Sydney Creasy, dishevelled and disorganized was
beating furiously at a typewriter. As he sat there, hunched, cold sweat ran
down his back. He would not notice though. He was finishing a chapter and it
was clear that if it is to be done, it is to be done now.
A shrewd smile broke upon Sydney’s face, until
arriving at a point where his fingers just laid idly at the pads. He peered at
the last line he has written with his pupils dilated and pondering the next
step he reached for a pack of cigarettes, pulling one out and lighting it. He
puffed at it, loosened himself and kneaded the top of his nose. Artifex vulgaris. He felt the cold sweat at last. Tentatively,
he reached back at the typewriter, then backed against the chair and coughed.
He noticed a figure browsing through the library, humming, which irritated him
to great extent. He coughed again, this time politely, and the person fell
silent at once.
Sydney laid his fingers on the typewriter again, this
time determined more and endeavoured to articulate the one evasive
thought that has been occupying his mind. Just as he was about to do so, the
person started humming again.
“Could you be so kind as to shut your gob?” he snarled
with his teeth clenched, hardly letting any air out.
The humming started again. For god’s sake, let me be,
will you?
Sydney stood up and went to the piano. He struck a
diminished chord. Then he went back. The person turned mute, but Sydney could
not revive his prior thoughts, so standing up, he walked to the door and back
nervously, then stopping by the window he looked out. A chilly breeze came over
him. The last particle of the last icicle down the drain: Sinding’s delight.
Tip-toeing back to the table, not to make the person
by the library notice him, he sat down again and started writing. James Levine
the fictional character opened the door and shouted at Sydney,
“Thanks a billion for making me look like a fool!” He
shut the door with a loud thud.
The humming recommenced. Sydney hit the table. He went
to the piano, struck the same diminished chord three times and went to the
bathroom to wash his face. When he returned, he was surprised to find the room
full of people, each of them talking louder than the other; one babbling about
a keystone and collapsing of the universe, the other two discussing the pros
and cons of starting a story in medias
res and a bunch of them standing by the piano, singing merrily.
He sat back at the typewriter, lit another one and
tried to think amidst all the tumult.
A scorching heat reached him.
Emma Voyles, Sydney’s idol and the epitome of beauty,
was there as well. She was sitting in an easy chair watching him, her grand
legs crossed, one lingering in the mid air and swinging gently. Having noticed
her, Sydney coughed up and stubbed out the cigarette. She chided him with her
eyes and he tried to look as if nothing happened. He burned his finger while
extinguishing the cigarette. Caught: hands red and sore, scribbled board.
He looked at Emma every now and then and saw her
gorgeous face casually delved into the half-shell of her hand, half-smiling. He
longed to have a memento of her and tried to conjure up a painter – a cubist
would do well enough – to have Emma painted. He could not.
“May I help?” she asked.
He looked at her fervidly with his hair tousled. Lady
poet: lays naked in bed all day, wound in canvas; talks of Blake and of
releasing the tigress. Will she keep her word?
“How?” he asked.
She shrugged her shoulders and frowned slightly, “I
just thought that with all these men here,” pointing at his head, “it would all
be easier.” He looked at her and said, “It is not.”
“Ah, well,” she sighed and stood up, laid her hands
around his neck and whispered into his ear, “I really want to help you. I could
at least make a cup of tea. But then again, I’m just a thought in your head,
you see.”
He felt each and every lock of her hair dangle over
his face, starlings and wrens and all that through them.
“Why so gloomy though?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” Sydney asked, knitting his brows
with his fist clenched against his chin. The singing grew louder.
“Here,” Emma pointed at the typewriter, smudging the
fresh ink, “’Money changes everything,’ Levine thought, ‘that is time and money
change everything.’”
“I don’t quite understand,” Sydney said.
“I mean,” Emma pondered, letting him go and walking
off, “I mean all the grand things you used to write. Look here,” she pointed at
a tile of scribbled papers on the table, knocked off the ashes and read, “’I
envy the air for making love to your pores.’”
“That’s just rubbish,” Sydney said. The noise was
nearly unbearable now.
She browsed through the rustling papers, ignoring him,
her eyes set glowering at them, “And yeah, you use way too many semicolons. Cut
that, will you?”
-
I could
say a word or two about irregular punctuation, but I’ll keep it to myself for
now, creaky tenor from the piano stool cried.
The crowd burst out laughing and Sydney, mocked and
ridiculed, stood up abruptly, grabbed his keys and went out the door for a
pint. My head, my mess. Lord knows there’s method in madness, but enough for
today.
“Come on, Syd,” he heard a voice shout, “sit down like
a good Christian and finish what you’ve begun!” The voice was sealed by a loud
thump.
Having nowhere to go from there and having no further
plan, Cormac the fictional writer laid his pen down, whereby never letting
Sydney the fictional writer finish the chapter. Or at least for now.
But then again, nothing ever gets done. No. Nothing is
ever fini—
