Writers Life

In a trice, the bright light from the window hit my eyes  forcing me to locomote and choose a new part of the bed to seek refuge. The extreme end, the one neighboring the wall shall do it. Like a Boa constrictor who just had lunch, I tried to roll across to my chosen spot. It usually takes three to five seconds to get comfortable on any part of the bed but my bones weigh a ton. I am very weak. I am very hungry. I, for some unknown reason, glimpse the cross in my room. There is Jesus. Forever on that cross. In a way I guess He knew how miserable life is, that’s why He gave up his, for the rest of the world to have a chance. Who has nails nearby. I am too weak to feel any pain. I promise. I want to do the same… I am tired of existing. 

He was lying in bed and his laptop opened, leaning against the foot-board. It is usually total darkness for the window drapes are mean enough not to allow in  ray of light. He kept pressing next, next and next after every episode ended. Usually it would have taken him two months to go through a whole season but now it takes hours. The only time he ever moved out of bed was to take a leak, open the bread, a bag of crisps or a bottle of coke. There are bread crumbs and potato crisps scattered in his bed sheets. But this could not bother him, as long as he could try to blow some whenever he was uncomfortable or shake the bed sheets whenever he got out to pee, everything was all right. In the first two weeks, he got up to cook, but when there was no more food in the fridge, he started eating all the cereal he could find. What started as a little indolence had become a languorous illness. All this was because of that damn book.

Seven hundred and thirty three pages worth of crap. It was looking and smelling nice when the creator granted him the gift, ‘such a spectacular book idea. Seven hundred and thirty three pages in he realizes it is crap. It was crap all along. Before he became me, he even tried re-writing it four times. 

He woke up thinking about the book, showered wondering which characters to kill, took the train to work imagining what kind of hair the villain should have, spent the whole day doing dishes at a Spanish-Mexican fusion Restaurant with his mind replaying the lovers story.  He told no one about the book. People are not shaded beige or purple for him to identify who will like it and who will not. It was just this beautiful thing that was his and his alone. All his wildest thoughts down to paper. Maybe next week, maybe in the next century, he believed someone will pick the paper up and direct a screen act out of it. It is a masterpiece. He has thought about it since high-school. He knew it would take him a few years to finish it but what's a few years weighed against the idea of being a legend. He walked from that graduation ceremony into the world more naive and ambitious than those before him. Then, he used to work at a hotel cleaning restrooms. A year later and five hundred and eleven pages in, the story eluded his mind and he took a few days off everything. Little kid went hiking, hahaha... Such an idiot. Anyway he came back a new and changed a few details in the book. 

You know, like that song on the radio that says try, try again. Keep trying again. Whatever the lyrics are.

The hotel did not like him going away for a few days and he was fired. He then took a job cycling around town distributing food. He could not lose his focus. Destiny was only months, if you do not believe the fortune teller who told him weeks. Eighteen months later and six hundred pages in, there was no story. The whole book made no sense. He could see it clearly that he had wasted all his time. His big great idea was a stupid one. ‘The killer, the beautiful lady and the house maid. They all die in the end. The book makes no sense.’

He was not as depressed as before. Maybe because it was not the first time the world rejected him so he did not lose his mind or sleep over this. He thought to himself, “if a man meets his destiny at the very path he takes to avoid it, i am no coward. I seek mine, but if my destiny is to fail, someone should say something or send me an email.”  I have come a long way, I can not be going the wrong way. He took a day, thinking and made more tweaks to the  story. And this time he also wrote a second version of the book. 

Any normal person will be granted a room in the nuthouse if they ever tried this. He bought two boards.  The faces of the main characters were the same on both boards but the deuteragonists were different on either. Each board with different ideas scribbled all over it. They were completely two different books. 

He is not a normal person. He is not like everyone else, and with his faith in a strong being called the creator and Greek astrology, nothing could keep this Gemini down. Nothing. 

And so it took three years with him going through the emotions of the day but with one concrete coin in his mind. It's either heads or tails. He has two plans, if one doesn't go through it's definitely the other. But something strong believers forget is that while they have their plans, the beings they believe in also have their plan and at the end of the three year mark, a creative impasse, twice. Now that's personal, that's the only thing that shakes one's belief in the existence of a strong being. But that can not be it, if he pissed off the creator in the previous life, the creator can not be still holding a grudge. It can’t be. It’s impossible. So is it him? Isn't he good enough? But he's Gemini. It’s an insult to even think that. How stupid can some people think that of a Gemini. No. No. He needed a day. He rang his supervisor at work. They know he is hardworking. That's why he was promoted from sitting on the bicycle all day in the sun to inside washing dishes. If he says he's sick. They will believe he's sick. He opened his laptop and watched an episode. He just clicked the first Tv show he laid his eyes on. It was silent. It was peaceful. He felt calm. He hadn't stopped to blow candles off a birthday cake in a long while. He’d been walking on skiing mornings and  scorching afternoons like they are the same. He had lost his emotions or his senses. Everything was about that damn book. For the first time, he felt free. It is nice to be remiss. To just be. And that's how we got to five weeks of him, watching all those Tv shows and series. He kept clicking next and next and next. From one day, to one week, to five weeks. 

He became me.

