The Perfect Life

Gregor sat, surrounded by the morning rush of the congested coffee shop, occasionally checking his periphery for any admirers. 

He peacocked as a struggling writer. He was sporting faded blue jeans, a wrinkled white button-down, and a rusted suede coat a few sizes too small that strangled his arms like a boa. The coat forced him to write uncomfortably in ten-minute intervals, anything over that, and his arms began to go numb. Without it, however, he would not look like a writer, ruining the point of writing in a coffee shop. 

The table was in a corner set beside the shopfront window. On mornings like this, Gregor enjoyed watching the commuters, relieved he would never again be one of them. He'd become an expert in people-watching. Often, seeing the same faces marching to the bus station across the street, it reminded him of when he would stay home sick, watching his siblings go off to school. 

Initially, Gregor was elated at his new freedom, yet now found his days unoccupied and boring. It hadn't been a problem until recently. As more time passed since the settlement, he began to feel an emptiness manifest within him. The feeling sat in his stomach, seeming to eat away at his motivation. Like the coffee shop, it grew emptier as the day progressed. What appeared to fill this void, if only temporarily, was his writing.

The stench of stress and impatience began to fill the shop as the line grew, and people who had woken at their third or fourth alarms started to file in. Eventually, the line reached Gregor, completely blocking him from the view of the rest of the shop, which irked him. Unable to relocate amidst the crowd, he sighed and finally turned his attention back to the laptop. 

The shuffle of restless feet made it hard to concentrate, and the glare from the morning's natural light beaming through the storefront windows forced him to squint to see the screen. He found his mind paralyzed by distraction but more so a lack of inspiration, which, for Gregor, was an annoyingly frequent occurrence.

He both loved and dreaded writing. Never needing to consider his life's purpose amidst the chaos in his early career before the lawsuit, he now found himself searching for one. He enjoyed reading, and without anyone to advise him otherwise, he decided he would become a great author. This was until the harsh realization that his mind could produce nothing of value soon set in. Despite being talentless, occasionally he would find a few sentences and string them together. He stared at the screen most of the time, hoping the words would type themselves. 

Earlier this morning, he found a few sentences when it was still too early to be noticed. There was more than a title, but the three bolded words were the only things he'd deemed usable. 

The Perfect Life. 

The title came to him in a dream, so he wrote it, yet it now felt like it was mocking him.

He looked at the first sentence on the screen. 

"Terrible." He thought, and so he discarded it.

He examined the following line, then the others. To his dismay, nothing he wrote showed any indication of greatness. 

Gregor rubbed his eyes to try and massage their fatigue away. They were strained from reading the night before. In an expedition to uncover the secrets of the literary world, he had stayed up late reading Milton's Paradise Lost. Sadly, upon its completion, he concluded the search was fruitless. The novel's complexity and creativity only served to highlight his own inadequacies. Before beginning, he desperately hoped he could uncover the source of Milton's creative abilities. Yet, after realizing he could not, he felt the emptiness grow. 

Reflecting on what he had read, the preamble piqued his interest, prodding the back of his mind throughout the book.

"What if the muses give great writers their inspiration?" The question gave way to an idea.

Although he considered himself a realist, it dawned on him how desperate he was to attach his name to anything of value. He equated writing a good story to renewing his life's purpose. He threw away the lines he had typed an hour ago and began the invocation by drawing on what he'd read the night before.

Oh great Muse, I beg you, impart divine wisdom and creativity onto me. If only for a moment, elevate me to the domain by which you reside so that I may see what you have shown the many great artists before me. 

Strangely, he felt guilty after writing it; it felt like plagiarism. Plus, the great modern writers didn't need to invoke the muses, becoming great through determination and grit. Despite this, Gregor was desperate, believing his emptiness would continue to grow without a great purpose. He could sense it was only a matter of time before he would be in free fall, plummeting into darkness.

Another hour passed, and the shop's earlier riotous nature was supplanted by the soft hums of air conditioners. While the quiet brought peace to the few other customers, the silence compounded Gregor's feelings of loneliness. Still, all he had written was the invocation; his pleads with the divine seemed to fall on deaf ears.

"Even the Gods see me as a lost cause," He thought.

He went to take a sip of his latte, forgetting he'd finished it when out of the corner of his eye, he saw a pleasing silhouette wrapped in a white apron approaching from behind. A gentle, pale hand extended and set another cup beside his computer. Gregor looked up to meet piercing golden eyes looking down at him. 

