Wishful Thinking

It took Craig an age to get into The Zone. He’d read that writers needed a familiar and comfortable space within which to write, and so he had gone about building his writing nest. He’d begun gradually, but as he worked on his own, special space he built up a fervour and an excitement of anticipation, discovering hidden antique places and poring over knickknacks as though he were searching for his own personal grail.

In a way, he was. He was searching for a space that did not exist in the world beyond him, but within him. He was acquiring symbols and reminders that would centre him. He was also conducting something unique. He had never done this before. Oh, he’d decorated and furnished rooms before. As a child, he was lucky to have his own bedroom. But it wasn’t his. Not really. It was a room leased from Parents Inc and it was subject to their rules, their control and their atmosphere. He never filled it with him. He wasn’t even allowed to adorn the walls with the posters he coveted. At one time, He’d have had just two posters. One of an Alien egg and another of Sigourney Weaver carrying a pulse rifle and meaning business. Back then, Craig wasn’t sure why that business interested him so much, but it did. Still did, even to this day.

His writing space was unashamedly his. He was reclaiming something of himself as he went through this ritual, and he loved what he was doing. He loved his endeavours so much he imbued his small nook with love and in so doing, he may have begun to love himself.

This was how he found the necessary head space to write. He’d written previously, but never like this. Now, after the transition from the mess and noise of the outside world, he slipped into a different state and everything flowed. He left one world to stand at the door of others and wonder at what those worlds were and what they did.

Writing was a religion to Craig, and he had found his zen garden. As he wrote, he went deeper into human experience, and he went deeper inside himself on a voyage of discovery that had no end. This was a limitless existence that opened his mind to the possibility of the infinite.

Craig had happened upon a place that few people knew existed, and he was blissful in this new existence of his. So blissful that The Zone almost erased the reality around him.

When the doorbell rang, he was dizzied by its intrusion. The disorientation should have been annoying, but he was too numb for that. He wiped at his chin, unaware of the movement, let alone the need to do so. Padding to the front door, he saw a distorted shadow through the pane of textured glass and experienced a wave of surprise nausea. He took a deep breath and steadied himself before opening the door.

“Sorry I was…” he trailed off as he struggled to remember what he was.

“Just got out of bed, eh!? Easy life!” The postman grinned, then waved a parcel the size of a brick at him, “special delivery,” he explained, “needs a signature.”

Craig was presented with a small screen. He wiped his finger around on it and produced something that looked like the last movements of a very drunk spider before it fell to the floor. The postman didn’t even look at what he’d done. Accepted it. Handed him the parcel, “hope you enjoyed your lie-in,” he said salaciously, punctuating this line with a wink. Craig only got where he was coming from when he was back at his desk. Shook his head and thought the chance would be a fine thing. His bed was cold, empty and unmade. Just one of the many stories of his life that he tried not to read, but couldn’t fail to. That story was accusatory and ever present. Craig knew that he was supposed to write a new set of stories in response to this constant question. The story of the made bed would be a good start. But then that story would spawn fresh challenges. Craig was well aware that the bed linen was overdue a wash, and that were he to undertake that narrative, he would have to attend to cleaning and a number of related chores that he just could not be bothered with. Those things got in the way. 

All he wanted to do was write.

He nearly didn’t open the parcel. He looked from that to the now dark screen of his laptop and almost defaulted to his numero uno choice. It was the extra dimension that clinched it. An envelope would have had to wait and possibly for several days. The box contained far more possibilities.

With an excitement that coated a less savoury feeling, Craig tore at the package. The recalcitrant oblong fought his efforts every step of the way. The tape sealing it had no natural edge or corner and so Craig had to turn and turn the box until he resorted to brute force to gain entry to its innards.

Inside the box was an object that was encased in a black plastic bag. This concealment upset Craig. He’d just fought the good fight and yet he did not have his prize. More was expected of him. This side quest was a microcosm of life. But that wasn’t all of Craig’s upset. He knew that, and he ignored those other reasons.

Opening the black bag was far easier a task. Craig slowed himself and gingerly peeled the end open and cautiously peered inside. This was when Craig realised things were different. Inside the bag was an impossibility. He laid the bag down and opened the laptop. He was trembling as his nervous system went into overdrive and he had to force his eyes to focus on the screen.

