Shouts From Down Under

Once, upon a time of dark and faulty brake lights, a writer-

- sat down to write the most wicked story possible.

The Title would beat all titles. Title For Your Entry: (59 of 60 characters. Minimum of 3 required.)

There would be 59 characters in the story, then, more than the minimum of 3 as it stipulated.

(Gary Larson cartoon; The Far Side)

The plot and back-story would be so enthralling and engaging that any reader who dared open the cover, and launch into the first paragraph, would be hooked more permanently than a Great-Grandmother's knitting cast-off.

So, it would seem that all was well for the novelist, as the action design took shape, the framework for the beginning was moulded, major scenes and ending were installed, and then a list of characters was fiddled into place, with each one's lives detailed in a separate, sparkling new list.Things were looking up, and the soon-to-be author (the writer grinned, thinking it sounded as if some sort of malicious sharp toothed baby would be born) was very chuffed with the efforts so far.

But one day, just as the author felt a solid sense of progress, and was relaxing with a hot and fragrant cup of tea, (Mentalist style) there came a sudden shadow, falling on the writer's mind. There was a feeling of certainty, that someone, somewhere, was watching. Not just watching in that creepy, stalker fashion so common in serial killer TV series or that worn out genre of "psychological thriller", but watching in a deeper way - examining, following, matching the authors steps during walking, intruding in the writer's dreams, entering the room just as the narrator exited. Someone who was a complete control freak.

Instead of the ability to focus on the developing story, now the writer sometimes broke out in a sweat, upper lip itchy with darting, paranoid thoughts jumping all over the place.
Whilst cramming anecdotes of interest on the regular notepad, or keying into the personal computer more setting colour, the writer felt the faint stirring of neck hair, the pin prick of goosebumps on forearm, and gradually, increasingly as time went on, something else that brought everything crashing to a mind emptying halt.

By totally random chance, something that shouldn't - was not permitted to - occur in well crafted stories, the author stumbled upon proof that there was a stalker.
There was definitely someone analysing every single moment of activity the writer lived.
The writer had noticed - words being typed in Microsoft Word didn't come from any keystrokes of anyone present.
Yet the letters formed intelligible words, phrases, and sentences.

The story teller decided to bait and set a trap, to catch whoever it was making life a constant waking misery. Not just waking but sleeping as well, and if there was some other realm, then the observer would be there too.
There were cemeteries of leafy avenues - rustling with cautious shoes, waving willows in town parks whispering their tall, menacing shadows across the sloping lawns, an additional sinister shape among those sprinkles of light that was never meant to represent foliage.

A close friend of the writer's was a handy gentleman with all things electronic, and set up a nasty surprise for whoever kept eavesdropping on every move the author made. Any remote input to the computer, from now on, would be measured and traced to it's source. Whoever it was wouldn't get away with this!

Then came the day the trap was ready, and the writer's friend, an understanding person who knew many writers, went back home so that the storyteller could get on with it in privacy, peace and quiet. That is, if there were not this presence, this malignancy that had sapped all the creativity from the writer's brain.

It should have been a day of victory, perhaps even a purging, a renewing, where the author would shout with joy and relief. The scribe would finally be able to continue, and finish, the best-seller that many were most likely already clamouring for, in book stores. Librarians must surely be run off their feet placing holds on this future novel, a queue-up for the day when it would be released.

But there was no such event. No liberating trap sprang shut on some errant auditor. This time, when the feeling came of a second set of eyes watching, of someone invading the writer's private thoughts, a shadow story-shoplifter putting words on the page that weren't from the author's head, then immediately the input measured was shown to clearly emanate from the author. It was the writer's own self-stutter.

This outrageous hijacking of essayist's efforts was evidently none other than the author's internal thoughts that anxiety, and fretting, had shocked out of sync, causing a double focus of purpose.

Now the writer insisted profusely that there was relief with these finalising conclusions. The author protested too much, that there was no need to panic any more, or search for any special cure. What freedom to not have that set upon feeling, that dimness, that penumbra, like the suction of Ms Rowlings Dementor's. After all, psychological problems can happen to anyone, given the right circumstances..can't they? To other people anyway.

Back to the story at hand, the writer enthused; no sign of writer's block or worry on the horizon of even any faintest thought.

Then with a sudden jolt, the writer paused. Thoughts whirled afresh and whole pages, a plethora of plot pathways and piquing particulars pushed pressingly against the authors finger prints. But alas, no movement could be forced. The storyteller's very being was on hold. Nothing could be changed, no muscle activated. It was as if someone had finished a story, and quietly concluded with those common but all powerful, immovable, irrefutable twin words; the end.

There was nothing the author could do, no matter how frantic the inner turmoil, no matter what motivated, no matter how much anguish, or silent shrieking might be imagined.

However many once upon a times, or innumerable choices of storyline, or fantastic twists or heart stopping endings were possible, when the brake lights that should have illuminated a warning of impending doom, tragically held globes that were blown, when the writer had no way of writing, no way of processing the knowing, then it really was...

The End.


Sparky