Page 37 of Nothing Watching

He slammed his fist down on the desk, the typewriter rattling under the force.

Why was this so hard?

He had thought that finding love would be the trigger he needed to release his muse, but he’d been unable to catch the eye and the heart of the timeless beauties who had existed in past eras. They had scorned him. Love, his major goal, his burning desire, was unattainable, and now, he couldn’t even use his loss and pain constructively, to create a story that would heal his heart.

He stood up, pacing around the small room. The walls were covered in bookshelves, filled with his favorite works of literature. He stopped in front of a shelf, running his finger over the spines of the books. Shakespeare, Poe, Faulkner, they’d all struggled with their own demons, their own creative blocks.

But they’d pushed through the pain, creating works that had stood the test of time.

He needed to do the same. He needed to be strong, to be productive, to let the words flow out of him like a river.

He sat back down at the typewriter, taking a deep breath. He closed his eyes, picturing the scene in his mind.

When his eyes were closed, in the blackness, he could see what he needed to, he could imagine himself forming the words. The pain he’d felt at his rejections, the agony of his loss, seemed to translate itself into golden prose that he knew would be powerful and beautiful. But as soon as he opened his eyes and harsh, bright daylight returned, the words disappeared.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tried to calm himself down. He knew that he had to be patient, to wait for the right moment to strike those keys, to let the words flow naturally from his mind to his fingertips. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that time was running out.

“Oh, my love. I need you so,” he said, running his fingers over his bare chin, feeling the smooth skin. Stroking his short beard had been a nervous habit that he clearly couldn’t kick, because even with no beard, he was still performing this action again and again. “I need you so. I need to create emotion with you, to feel, to think, to be. And if I can’t, then I must write! I must let this passion out.”

But his mind was empty, the words refusing to come. He had always known that writing would be his escape from the darkness that constantly gnawed at him, his way of making sense of a world that seemed devoid of meaning, but now the blank page was mocking him, reminding him of his failures.

He felt a sudden surge of anger, and with a cry of frustration, he yanked the paper out of the machine, crumpled it, and tossed it aside. It fluttered to the floor like a dead bird, and he felt a sudden sense of loneliness, as if the page had been his only companion, and now even that had abandoned him.

He stood up, feeling restless and agitated, and paced around the small room, cluttered with books and papers, lined with shelves that sagged under the weight of his collection, a fine and notable array of old volumes, even though some of his favorites were now missing crucial pages, which he’d torn out to present to his loves as gifts. Then, when the worst had happened and he’d been rejected, he had been unable to take the pages away with him. Furious and heartsick, he’d dumped them at the scene.

“Now, look! Now, look what you have done. You’re letting your thoughts stray again,” he reprimanded himself. He returned to the typewriter and inserted a fresh piece of paper, frowning down at the page.

“Start with one word, just one,” he urged himself.

Carefully, hesitantly, he typed it.

“Now another. That’s how stories are born, is it not?”

He pressed down on another key, and another, and the words began to flow out of him like a burst dam. His fingers flew over the keys, the clack-clack of the typewriter echoing in the room, drowning out his thoughts. He couldn’t stop now, couldn’t let the fear and uncertainty paralyze him anymore.

This was his escape, his salvation, and he was going to grab onto it with both hands and never let go.

The words came faster now, the story unfolding in his mind like a movie, and he was the director, the writer, the master of this world. He would create something glorious out of the chaos, something that would make his heart sing, something that would make the world stop and take notice.

As he typed, he could feel the weight lifting off his shoulders, the darkness receding, and he began to laugh, a deep, throaty sound that echoed through the room.

But then, as suddenly as it had arrived, the inspiration inside him ebbed away, leaving a giant, empty nothingness behind.

He stared down, appalled. It had felt, for a moment, as if he’d made great inroads into the story. But there was hardly anything there. Just a couple of paragraphs. It felt as if he’d been on a rollercoaster ride of emotion, and yet all he now had to show for it was this measly little piece of text that didn’t even reach halfway down the page.

“What cruelty is this?” he asked himself.

He felt so restless, so unfulfilled right now, as if nothing would ever go right in his life. Not the love he sought, and not the story he dreamed of creating. Everything was stalling and he didn’t know why.

He leaned back in his chair, his eyes flickering across the room, searching for something that could spark his creativity again.

Movement at the window caught his eye. He wrote in a basement apartment that had a narrow view of the people outside. Sometimes, all he could see were the legs of the passersby, if they were close to his window. But if they were further away, he could see more of them, and now he caught his breath, because there she was, walking by in all her dazzling beauty.

Her rich golden hair flowed like a curtain behind her. She held her head high, her eyes bright and sparkling. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, and he didn’t want to. She was like a dream, and he was afraid that if he looked away, she would disappear.

He watched as she paused in front of the bookstore opposite, her eyes scanning the books displayed in the window, the muted morning light softly glowing on her hair.

“No, I can’t let you go, I can’t,” he muttered. “I have to try. It’s the wrong time of day, it’s the wrong place, but I need you. I need you now!”

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