The Art of Being Fickle

When Charles was a wee boy, in the midst of his youthful glory, he swore that naught would waylay him from achieving his paramount goal: being a fluent, recondite, whimsical, and comedical writer. “NO,” exclaimed John, after having his mind, body, soul, and - acutest of all - wrist ossified upon the weaving woes of wavering for hours. “No, Charles is such a common, hackneyed name. My protagonist must be elegant, suave though not pompous, and relatable.” In a trice, a miracle twinkled upon his derelict page where inked those insipid words, “Argos!” said John, contradicting his own wish to not have the character be replete with pomposity. 

Once more, John began: 

When Argos ripened to that decisive point where adolescents peak in their handsome beauty, he knew that his vocation was to be a writer. He toiled dusks, where the lunar gloaming glimmered through his glum study, upon dawns, where the dragonesque sun soared across the skies, so as to perfect his ideal of being the greatest writer to have consummated a novel. What most enamoured Argos were the days of yore, where metaphors, imagery, sibilance, and other techniques besides, abounded - where phrases billowed upon one’s palette with dexterous wit - and were not yet sodomised by truncation, simplification, or scriptural sloth. Argos loathed the art of…. “No, this is too pretentious!” bemoaned Argos. “Why would he adore the literature of old, and abhor its newer vogues, when I desire him to be relatable and suave.” John nettled at his bristly beard, unshorn from his drudgery and enslavement to his work, musing till a phantom thread fluttered upon his inhibitory ebb and tide: 

“He can’t be some literary romanticist or reverist. To stab at the heart of what I purpose, he ought to be ordinary, struggling, and pitiable.” That nettlesome urge, again, propounded John to now gnaw at his beard. “HE SHALL BE A JUVENILE SAILOR!” Thwacking his hand upon his birchen desk, scattering the detritus of former conceptions which had but led to dust, decrepitude, and dolour. 

“The name Argos must be abolished. Instead,” his eyes irradiated molten joy, “the protagonist shall be called Stoker - sprinkle some Gothicism in there whilst I am at it. I shall make it his first journey at sea, marred by a feverous tempest from the southernmost ire on Earth! What a horrid and sympathizable tale it would be.” John picked up the pen, and bedaubed its nib into his voluminous inkwell; though, before he came nigh to executing anything, he indulged in more gloating: 

“This is brilliant,” resting the sodden nib aside, “the narrative has tension, is devoid of bathos, and gives me bountiful opportunities to conjure up some startling imagery.” John slinked back in his chair, estranging yet farther from his duties, and lolled his tongue in veneration of himself. “It shall lend its rigour to the French Naturalists; it shall waft the psychological odour of Dostoevsky with philosophical finesse! I can envisage the critics now: Moby Dick has, after but of late having reaped due recognition, been expunged by a precious author.” The envy of John envenomed through a hostile glower as he fantasised,  “I’ll smear that White Whale of all its peculiar snow-white wrinkles, and outflank the enigma surrounding its pyramidical hump. They shall hail me as the heir apparent to Shakespeare!” The irony being that John had never read - nor dared to read - a Shakespearian play in the entirety of his specious life. Even when his school had enforced that all must be taught of how Shakespeare riddles, John had been truant with the onerous difficulty of decoding Shakespearian archaisms. Further, nor had John ever opened Moby Dick; let alone any of the persons cited above. John deceived he and his friends of his supreme intellect by sifting through interpretations spanning all authors, novelists, playwrights, and poets. It was John’s method of purporting to be grander and wiser than his peers. John rejoiced in worshipful vainglory of an irrelevant man, such as he himself pertained to. It is little wonder, then, why John foundered in such laughable fashion when attempting to be a writer. 

“No, that makes no sense whatsoever!” bellowed our actual, troubled writer. “How could John be speaking with the verve that he is, if he had always shirked from reading these geniuses.” Desponding, our innominate writer pondered over how to amend this discontinuity. “John could be less omnipresent - but that would be unbuilding all which I had thus far wrought for. Am I zealous enough to recommence from the start? With me swithering as I am, then it is probable that no, I cannot.” A belch of frustration, from our innominate writer, dogged his train of doubt: 

“Could the protagonist be prudent, and the issue lie more in his ineptitude to conceive of a plot? Would the average reader not be depressed, though, by being aweary from the cyclical nature of this?  Yes,” concluded our innominate writer, “they would soon tire of this repetition. Then what!?

“O’ why is writing so much harder than rumoured to be?” introspected he aloud, as he gawked outside at two nonchalant birds entwined in rapt ease. “Why can’t,” pointing to these birds, “life be as uncomplicated as theirs. Flying afloat the downy clouds, feasting off the tinier creatures, and beholding the world at its topmost altitude. No, that would be too merciful for us humans!” 

Our innominate writer veered from the window, and examined his plenitude of unfruitful endeavours. “Perhaps”, thought he, “I ought to stop wasting my time with these idle pursuits.” Rheum serpentined down his cheek, welling and cresting as it rippled across a sinuous furrow, or pustular elevation in his skin. In a sudden fury of lugubrious grudgement, our innominate writer,  fordoing the trials and tribulations, altogether renunciated his beast of burden:

“Besides, there are too many wishful artists nowadays! What importance would I bring or have to say,” he halted for histrionic effect, “ nothing!” Arising from his chair, where fossilised the relics of his curst turmoils, our innominate author declared: 

“I forfeit.”