Short Story – A writer’s misery
Photo credit: cohdra from morguefile.com
You are sitting in your room, seemingly at peace. The day has been usual expect for the fact that today you feel a little turmoil. You are not even sure whether it is a turmoil or just exertion after the end of the day. You take few deep breaths and try to calm yourself, but it is of not much help.
Suddenly, a barrage of thoughts intrudes your mind. Unable to cope with it, you stand up with a surge and move around a little. You look outside, the night is setting in, darkness pervades faraway. You hold your vision without anything specific to look for, maybe your eyes are searching for something but the turmoil and the impenetrable darkness makes you forget the object. Thoughts are swarming in your head and you fail to catch hold of them. You suddenly feel a burning sensation; it passes through your body like waves. Without even you’re realizing you’ve become agitated. You decide to talk with someone regarding this state, someone who can understand the aberration of behavior. You try to remember names, stress your mind so as to focus on one thought. You succeed partially, a few names have struck your memory but somehow you are unsure of them. You fear of a backlash on the pretext of being misunderstood…. what if you fail to explain the situation and are accused of delusion, reproached for seeking attention? Oh! How terrible would that be!
The idea infuriates you and you immediately give it up. Once again you try to remember the day, to figure out the event that might have upset you but everything appears to be normal, like the repetition of other days. It is then, it suddenly strikes you that this repetition, this monotony might be the reason of the turbulence. Ah! How appropriately it fits now, you think… but at another moment you are unsure of it, for why has it struck right now? How suddenly, you are unable to get along with something with which you have been at peace for a long time? Your reasoning falters under contradiction but it has calmed you in a way that there seems to be less volatility of thoughts. Now, you think of the next logical step.
You are holding a pen, with your elbow resting on the table. Under your elbow lie sheets of paper. Your gesture suggests that you have taken a pause to ponder over something. But it’s only a deception. The paper is blank. Your hand moves involuntarily towards the paper a few times. The nib (pen) touches or rather kisses the surface of the paper, inducing a subtle dot. The truth is you have failed to conceive a thought, let alone contrive a structure to put it. What an irony!! Just moments ago flurry of thoughts had shaken you, rendered you almost helpless, as a consequence of which you had to take refuge in writing. It was supposed to be a rescue from the turmoil. But look what’s happened!! As soon as you sat down to write your thoughts, they all just vanished… without a trace or any trail.
Now a new problem has arisen, the problem of extremes; from inundation to void. You fail to understand what has happened, the strange feeling grips you. This sudden void has made you calmer. All the anguish is gone. You try to recollect some of the thoughts. You vaguely remember them…about monotony?? Something? But there’s nothing concrete to put on paper. You sit idle for a while, feeling much better. The idea of renouncing everything comes to your mind but you’ve already put yourself up for action and you do not want it to end in vain. So, you make a resolve to complete the task, since you already have taken up to it. Soon the calmness takes over you completely and holding the pen in your hand gives you a new vigor. The aura has changed, your demeanor turns into that of a writer, you become oblivious to the recent events. The feeling excites you.
You have written few words or maybe sentences but you are undecided whether it is for a poem or a story, for seemingly it can fit into both. You read it several times to come to a conclusion but it doesn’t help. Then, you decide to take a plunge into yourself, to be sure that you write from your own perspective and are not influenced by any external source. A deep breath….and you feel a little self-assured. Now all you need is a subject. You look around the room, hoping something will strike to give you the impetus.
There is a clock on the wall.. you think something in relation to time but find it difficult to write in entirety. It would require a lot of effort, thinking and ironically time!! Since your mood has become somewhat light you decided against the subject. You see some books on the table and a painting hanging on the wall. It strikes you that you can write something on philosophy, something in general about how you feel… but as soon as you begin to write you realize that your knowledge is inadequate for such a subject and you abandon it on the fear of being shallow. Then you decide to write something out of imagination, a total fiction, start at random.. but after a little while you find yourself incapable of doing so (although you have written something but it fails to make sense after sometime). You establish that a story is not something you can write today, for such a swing of mood (from turbulence to calmness) calls only for poetry.
Outside, there is complete darkness. A few scattered dot like lights (coming from the houses), shimmer far away in the distance. In the night sky, stars have appeared. You can make out a few constellations and the half crooked moon. It seems as if they lay suspended in the space. The sight pleases you so much that it transcends you into another realm. You come out in the balcony; the mild breeze swiftly flows past you. You feel poetic now. Words start to flow through your mind. You can seize this opportunity and put it on paper but you stay for a while, gazing into the darkness or the night sky maybe.
Suddenly, you find yourself floating in the memories. It all comes to you quite vividly and you began to rejoice it. Unknowingly it has brought a smile on your face and now, you are taken over by a sense of elation, and you feel lighter than air. Some time has passed and you remember that you have to write a poem. You go inside and your eyes fall on the clock, you are surprised at the amount of time that has passed… Minutes turned into hours.. You look at the sheets and the pen but have no drive to take it up. There is some joy in you, a feeling of happiness.
This feeling is overwhelming and it abstains you from writing, for you think what is the need to write when you are so elated? If you began to write now it will mitigate the feeling. You go up to the table pick up the sheets and the pen and put them back in the drawer. You decide that a time when you have more fire, more profound thoughts, something that comes when you are wounded, would help you better to write. You resign yourself to the bed, thinking that at some other day you’ll complete the task of writing.
__END__