The sunlight from the window lit the barista's face, accentuating the definition of her features. She was naturally beautiful. Her figure and face could have been sculpted from marble, showing no sign of imperfection. Large, golden eyes dazzled in the light as if they had just been freshly polished. Her presence gave Gregor a false sense of purpose, but after being without it for so long, he couldn't tell the difference.

"Oh, thank you." Gregor finally spit out.

"Of course," she replied in a voice suited for such beauty.

Gregor expected her to turn and leave as most beautiful women did, but she stayed. The barista's eyes were now locked with his, looking on with some hidden intent. It would have been uncomfortable if it had come from anyone else. Gregor was transfixed by them; he could almost taste the precious metal they were made from. She glanced towards the seat across from him, hinting that she was waiting for an invitation. 

"Oh, pardon me. Would you like to sit down?" Gregor stammered.

"I'd love to." The woman said politely yet with a hint of sarcasm.

Brushing past him, Gregor caught the scent of lavender; it helped calm his racing mind. The two sat in silence as Gregor sipped from his new cup. The sip was awkwardly long as he tried to bide time to prepare his brain for the impossible challenge of talking to such a woman. He was still in awe at the fact she chose to sit down. 

The only thing preventing him from immediately falling in love was a pesky thought. How did the barista know what he'd been drinking? Surely he would have remembered if a woman this beautiful had taken his order. 

After wetting his mouth, and with too many questions to pick from, he gave in to habit.

"I'm Gregor."

"A pleasure to meet you, Gregor."

Another awkward pause ensued. Gregor's brain was still on the fritz.

"And yours?" He asked slightly worried to learn why she had chosen to withhold her name. He was eager to know what name would dare be attached to such remarkable beauty. 

The barista gave Gregor a regal smile, one which slightly pursed her supple lips. 

"I have many."

Gregor's brain was on the verge of repair and ready to begin firing until it tried processing what she had said. There was now total engine failure, and he was wholly unsure of how to respond. 

Not wanting to scare her away and not wanting to reveal his true awkward self, his brain found its reason to restart.

"Like, you have a long name?"

She flashed another smile. 

"A muse has been called many names. None of which are truly our own."

The moment her lips stopped, a chill ran down Gregor's back. But with his brain functioning correctly again, he could think and realize he was a complete fool. He now saw her smile as one of jest rather than attraction. His posture relaxed, and he leaned back in his seat, unaware how stiff he'd been until now.

"Ok, I get it, you must have read what I-."

She interrupted him brazenly, yet her voice seemed to carry the gentle cadence of harps being strummed.

"You wish for me to impart great inspiration to you?"

Gregor raised his chin and looked at her with newfound confidence, believing he had caught on to her strange game. He thought for a moment, then began his poor impression of a Shakespearean actor to play along.

"I do, my dearest Muse. Relieve unto me your greatest inspiration! More captivating than Homer! More profound than Dante! More complex than Milton!"

The Muse began to laugh wholeheartedly, showcasing her perfectly white teeth. Upon seeing her reaction, Gregor let out a nervous yet relieved laugh, believing he had passed some test. The longer she laughed, the more Gregor believed his chances with her increased.

When their laughter came to an end, the Muse's gaze turned solemn. Gregor now found her golden eyes devoid of the shimmer that once invited him in; they were now dull as bronze. Her face seemed to harden, and her coy smile was half of what it had just been. She looked at him with pity, which Gregor misinterpreted to be one of attraction.

"Very well. Gregor, go forth and write."

Gregor began to laugh again, but she held her half-smile firm as she began to leave her seat. Seeing his laughter not reciprocated, he tried to bring their conversation to reality and away from poetic verse.

"Will I see you again?"

She thought for a moment, hovering next to the table.

"One year from today, we will meet again."

Gregor went to protest when a shrill, high-pitched shatter rang from the kitchen, snatching his attention away. He turned to see another barista staring towards their table; pieces of porcelain from the mugs she had just broken were scattered around her feet as if she were starting a puzzle. Upon seeing a mixture of fear and awe on the other barista's face, he turned back to question the Muse, but as if the shatter had scared her off, she was gone.

Gregor called out to her fervently as she stood trembling and unable to move. "What did you see!?".

The other barista simply replied, "A monster."

The other staff members went to comfort the girl whose name Gregor learned was Harinetra. Despite his best efforts, Gregor could not get an ounce of information from her before she had to be taken home. There was no sign of the Muse, and the manager confirmed that there was no employee who fit Gregor's description of her.

With the hysterics over and the coffee shop quiet again, Gregor turned his attention back towards the computer and rested his fingers on the keys. He let out a deep sigh, realizing it would take a while to process what just happened. He took comfort in knowing he was not the only one to see the Muse, but he wondered why he and Harinetra had seen two different things. Unless she had a crippling fear of beautiful girls. Whatever had happened, Gregor believed writing would help him think, as it always did. Once again, he hoped the words would write themselves. This time, to Gregor's surprise, they did.

