He, the Man, and the Writer

He sits there in his high backed wooden chair. He faces his desk; he taps his pen in an attempt to think. A small twitch of a smile touches his lips. He writes down a few words. He reads it back to himself in silence. He frowns. He picks up the paper, crumples it up, and tosses it to the waste basket next to his desk. He misses, and the bunched up piece of paper silently rolls across the carpeted floor. He pulls a watch from his pocket, clicks it open. The long gold chain, belonging to the gold watch in his hand sways. The time is ten o’clock. He has been sitting at his high-backed chair, at his wooden desk since seven o’clock. It has now been about four hours. Now it is starting to get late, and it grows tiresome wracking his brain for an inspiration or an idea. He is tired and his eyes droop as he yawns.

         “Time for bed I believe,” he says to himself in a gruff voice. He clicks the watch shut and returns it to his pocket.

         He gets up from his high backed chair, steps away from his desk and walks to his room just a few feet away. He undresses, leaving on only his undergarments and his socks. He leaves his clothes lying wrinkled on the floor as he crawls into his bed. He watches the hands of the pocket watch tick the time away. The watch lies on his bed side table, staring at him. What an ugly face. The time is slowly ticking by. Soon he is asleep and dreams overcome his mind.

         The man is walking down the street now. He is not in control of his body. It seems to him as if he is having an out of body experience. He is walking down the street, autumn leaves blowing about him and engulfing him in a whirlwind of crisp air and fall colors.

         The man walks until he comes upon a lone house, set back beyond the trees. It is an old house, a dead house, a black house. The surrounding landscape is withered trees and shriveled bushes. The grass underfoot is brown and dead. The man steps up the walk way to the old, dead, black house. He walks straight up to the old rotting steps of the black house. He takes the steps slowly, one at a time. They creek and moan, sounding as if they are screaming for mercy beneath his unbearable weight. But the man feels as if he is floating. The man makes it to the porch. The rotting boards beneath his feet no longer protest in agony. The only sound now is the wind in the broken trees, and the sobbing coming from behind the door of the old, dead, black house. He stands motionless in front of the door. All he could see now was the door. The door and the face of Zeus staring back at him from an old tarnished knocker. The face of the god was stern and muscular. The lips of the god were thin and pulled into a scowl. The god’s hair was wavy as was his beard. Over all, the god known as Zeus, even on an old tarnished knocker, on the door of an old, dead, black house, was strikingly handsome.

         The man reached for the knocker with one uncontrollably shaky hand, the face of Zeus staring back at him. The metal was as cold as ice. The god sent ice through the man’s veins. He shivered violently. It took everything he had to drop the knocker. It banged on the rotting wood of the door. Only a hollow echo sounded through the crisp night air. The face of the god called Zeus stared, his eyes burrowing deep into the man’s soul. The old, rusted, silver knob on the door started to slowly turn. It turned as slowly as the hands ticking on the face of the man’s gold pocket watch. The door slowly inched open, a terrible screech coming from the rusted hinges on the door. The sobbing from within the black house grew in intensity until the door had swung completely opened and the man thought he could take no more.

         The man woke with a start. His brow beaded with cold sweat. His heart was racing like never before. He looked at the gold pocket watch that lay open on the bedside table. One o’clock. The man jumped out of bed, adorned in only his under clothing and a pair of black socks, he made his way to his desk. He tore a piece of paper from one of the many compartments of his old wooden desk and grabbed the pen that still lay on the polished wood. He once again sat down in his high backed chair.

         It was not long until the man had pages of his new story written. The words spilled from his mind. They raced from his brain, to his arm, and then to his hand. From his hand his words were brought through the ink, and permanently set upon paper for all eyes to see.

         Finally the man set down his pen. He read through every word that he had just written. He smiled. His eyes shone as if they held millions of stars within. He set the papers down, now content with everything that was on his papers. He once more looked at the time that was presented on his gold watch that now sat upon his desk. Three o’clock. The writer now picks up a key, a small mostly plain key. The writer opens a compartment in his desk, hearing a sharp metallic click as the lock on the compartment disengages. He slides his now finished story into the small compartment with several other pieces of work. He closes the compartment and locks it once more.

         “Now I may rest,” says the writer. “My book is finally complete.”

         Then the writer crawls back into his bed. His story finished. His book now complete. He sleeps with a grin smug on his face. The written is now complete.