He read the lines he had written.

There’s a knock at the door. I’m annoyed at the intrusion of that knock. More so when I answer the door to Sid The Postman. Sid thinks he’s funny and saucy with it. He’s not. He’s rude. He keeps the parcel from me until I sign for it, and even then he holds it back like the spoilt kid who wants so desperately to win at pass-the-parcel. I take it without thanking him and regret my churlishness even as it happens. I need to get the parcel inside though. I need the silencer for tonight’s hit…

Craig looked at the shapeless black bag, but he knew what was in it. He’d seen it clearly enough and now he was awakening to the fact that a part of him knew what was in the bag before he opened it. Had known even before the doorbell had rung.

He reached out with a numb, shaking hand and closed the laptop. He needed a break. He needed…

His eyes fell upon the coffee next to the laptop. He carefully slipped a finger towards the mug, not trusting his motor skills right now, but needing to test the warmth of that mug. It was still warm. He eyed the dark surface. Black coffee. He was an insipid, white tea drinker and his drinks went cold as he wrote. It was Dean, the contract killer, who drank black coffee.

Craig wanted to get up from the best seat in his house and be anywhere but here right now. But he couldn’t. There was no one reason why he stayed put. There were so many reasons in conflict right now, but it was his curiosity that held him there. That and the inertia created by the shock of the moment.

He lifted the screen of his laptop and felt a thrill of fear as it lit up. He had to do it. He had to find out. Walking away now would be to give up. And giving up would open the door to a doubt that would ravage his mind. He needed certainty right now, even if that certainty was as far away from logic and reality as it was possible to get.

He almost made a very bad mistake. His fingers hovered over the keyboard and he began his return to his writing state. Then he pulled himself back from the brink. If this was really happening. If he really could replicate what he thought was happening here, then he absolutely didn’t want Dean along for the ride. Dean was bad news, albeit charming. But then that was a disarming trait of psychopaths. Dean was a stone cold killer and so Craig thought it wise to put that facsimile of a man behind which lurked a snake, on the subs bench. Dean would sit this one out.

Craig considered his work in progress pile. There was a reason it had not been progressed. There were a couple of likely options and he smiled at one that had erotic possibilities, but in the end he dismissed them all and opted for a blank page.

He steadied himself and typed.

Next to the mug of strong, dark coffee were two digestive biscuits. 

Before he looked at the space where he’d imagined the biscuits to be, he fancied he saw a flicker of their presence. A ghostly suggestion of their existence. But when he looked upon the spot, they were not there.

That moment in his peripheral vision spoke to him though, suggesting a way forward. This was not a case of jotting down a shopping list, he was going to have to write. He needed to be in The Zone for this to work for him. Absently, he took a slurp of his coffee and went to work.

It was dark when Craig emerged from his writing. Always there was this disorientation. He had travelled between worlds and in the former world he had been another person. A product of that environment. In this case, as he came to himself, there was a strange familiarity to where he was, but also an alien quality. He was here, but he was lost in a here that should have been his home.

He looked around at his writing space and knew it for what it was. All the same, there was an absence here. The same knickknacks sat in their spots, only there was a disconnect with the meaning they were meant to symbolise. They felt empty to him, but that emptiness spoke of a lack. They had become a dire warning of what was to come.

Aware of the blank expression of the door to what had formerly been his favourite room, he knew his only option would be to open it, walk through it and face the music of his own words. He felt like crying, but those tears would be self-piteous and he could not bear to add badly to the folly of his actions. 

He’d made a mistake. He felt that with a force of gravity that threatened to crush him. He noticed the screen of his laptop go dark. Could he delete all those words? The thought of that pained him even before he thought it through. His conclusion was that you couldn’t take it back. You could never take it back. It was done now.

That was when the dark voice that speaks seductively urged him to go forth and survey the fruits of his labour. The voice praised him for doing something few have ever done. That he had created a world that existed beyond imagination. He had performed the work of a god. Did he not want to see what it was that he had made?