***

The coffee shop had changed little over the past ten years. Gregor was glad when he saw it, relieved something in his world had remained constant. Before exiting the tinted-out escalade, he put on his sunglasses, raised his hood, and thanked his driver for waiting out front. Opening the door, the sound of the morning rain patting the concrete made it hard to hear anything else.

"This will be quick, no need to follow!" He shouted at his bodyguard, who sternly nodded back in acknowledgment. Gregor raised the hood of his stained sweatshirt, adjusted his pajama bottoms, and ran out into the downpour.

With the morning rain, there were fewer people on the street and in the coffee shop. Looking at his table by the window, he felt nostalgia. It felt like he was back in his childhood home; the smell, the hum of the air conditioner, the bright windows, everything was working together to summon memories he'd forgotten.

"That would be an interesting start to a story." The thought tormented him. He rubbed above his ears hard to scold himself until it passed. Today, more than any other, he needed to have a clear head.

Gregor ordered a latte, the same drink the Muse had given him all those years ago. About to throw his receipt into the trash, he noticed pen marks. The cashier had written a message to him when he wasn't looking.

"I love your work! Enjoy the coffee! Hopefully, it helps you write the finale!"

Gregor turned to see the barista's smile beaming at him like a spotlight. "Great start to a romantic comedy," he thought. This time, with a closed fist, he knocked himself upside the head. It was as if he were trying to condition his mind to ignore the stream of ideas. Yet, after the last ten years, he had conditioned himself unintentionally, like an addict, to rely on the ideas being gifted to him. 

The cashier tried to hide how disturbed she was. Once Gregor realized she was watching him, he gave a halfhearted wave and then threw out the receipt in full view of the cashier. 

Gregor went to the table where he and the Muse had met. Like the shop's exterior, it was exactly how he remembered it. For a brief moment when he sat down, it felt like he was in his twenties again. He felt a brief rush of the euphoria of having infinite possibilities in this dream-like state until the snapping sound of a picture being taken yanked him out of it. Looking towards the door, he saw quite a crowd had gathered. His bodyguard and driver stood between them and the shop's entrance, doing their best to block the paparazzi. 

Gregor sunk his face further under his hood and sipped his coffee hurriedly. After ten minutes, there was no Muse, but the crowd outside had grown. He wondered if finishing his drink was the key to the Muse's appearance as if she would be summoned by an artist's need for caffeine. He finished his cup, then another and another. After three cups in a short amount of time, the stimulants, the nerves, and the crowd that was now shouting and banging on the windows as if he were a performer who refused to do his act were making him extremely anxious. 

Then, as he heard the doors begin to bend under the stress of the weight of the mob, he finally couldn't take it anymore. He buried his head in his hands and closed his eyes, which now welled up with tears, and began a soft whimper, distraught at what his life had become. 

Then, the creaking of the doors, the banging of the windows, and the screams of the mob stopped, and there was silence. It was as if there was never a mob at all.

Believing they were stopped by the police, Gregor raised his head. He rubbed the tears from his eyes, but the glare from the sunlight beaming through the window made it hard to see. Once his eyes adjusted, he realized the mob had vanished along with a change in the weather. 

Confused, he began to check his phone when he realized his arms were restricted. He was wearing the same ill-fitting coat he used to wear, the one he wore on the day he met the Muse. He checked his phone for a text or call from his bodyguard, but there was nothing. For the first time in ten years, he had no emails, texts, or calls from anyone. 

Seemingly out of nowhere, a heavenly voice called to him.

"You wish for me to impart some great inspiration to you?"

The question sent a chill down his spine. He raised his head up from his phone to see the Muse in all her glory. He could not speak. His mouth went dry despite drinking three coffees, and his heart skipped. 

"Another chance." He said to himself softly.

The Muse said nothing but flashed her innocent smile. Gregor had learned it was anything but.

"You wish for me to impart some great inspiration to you?" She asked again.

Gregor thought for a moment, confused at his hesitation. He looked down at his old laptop, which was once again planted in front of him with nothing but a title.

The Perfect Life

He noticed the absence of vibrations from his phone, which had once been so frequent that it felt like a massage gun against his leg. Now, the phone was once again a reflection of his inexistent social life before the success of his novels. Finally, he remembered the nostalgia he felt walking into the coffee shop, which would have been in the future now. He thought of his comfort at something as simple as the table they sat at. He had his answer.

"No." He replied. 

The Muse smiled.