I had watched most and started repeating some. Slowly I became more and more lazy or weak that even getting out of bed to pee was hard. Very hard. Like lifting a car with your bare hands. I did not want to move at all. I just wanted to stay in one place and laugh at the same jokes I had been laughing at, and watch the same shows I had been watching the thousandth time. It was not stale to me, it was safe. Here I was comfortable and confident. Not one thing will disappoint me because I have already watched whichever episode that was playing like eighty times. The silent walls in his room will always be silent, and I will watch my shows, doze off and sleep, wake up and repeat. 

With every passing day, my brain began to fade away from me, lessening in ideas. My thoughts became thinner and thinner. My bones weighed heavier and heavier and my skin became more and more dense. It’s not just that I had gained a little weight, it was like gravity on me was heavier and the Earth was pulling me in, hadn’t it been for the bed in between.

On one particular day, I was half dead, lying in bed, listening to the silent walls with my mind or what was left of it trying to conjure up a dream but in lack of thoughts. I had been half awake for an hour or maybe five minutes, I couldn't tell. The pain from my bladder was rising every second. What started as a lazy day had become a terminal illness that even when I tried to think about moving, getting up, it was like I weighed a ton and couldn't lift my own arm. This went on for some time until somehow, I pushed myself over the bed and fell on the carpet. Something pushed me, I reckon. It is the only feasible explanation. I know there was something in the room. I was too weak to move my own fingers. I thought it in my mind, I tried to move them but they could not move. 

I got up, walked in darkness without turning on a light and managed to reach the bathroom and relieved the pressure and pain from my bladder. With staggering movements, I walked back but stepped on a game-pad on the floor and fell in a chair in the bedroom. It hurt so much but I was too weak to even shout. I stayed where I had fallen for a few minutes, took a deep breath and then went into the kitchen to make eggs. I turned on the gas, put on a frying pan and poured oil in it. I then broke three eggs in a cup. 

I went into my room to pick salt, where I had left it weeks ago and then something miraculous happened. It's like someone whispered to me, “Go to the window. Look outside. Hurry, it might go away. Rush before it disappears.” Wherever the thought came from, I walked to the window, moving slowly rubbing one leg after another on the carpet so as not to fall again. Finally I reached, kneeling into the chair that was by the window and I opened the drapes.   It was so beautiful. I really believed there was someone or something watching and directing me. I would never have gotten out of bed just to look out the window. Why would I even do that? I am not crazy… but this time was special. They were so tiny and beautiful. They came slowly navigating the soft winds and landing on the window glass. I had never seen snowflakes up close. The details in them. It was cold on the window surface. I kept staring at them fall and fall, and on the window sill and on the ground below. Winter is so beautiful when it's not accompanied by strong storms and the extreme cold temperatures. I cracked the window open, just a little to let in a few snowflakes. It was warm inside but those few fleeting moments before they melted were magical. Just as I opened the window, a fresh zephyr blew in, I registered a fetor. I hadn’t bathed. No, that's not the smell. It’s definitely not. Dirty clothes, no… it smells like… shit, I left oil on the stove.

I sprinted back to the kitchen and the frying pan had a fire in it, burning causing a smoke to fill in the kitchen. I rushed to the apartment door to turn off the gas because I couldn’t get near the fire. I then started fetching water from the sink and pouring it into the frying pan whilst running away from the flames and splashing hot drops of water bouncing off the hot frying pan. It took many tries to put out the fire and after, I sat down for a minute to gather my breath. I then started cleaning, slowly and slowly and before I could notice, all the dirty dishes were sparkling again. I re-made the eggs, made tea and after eating my meal, I went back to my bedroom. I had left the window open. It was now cold inside and a few snowflakes had collected on the arm of the sofa. While closing the window, it hit me, they were all going to melt away. I will forget about them and I will go on with my life. I had just fallen in love with them.

Just moments ago, I had almost burned down the house and who knows where the fire was going to spread. At least there's something to remember or forget about the snowflake, what will anyone remember about me? I did not succeed at anything. I did not fail at anything. Well, I tried but that is all. Is four tries enough. I just gave up. At least they should remember me as the guy who kept trying. If you're living someplace I do not know, carrying a name I have never heard of and you're doing a lot of nothing, you gave up, of course no one will remember nothing. Love. remember. Love remember. How do these two come together? I kept cleaning my room but with an avalanche of new thoughts invading my head, gushing like they have been piling for a while and someone just turned on the faucet. I then took a bath and also shaved. Then I went to the supermarket to buy a soft drink to take while I headed to work. If I am to be remembered, let it be as the man who kept trying, let it be, at least that's something. I always used the same supermarket, and usually we just say hello to each other and that's it. No one ever talks with the attendant and on most days there's a queue. Like always, we said hello to each other but after scanning the bar-code from the bottle, the grocery clerk asked, with concern and curiosity, that he failed to take the money. “How have you been, it's been sometime since i last saw you”

In his eyes, you could really tell he was eager to listen to whatever I was going to say. Like he really cared. With those simple words, I never felt more alive. It's the happiest I had ever been the whole year.  

That's it. The killer lived. He did not exist, he lived. And she loved him. She kept making bracelets for him. He kept wearing them. Even when he went to murder someone. He loved her too. She can save him. Love is all they need. I have a book. My greatest idea, this book is going to be great.

-the end.