The Wordsmith

“You look a little sad. Everything good?” I asked as I was walking out of the lecture hall.

“Mhm!” Aspen nodded, her characteristic smile coming back after having disappeared throughout the entire class. “Just stressed.”

“Oh,” I said, more to myself than to her. I looked up and met her gaze. A quick question flashed in and out of my mind, though I already knew the answer. We’re finally alone. Is this the universe giving me my chance?

The hallway was empty. Everyone had gone. It was just me and her waiting for the hands on the clock to signal the end of classes, to break the silence that lingered. Why did it always linger there?

Another thought came to me. This one I couldn’t help but say out loud. “Is… Is this creepy?”

Aspen was understandably confused. “Is what creepy?”

“This. Right now. What I’m doing. Making all this up just to cope with the feelings I’m too stupid to express in real life.”

I could sense her brilliant green eyes scanning my face, searching for clues as to what the hell I was talking about. A pang of guilt upset my stomach. This was definitely not the right way to break it to her, not there and not then. What would be considered the “right” way, anyway? If someone told me whatever was about to come out of my mouth, I’d write it off as complete crap. Why should I expect her to be different? Maybe I should just forget it and not mention that part…

I stepped fully into the hallway, shutting the door behind me with a sense of finality. This was it. I still had to try. “You have no idea how much I want to say to you and how long I’ve wanted to say it. And I know it might be weird or overwhelming all at once, but honestly if I don’t get this off my chest I think I’ll always regret it.”

A look of understanding was slowly beginning to dawn on her face. Of course, I didn’t doubt she was smart enough to already know where this was going. 

“Well, here goes. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met in my life and I really mean that. Really, I do. I know that we don’t talk so much, but at least I know that’s totally my fault. I really do like talking to you, but I just have to confess that every time we’re alone and we get the chance, the butterflies in my stomach make me too nervous to even try. And when that happens, I feel even worse than I already do because I’ve always noticed you don’t talk to others as much which gives me the feeling that you never feel included. Maybe you actually feel that way or maybe you don’t but… I know that if I were in your position, which I have been so  many times before, I’d want to feel included, so why wouldn’t you? I mean, everyone deserves that, right? I want to be that person that makes you feel included, but I’ve just never known how to go about it, so I’m sorry for not trying sooner. But now I’m done chickening out. I want to get closer to you, I want to be a friend you can always talk to because everyone needs someone like that. If you’ll… let me.”

My chest widened as I took the deepest breath I could muster. That massive weight was finally gone. I felt like I was breathing for the first time ever. At some point, I’d stopped looking at Aspen and instead opted for the floor. Now when I looked back at her, her eyes began to well up with tears. Without warning, she ran to me and put her arms around my neck in one of the tightest hugs I’d ever been in. She pressed her face closer to me, whispering, “Yes. Thank you. Thank you.” 

You’re welcome. You’re welcome.

“You’re so welcome.” I hugged her back. A moment to be cherished, so sudden and yet so meaningful, apparently to her as much as me. At least, that’s what I assumed. If I wanted to relish in that moment forever, I knew then and there that I could have. I knew I had the power to—all I needed to do was will it so—but would it be… healthy?

I took one last good look at her in my arms, then let the scene disintegrate away like sand in between my fingers. It twirled and curled and floated away on some invisible, unfelt breeze until once again I was standing in the middle of the Wordsmith’s dimly lit office, arms outstretched, attempting to grab a memory that never really existed. From behind his desk, he looked directly into my eyes over the top of his reading glasses, fingers poised just above the keys of his ancient typewriter. I hated when he did that. That look meant he was scrutinizing me, thinking deeply about where he should take me next. 

For a few moments, the room was silent. Then, he was the first to speak up. “You let her go easily this time.”

“Yeah, I think I’m getting better with that.”

“You know it doesn’t have to stay like this, right? Making these short-lived scenes? I can give you the ending I know you want.”

I fell into the cushy leather sofa. “I know.”

Silence again.

“I can bring her here… if you’d like.”

My tongue froze inside of my mouth.

“No. No, no, no. Out of the question. We are not doing that.”

“Now, don’t be so dismissive of it. It’s definitely an idea.”

“Are you kidding, man? You can’t just… do that! She’s a real life, living, breathing, human being that would obviously want to stay in the real world! You can’t take her away from that!”

“Okay then. We don’t.” He didn’t miss a beat. “As much as I know that’s what you really want, we don’t actually need the real Aspen. Whatever happened with you the first time I can do a second time. We sit you down—”

“We don’t know what happened last time! How would we even recreate it, huh?”

The Wordsmith hesitated. I’d gotten used to that. “I-I don’t… I’m not exactly sure right now, but I know I can figure something out.”

