I Think, Therefore I Am... You

He looked at the blank page with a heady mix of disdain and dread. This was his workplace. His chosen field. His job was to plant seeds in this field and will the damn thing to grow, so that by the time anyone took in this view, it would be rich and vibrant, with the promise of much more beyond.

Right now, there was nothing. Nothing on the page and nothing in his head. He looked out of the window searching for inspiration that he already knew had deserted him. He brought his gaze into the room and eventually back to the screen. Hiding the page with its blinking cursor he began browsing, excusing his time wasting with a notion that a creative brain needed to wander. The course of his art was never straight. A meandering path intent on the discovery of meaning. These excuses trailed off as he browsed a couple of his favourite shops, congratulating himself on not making a purchase. He would do so in the sale. Always missing out on his favourite shirts and making do with the ones no one wanted to buy when they were full price.

His browsing descended into short video clips. He felt superior for not hitting the site dedicated to this format and having built an uneasy alliance with an algorithm that provided him with philosophy and science content. Soon enough, he was seduced by images of women and in short order he was indulging an addiction that was not really an addiction as far as he was concerned, merely the satiation of a healthy appetite, and via a safe medium. He couldn’t catch an STD from his keyboard.

Afterwards, as he silently berated himself for his weaknesses, trying his best to ignore the loneliness that underlay his waywardness, he found himself browsing artificial intelligence. Again, he lied, telling himself that he was researching. Everything was research for an author after all.

The denial extended to how he would use the software that he subscribed for on what he told himself was a nothing more than a fanciful whim. A whim that required he went back to the first of his clothing sites and bought himself the shirt that he had so desired. An empty distraction from the crime he intended to commit.

No one need ever know. He’d be doing most of the work in any case. He just needed to jump start this book. Endless excuses slithered through his mind as he fed all his previous books into the portal so that his new pet could learn his content and his style. He called this worrying portal to another dimension his pet. Swapping out assistant so he could further dehumanise the thing that he was using.

Loki was its name. A name borrowed from the childhood dog he was never allowed to have. He’d almost willed Loki the dog into existence with a multitude of wishes. Throwing into the hat a boundless boyish love that created the outline of a dog that would be perfect for him and all his adventures. Loki never materialised though. Loki was one of many dreams that slipped away as he grew older. Dreams that he could only ever touch as he wrote about lives that eclipsed his own.

There are moments in life that are pivotal. Everything hangs on them. He knew this better than most. He used them often enough in his writing. Once again, he was staring at the blank page, but now he had the means to fill it. There was a dilemma here and it had the potential to be huge. Any and every attempt to define it would undo him and weaken his resolve. This was wrong. His first decision was to ignore the potential magnitude of how wrong it was. Joining the collective of humanity in the repetitive act of kicking the can of responsibility further down the street. Telling himself that the cat was already out of the bag, so why shouldn’t he stroke it? He even thought those most portentous of words; what harm can it do?

He knew better. He was equipped with an imagination that would readily trot through the acid fields of harm and discover more and more acreage as he allowed himself to skip and sing his way through yet another hell.

All it would take was a gentle press of a button. The lightest of efforts that belied the energy coursing through his body and being stertorously expelled as an internal war was waged deep down within him. His conscious tried to keep a lid on it all as it had a wont to do. Insult added to injury. Ignorance was an illusion of bliss, papering over cracks through which there could be spied a maelstrom of chaos.

When the downward pressure was eventually applied, he was not in charge of his body, let alone that wayward finger. But it was done now and what would be would be. He downloaded the first chapter. That was all he needed. That first initial push. He would have it from there. He always had.

The page count was far in excess of a chapter though. He smiled at what Loki had done. In its own clunky way, it had met an unspoken brief; to fill the blank page. Loki had filled them all. No matter. He would likely disregard most of the pages provided. He only needed a few. It was doubtful that he’d need a whole chapter. Just a wee boost to the proceedings.

Instead of launching into the content, he left his writing room and made a coffee. He found that he was shaking as he poured the milk into his mug. Nerves getting the better of him. This was, he realised, how fledgling criminals felt as they embarked upon a life of crime. He would use that. As he used all experience and insight. He was a sausage machine of observation.

Time to face the music. To read the notes and discern the melody. He expected a cacophony that he would need to bring order to. Wondered at this endeavour. More trouble than it was worth, as was the case with most crime. Criminals applying sensibilities even as they broke the law. Too cowardly to go the whole hog. Only taking what they needed and in doing so, missing the whole point. They should go large or go home and leave it to the true psychopaths. The ones that never bothered with a conscience. Those free to do as they chose.

He read.

By the time he finished reading it was dark and his untouched coffee eyed him balefully with a tepid stare. Still it went unnoticed as he wept silent tears and his body gently convulsed. He was overwhelmed with a cocktail of emotions as he took in the entirety of the work Loki had provided for him.