The temptation was too much to resist, and now Craig was excited. That excitement reminded him of a Christmas Day that hadn’t been ruined. Christmas Days had more chance of going well because those days were shared days. Birthdays were the most at risk. His birthdays. As a kid, his birthdays always went wrong. He never earnt a good birthday. He was never good enough. But this Christmas Day he’d come downstairs to find a chopper bicycle. And it had been wrapped up! It even had his name on a fancy label, hanging from the wrapping paper. That bike had been the key to a whole new life, and he knew it as soon as he clapped eyes on it. He went everywhere on that bike. Miles beyond where his folks thought he was. Escaping, but always returning. He loved that bike, and maybe he’d love what awaited him on the other side of the door.

The house was in darkness as he opened the door. Somehow that was a comfort. The walls were familiar, but held the dread of what lay beyond them. The dull light of night allowed Craig to harbour the illusion that things would not be as bad as all that. A gentle denial of the consequences of playing with forces he did not understand. Repeating the same mistake that humankind seemed hell bent on. Acting without conscience and failing to even consider the consequences.

As he walked up the stairs, relieved that they were in the same place and led to the same landing, he consoled himself with the silencer and the coffee. They had already happened. They weren’t his fault. He tried to extend this logic to total, deniable accountability, but it didn’t land as well as it could have.

His bedroom door was shut. This hit him with a chill that unsteadied him further. He never shut his bedroom door. He stood before it and wondered at what lay beyond. He pictured the duvet thrown asunder. The sheet wrinkled in a frown of disdain at his laxness. 

He sniffed the air for a clue as to whether he really had done the chores that bored and upset him as he had written a new world. He was rewarded with the smell of wood polish. He loved that aroma. It reminded him of his mother and the best aspects of home. As he smiled, he experienced a moment of inexplicable sadness. Asking himself why he had never attempted to recreate this moment. A simple case of buying wood polish and expending a little effort to change his world for the better. He resolved to do better. To be better. He could do this. He could be a better man. All it took was a little effort.

Buoyed by this fresh resolve, he placed his hand on the doorknob of his bedroom and paused in anticipation of a freshly laundered and made bed. He need only keep that up. Maintain the head start he had created with his words. 

Turning the handle, he entered the bedroom and it was then that he knew he’d done more than make his bed.

“There you are!” 

Craig stood frozen in the doorway. By the light of the lefthand table lamp, he could see a woman he knew, but had never seen before this moment. Not like this. Not out there. She was every bit as beautiful as he had imagined her to be. Had he really dared think that a woman like this could grace his life, let alone lay beside him in his bed?

He took her in and the sight of her terrified him. He could not take his eyes off her, but knew this to be his room. Every single detail was the same as he left it. Even the duvet, cast aside. But in this case, it wasn’t an accusation. It was an invitation. And he knew that he must accept the invitation. This was how it was meant to be. He had to go with it.

He sat on the crumpled sheet with his back to the most amazing woman he could ever have imagined. And she was real. She was there. He could feel her warmth and her eyes on his back.

“How’s the writing going?” she asked him.

“Fine,” he lied.

“You really throw yourself into it,” she observed, “it’s like you’re a different person when you’re sat there writing. I bring you fresh coffee and your digestives, and you don’t even see me.”

Craig turned to look at her, tried a smile as he spoke, “sorry.” It was all he could think to say. And he was sorry. More sorry than she could ever know. Because he wasn’t who she thought he was. He was so very different to the man she was expecting to walk into this bedroom. He felt like a fraud. An impostor. Far worse than that. He’d lied his way here and into this bed. The thing was, he didn’t know what else to do. This was his bed after all.

He undressed and tentatively climbed into bed with her. Aware of her watching him. Wondering what she saw. Laying on his back, he could see her in his peripheral vision, only she wasn’t flickering in and out of reality. She was as real as it was possible to be. She was a reality that he feared with a vengeance.

Then she touched him and the tension and anxiety of the lie he was vanished. Instinctively, he slipped an arm under her and pulled her closer. Her head on his chest felt so wonderfully natural that he could have died there and then and known his life had reached a pinnacle he never knew existed.

“Oh Dean,” she whispered, “I love these moments. Just you and I and nothing else. The world doesn’t matter when it’s like this. I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” whispered Dean distractedly as he thought about Craig and who he really was. Was he only words on a page? Or was he more than that. Sometimes Dean could swear he was as real as he was. Although maybe not as real as Sigourney. She was as real as they got.