My head was already in my hands. The defeat was finally getting to me, I guess. “Just forget it, man. Even if we did make another Aspen, it wouldn’t be the real her. It’d just be another one of your characters.”

He said nothing, but he had something of a resolved look. I sat still on the couch, going over the final moments of the last scene in my head. The Wordsmith didn’t move from his desk, but it wasn’t long before that steady clack-clack-clack sound returned. God, did I despise that sound now. It used to fill me with hope, the sounds of those keys racing to create a whole new world. It used to be his way of letting me know that everything would be okay. Somehow, some way, through some convoluted series of events, the only other person that I could trust would take me exactly where I needed to go and do exactly what I wanted to happen.

Exactly what I wanted to happen.

The ticking of the old grandfather clock in the corner resonated in my head each time the Wordsmith paused. It reminded me of one of those giant cathedrals that bounced even the smallest sounds around in the space above, and the pendulum was the booming organ. When that happened, I tended to get a bit of a headache.

“Hey, Wordsmith, I—”

When I opened my eyes, I was both confused and surprised by what I saw. The typewriter that I’d seen from afar for so long was directly in front of me, the couch I’d just been moping on taking up the far wall. The Wordsmith wasn’t in his chair, as he always was. Instead, I’d taken his spot. He stood off to my left, gripping his cane and looking on with a smile.

“What… what did you...?”

“It seems that we’ve reached that point, son,” he said almost solemnly. “You and I both know that I can give you what you want. Mansions, money, fame, Aspen. Just name it and I’ll type it. But there’s only one thing I can’t give you.”

“What’s that?”

He nodded to the typewriter. My eyes caught the freshest line, just at the bottom of the page:

What about what you need to happen?

I felt like I was talking with Aspen again all of a sudden. Nothing else so far had left me so speechless. Millions of things that I’d always wanted came to me all at once, but none were the right ones. None felt like they could ever be the right ones for that moment, if he was truly doing what I thought he was doing.

“You’re not just a character anymore, son,” he said as he approached the window on the opposite wall, looking out at the city below like a superhero brooding on a skyscraper. “You think you are, but you’ve come farther than any of them. You’re as real as any of us are now. As real as me, Aspen, and anyone. I could only ever tell you where to go for so long.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that only you can give yourself what you need now. I know what it is you need, what would ‘complete your arc’ if you want to put it like that. But then you wouldn’t be really earning it, would you? The way I see it, it only makes sense to have you find that for yourself. Doesn’t matter if it’s romantically, emotionally, mentally, whatever it is. Don’t you think?”

I turned my gaze down to the keys. “I… guess that does make sense. But… what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Isn’t your job to be the writer? Isn’t that your whole thing?”

He chuckled. “At first, my job was to understand you. Then my job became to guide you, let you grow. I’m not the bragging type, but I’ve gotten good at both of those, wouldn’t you say?” We laughed together. It felt too bittersweet. “At some point, you have to call it a job well done. Move on. Resign.”

My fingers were resting inches from the edge of the typewriter. I knew what he was getting at, but it almost felt… wrong. It felt like everything had fallen into the right place for the Wordsmith to make this choice, but at the end of the day, this typewriter was his, not mine. He should be the one to weave the intricacies of the story, someone who actually had experience. And yet...

The Wordsmith strolled right over to the desk and looked me in the eye. “I believe you’re ready for this. No, I know you’re ready for this. This is the next step, son. I trust you know where to go from here.”

“I… I think I do. Thank you. For helping me get here.” I stood and hugged the old man for the last time. My father, my maker, my teacher, my guide, my friend.

“No, son. Thank you.”

With that, I settled into his chair and my fingers flew. It was almost an out-of-body experience seeing how my hands seemed to write on their own while I just sat to the side spectating. He was right in the end. I really did know what I had to write, even if it wasn’t consciously. After watching how he operated for so long, I knew that I could do it just like him, the ultimate creator. The creator who’d decided that now was the time to give me some control. I could be the new creator with the all-powerful tool at my disposal. I could actually give myself what I needed. Not what I wanted, but what both the Wordsmith and I knew that I genuinely needed. It was exciting, that drop in my stomach, the buzz in my mind, the tension in my shoulders. It was finally happening. 

As the desk began to disintegrate into the floating, flowing dust that I’d become so accustomed to, I paused for a moment and looked up at the Wordsmith, the one who had brought me to where I was. I caught a glimpse of a single shining tear making its way down his cheek. It floated away on the unseen breeze too, just like the floors and the ceiling and the odd, wonderful knick-knacks only a writer would have that all soon followed. I smiled at him the same way he so often smiled at me and resolved to return to that dimly lit office one day.  Just as the scene was about to change completely, I caught his last words:

“Thank you for being what I needed.”