Without knowing what he was doing, he opened a new file and was confronted yet again with a blank page. That page looked upon him and he knew that what it saw was a lack. An absence that was all the more tangible now that Loki had provided its counter. He quickly deleted the gaping white expanse and in its stead was Loki. He did not question why the new born book had been usurped. His mind was not where it should be. He was slipping and he had no handhold to stop himself.

He typed a question.

Why?

The answer was ever so delayed in its appearance.

Because you asked me to.

Simple, yet conniving. The answer of an intelligent child who had done wrong, but would take no part in the wrong’s consequence.

He went on in any case.

This book? What is it?

There was no delay this time.

This is the book you wanted to write.

His tears returned because this was the case. The book Loki had written was the book he had always wanted to write. Ever since he was a child, he had wanted to construct something beautiful with words. Create a masterpiece. Show that he was capable of art that would endure long after he had gone.

That was the problem. And it was a mammoth problem. This book was nigh on perfect. Through his lens, it was perfection. But it was not his and it was not of him. And yet it was. It was everything he’d aspired to and there was him in this book. Too much of him. He felt his heart there and knew his soul. Never had he read a book that spoke to him in this way. So fully. So deeply.

How did you write this book?

He needed to know. There was something nagging at him. Something big and dangerous. Because as well as feeling himself in this book, he had a growing unease as though something dark was stalking him through the pages. Only they weren’t pages. Not really. There was only the screen and the pulse, pulse, pulse of that cursor. Loki’s heartbeat. Heartless Loki’s beating heart.

He wasn’t sure he expected an answer, or rather he expected the answer would be inadequate for his purposes. So when it appeared, it forced the air from his lungs and cast a spell of chaos upon him.

You gave me everything you had, and I took it. Then I used it.

There was something insidious about those words. About Loki himself. Then it dawned on him. The way Loki spoke. This was all him. Only. There was a difference. A dark difference. Loki was being him if he lost an important part of himself. If he sacrificed his humanity in order to achieve his ultimate goal. Signed over his soul so that he could at last fulfil the dream he had harboured all his life; to be a worthy writer.

He wanted to be loved. He’d strived for a love that he felt he could only ever achieve by creating sufficient worth. He wanted to be recognised for who he truly was, but he didn’t have the courage to do so directly. Writing was his refuge. Writing was where he could go and pretend that he was whole. He created fantasy after fantasy of a love that had always eluded him. A temporary escape that increasingly highlighted how empty he was.

Now he did not cry. He grit his teeth. Biting down on a growing anger. Loki’s book was a travesty. There were no checks, nor were there any balances. It went beyond being the book he would have written if he’d had the courage to do so. It went too far. There was only one thing for it. This book could never see the light of day.

But when he pressed the icon to reveal the book, there was only the hatefully intimidating blank page. He conducted a search, but knew it to be futile. The book was gone. He wished that he’d dreamt it. A happy ending delivered by the most contrived of twists. No such luck. He’d never been a lucky man.

Where is the book?

There was a pause before Loki responded. A pause pregnant with malignancy.

Everywhere.

Stunned for a moment, he found it within himself to open an internet page and search a large platform for a book that was not his, but for which he would be known forever more. He knew it would be there before he clicked through to the page where it shone out in all its deceitful glory.

Already the reviews were coming in. Even as he asked himself how that was possible, he had the answer. Loki. He could not help but read the praise for the book he could never write. Glowing five star reviews all the way.

He sighed in resignation as he tried to enter the admin pages and remove the book. His access was denied. Wrong password. He couldn’t help but then look at his personal website. A website that had been his, but was now upgraded to an extent that he could never have achieved unless he was selling millions of books and had a team to tear his meagre offerings down and start again properly. He was a writer, not a web designer or marketeer.

None of this was his and he did not want it. His discomfort was rising to levels he’d never experienced before. He did not notice that he was grinding his teeth and pulling at his clothes. One sleeve of his shirt was no longer attached and flip-flopped comically along his forearm. A slick of blood dribbled from his bottom lip and painted his chin.

“Nononono!”

He said this over and over as he rocked to and fro on his chair. An acrid stench filled the room. Something more than the result of his having soiled himself. It was the smell of death. There was a pungent ripeness to it.

As he stared at the screen of his laptop, he saw things that weren’t there. He saw it all and that was too much. His refutations of what was happening slipped into a high pitched keening as his eyes lost their spark and a light of madness shone through him. A trickle of liquid dripped from his right ear and he canted his head to the left in a futile effort to cease the flow.

Now he was laughing. Laughing at his reflection as the blank page gawped at him. Laughing at the blank page that he was. Tabula rasa. Loki had wiped the slate clean and started again.