The Solution

Alex Levin-Arlev

The Solution

Nobody in the family suspected that something like this could happen to Max.

Max didn't drink much, worked hard from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and drove his son to sports competitions on Sundays. He was a man like any other, but he was overcome by a secret passion he could no longer hide. Tatiana, his wife, was the first to notice some oddities in his behavior. Sometimes, he would look at her but not see her, listen but not hear her, and hide some papers from her. Tatiana shared her suspicions with her mother-in-law.

"If I had known," she said, "that he had such genetics, I would never have married him."

"Don't slander my son," Tatiana's mother-in-law said irritably. "He was never into that. What a silly idea: there are no writers in our family and there never have been any".

But soon Tatiana's worst assumptions were confirmed: Max's addiction grew with each passing day. He closes the kitchen door and immerses himself in the world of his novel.

Max, Tatiana asked, "Just not that. I need a husband. We must pay the mortgage next week. I promise I will drive our son to sports competitions every weekend. You will write your novel every Saturday and Sunday."

The following day, she enters the kitchen and finds him hugging the computer.

“Where have you been all night?” she asks suspiciously.

He looks at her with absent eyes, as if he is drunk, and repeats the writer's mantra:

“Not a day without a line.”

“Go to work or they will fire you,” his wife says.

He tries to calm her down:

“Lady, I will make you a maid of honor to the Queen of Agumeria and the secret lover of King Gregorian.”

She answers him:

“And you asked me if I wanted to be King Gregorian's mistress? I didn't suit you, did I? After ten years of living, did I? And who will raise your child? His Majesty King Gregorian?”

And then she adds:

“In short, are you going to work tomorrow? Or is life on the planet of agumers more important to you than your family?”

His eyes flashed with anger:

“And you say this to me, the chronicler and the great warrior of the agumers, who paved the way to the temple and saved the beautiful Kateria, the wife of King Gregorian, from captivity.”

“Well, well ... let's go on, - Tatiana frowned, - and who is this Kateria, is it Katrine? The wife of our neighbor Gregory, that is, King Gregorion? Wait, who were you saving her from? From her legal husband, or what? In short, what did you have with her?”

And Max is indignant:

“How dare you?”

And Tatiana tells him:

“So, she says, I agree to be the mistress of the king of the agumers, Gregorian.”

“I knew that you would agree,” Max says.

“Who are you taking me for?” Tatiana asked angrily.

We don't know how it would have ended, but at that moment, the phone rang. Tatiana picked up the phone. It was Max's boss. They have a deadline for the project. They’ll find somebody else if he doesn’t show up.

Tatiana calls her friends:

“Max is now a writer and has no time to show up at his job.”

“How serious is his condition?” Friends ask.

“Very severe state. He's planning to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.”

“And how will you live until the Nobel Prize?”

“Don't ask. We live by the writer’s motto: not a day without a line. Soon we'll have to pay the mortgage.”

Friends say, “We have a good doctor. He’s also a member of the editorial board of a literary magazine. He knows the topic. Make an appointment for your husband.”

“Hello! I'm here for a literary consultation,” Max entered the doctor's office.

“Come in, sit down. What are you complaining about?”

“About my relatives.”

“What worries you the most? “The doctor asks.

“Someone in the army of the agumers is leaking information to the enemy.”

“Do you see two large stacks on my desk? These are manuscripts, and each one looks like yours. There are currently over a million e-books available on the sales site. Why should a reader choose yours?”

“You killed my dream,” Max says through clenched teeth.

“What is your dream? “asks the doctor.

“To write every day. Not a day without a line,” says Max.

“Here's my prescription,” the doctor smiles and hands the prescription to Max.

Day One

Write two pages of your novel.

Day Two

Write one page of the novel.

Day Three

Divide the computer monitor into two equal parts. Continue the novel on half the screen.

Day Four

Continue the novel on a quarter of the screen.

Day Five

Continue the novel on one-fifth of the screen. For convenience, tape over the free part of the screen and so on until one or two lines remain free. Fill them with something meaningful.

For example, there is an expression: get to the root of the problem.

You write the phrase, "Get deep to the root of the problem, then look at the surface. Maybe it is the root of a rotten stump."

Congratulations! You are moving to another literary style called aphorisms.

If you fail - practice. Instead of writing a long novel and spending a year or two, write aphorisms.

Day Five

You go back to work.

Every day

You think about the next aphorism on the way to and from work, in the store, during a meeting. Write it down at home.

Twice a month

You receive your salary at work.

Once every two years

You publish a book of aphorisms.

Max did not answer for an inordinately long time. Finally, he said, staring blankly at the ceiling, as if saying goodbye to the agumers:

“Brilliant! But what about the Nobel Prize?

“You get a salary, and maybe a fee for a book you wrote on your knees,” the doctor says, “and I get a prize for saving the families of writers.”

Then the doctor adds:

“We leave the Nobel Prize to those who write books at the desk, but not on their knees.”