The Night Muse

There was nothing worse, in Matt’s opinion, than having a two shift day. Six hours at the computer store and another six in the kitchen at the university cafeteria. He made decent money on nights like tonight, but he longed for a more civilized sleep schedule. As he rode the bus home, he fought the urge to sleep. There was one more job to do tonight.

Walking off the bus, Matt took a deep breath of wintery city air. It was coming on mid-December and the biting cold of the Pacific Northwest was starting to sink its teeth into the city. Matt walked two blocks in the orange glow of the street lamps to his apartment by the highway. It was loud and ugly, but the room was cheap for a reason.

As Matt walked into his apartment, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Beth was calling him. With a pained sighed, Matt answered the call. “Hey Beth…”

“You missed dinner last weekend,” Beth said. “Mom and Dad are pissed.”

“I’ll make it this weekend. I had something come up last weekend.”

“Let me guess: another writing workshop?”

“Yeah, we were only able to meet on Sunday night cause of work.”

“You always do this,” Beth said. “Any free minute you have goes into your stories.”

“That’s how life is right now,” Matt said. “It’s nine o’clock, I just got home with nothing more than an unclaimed meatball sub. I was up at the crack of dawn to open the store this morning and I get to do it again tomorrow. And still, I have one thing to do before I can call it a night. That’s what being a writer is about!”

“And you can’t do it on your day off?” Beth asked. “When you don’t have previous commitments?”

“Look, I’m sorry I blew off dinner for a workshop,” Matt said, “but I need to write. I do write on my day off, but I can only really get some good work done after I’ve had a day of grinding the world into my fingernails.”

“You work in retail and at a dishwasher, you’re hardly out tilling the land.”

“No, but it’s all about experience! Think about all the people you meat in a day, right? Now imagine each one of them has a story that you get to go home and write about! I’ve got ideas buzzing in my head after a long day, I just need some time to put it all on paper.”

“Alright, fine. Have your moment of inspiration. But at least try to make it to the next family dinner? Mom is worried that you’re going to waste away as a starving artist.”

“Didn’t you hear the part about the meatball sub?”

“You’re delirious,” Beth chuckled a little. “Go subdue your muse and go to sleep…”

Matt hung up the phone and unwrappd his sandwich. It was always best when he could make Beth laugh at the end of a tense conversation. Even when it felt like they resolved nothing, it at least meant that Beth’s frustrations were calmed for a while. With the most immediate of the fires put out, Matt went over to his computer and sat down.

Monday had been a good time for Matt to work in the corrections and suggestions from his workshop group. He had been working on his mystery novel for almost a year, but his bizzare schedule had hindered his progress. He was nearly two thirds of the way in and he knew how the great reveal was going to come about. Tonight, he was in uncharted waters again, feeling the panic of the blank page bubbling inside him.

“Time to loosen up,” Matt said, setting his sandwich down on a paper towel and shaking out his fingers. Opening a fresh document, Matt tried to decide what face he wanted to start with today. There had been a man who came to the store today that stuck with him the strongest. He was older, in his fifties or sixties, with a suit and tie that was too expensive for a professor on campus. Matt was struck by the arrogance about him while he shopped. The world belonged to him—or at least he thought it did.

“John Marius,” Matt typed, filling a blank page, “always got his way. When one was had the means, things just happened to them. John Marius had sworn from a young age that he would never be denied his way. His severe eyes scowled through slim framed glasses and his frown wrinkled his forehead into a second sneer. His hair was folded neatly across his head to cover the thinning strands that had fallen to shambles during his long climb to success. He tilted his head backwards to hide it and gave him the added bonus of constantly looking down at those he deemed lesser.”

Matt wrote a little while longer about John Marius, a lonely and bitter man who had traded his dreams for riches. He had given up his hopes of being a painter for an office and now that he had the funds to open his own studio, he was too focused on the future to paint again. Matt tried to make him truly foul during the interaction with the young man selling him a new TV. It was an over-the-top, flat character, but Matt decided to redeem the bitter man a little by letting him pick up a paintbrush again. Matt hoped that the true John Marius, a nasty man who had hassled him endlessly about the rising prices of software, went home to something he loved that didn’t belittle others.

When his story about the reluctant artist was finished, Matt went back to his mystery novel. The page was less imposing now, the story starting to fill in where Matt had been stuck. Jack Mercer, his hard-boiled detective, had to go and talk to someone at the mayor’s office. Mr. Marius would have to make an appearance. Matt started writing about an old bulldog of a man, a lifetime politician with no patience and a secret passion for painting.

As his writing hours whittled down to bedtime, Matt started to feel his eyes droop closed again. He finished a final sentence and checked his word count for the day. Eight hundred and fifty words for the day and closing on a cliffhanger to take him into the next writing shift tomorrow. Matt yawned again and stood up from his story. After knowing that his words for the day were saved, Matt powered down his computer and turned off the light.