evil, it was all gone. Their best king was avenged.

After she was finished, Gabriela looked over to see the sofa empty. That evening, she went out to dinner. The next morning, she woke up tired, refreshed, her fingers aching to write another story.

But this time, she typed freely. Nothing bound her hands to the keyboard. Her stories came to life but they didn’t question her, they simply danced around her. She sat leaning over her keyboard, typing away. She didn’t just make a living off her writing, she lived for it. She sold many books, all of them the continuation of Aethelred’s story, after he finally become the best king anyone had ever known. Her sofa was a congregation, not an interview. She laughed with them, cried with them, and, in the end, she died with them.