Author: smithaw50

How am I here?

I was sitting in a small sort of anteroom, looking at a thick, dark brown door with bolted black lock that was just starting to rust.

In spite of the thick door, I could hear murmuring, and what seemed to be the scraping of chairs being moved. They sounded heavy, and the noise echoed slightly in whatever room occupied the other side.

The anteroom was drafty, and despite the ensconced torches, the drafts of air played tag with the flames.

Torches? What happened to–

A key turned in the lock, and the black deadbolt slid back with what sounded like a small thunderclap of metal on metal.

A black-robed figure filled the door frame, it’s face hidden in the folds of its hood.

“The Council will see you now.”

Council? But I was just…

My hands flexed with a nervous tic, and I realized I was holding a sheaf of papers tied with a black ribbon. Beneath the ribbon, I saw my name written in my own hand.

When did I finish this? I don’t remember even writing it.

The robed, faceless behemoth stepped further into the room, a visual warning that if I did not voluntarily leave, he would be happy to assist.

More out of nervousness than necessity, I tapped the neat stack of papers against my knees to straighten what was already straight, and stood up.

‘Behemoth’ stood sideways, allowing me to squeeze by.

I had a spritely impulse to snatch off his hood to see his face, but there was a stronger sense of foreboding that I was in real trouble, so I didn’t do it.

*****************

There was a low chair placed before a semi-circle shaped table that seated six people.

Looking at them, their hoods were up too, and i couldn’t tell if they were male, female, or a combination.

What I do remember of what followed is something like an impressionist painting, nothing distinct, but together, providing a framework for what’s seen: dark wood, candles, a blurry lineup of faces with salt-and-pepper hair, deep set eyes, and low voices.  My body was trying to convey a nonchalance I absolutely did not fee.

I couldn’t tell if the voices were male, female, or a combination.

I do remember what they said to me: Give us your book.

My hands clutched it even tighter as Behemoth turned his eyes on me once more.

“W-w-why d-d-do y-you need m-m-m-my b-book?”

A voice from the table seemed to float over me and cover me with hoarfrost, its tone was so lofty: It’s time for you to send it out into the world. You’ve been holding on to it for five years, now.It is finished, and we would read it to see how well you do, or even if you have any talent at all.

I tried to tell them it wasn’t ready, it wasn’t finished, it still needed editing, but I was stammering so much that they finally just nodded at Behemoth, who pulled the book from my hands the way a parent would take a rattle from a sleeping baby.

I begged. “P-please d-d-don’t…”

Behemoth passed the sheaf to the first Council member, who then cut the stack like a deck of cards and handed it to the next member until all of them had some of the manuscript.

I hung my head, and rested clenched fists on my knees, waiting for the shame to suffuse into me, over me.

The first Council member who’d taken the sheaf from Behemoth began to read.

“Chapter 1….

***************

“Babe! Babe, wake up!”

I did, suddenly, and sat up, making noises that weren’t speech.

I’d slouched down in my computer chair after drifting off.

My girlfriend was looking at me half amused, half angry. I took that as a good sign.

“What happened?”

“You fell asleep,” she said. “Your earbuds fell out, and you hit the ‘Read Aloud’ button, stupid. It scared the hell outta me.”

I mumbled something neither of us understood as an apology, and then a frightening thought came to me…

“S-s-so I d-d-didn’t hit the ‘Submit’ button?”

She came over to me and kissed my cheek, looking at my laptop screen. “No, babe. I did it for you. Like I said, you were sleeping.”

I could’ve sworn I heard the Council’s mocking laughter, and somewhere, in the black and starless void beneath his hood, Behemoth’s fangs gleam in the torchlight as he smiles…

Walking the shoreline on a cold, rainy day, the small waves had small nipples of sea-foam on them, rubbed by the gusty wind.

Yet I walked barefoot, and the sodden sand gave beneath my soles, marking my presence as the ocean’s ebb erased it in the next heartbeat.

A few gulls, probably too old to brave the wind and follow the boats, fished closer to the shallows, ignoring my own empty hands that held nothing for them.

The air, though chill, held brought the scents of brine, loam, and sea-rot.

Mist sat on the water’s surface, a fat, gray toad that obscured the pewter-hued horizon.

It seems these silent, sad, and shrouded shores are yours alone today. My gulls, who sit at the funeral feasts, don’t seem to remember me.

“But there is serenity here, and the small whispering waves soothe my battered spirit. And while you do need the gulls, they are of no consequence, since they only take from you, giving nothing back.”

And you. Are you of consequence?

“That isn’t up to me, but to the people whose lives I’ve touched. For some it will be yes, for others, no.”

Then you are like my gulls, useful only in the context where you are necessary.

“Yes, but all of the gulls are needed by you. I will only be useful to a few, if I’m lucky, or even one. Hopefully, at least one.”

Then you, who stand here alone in this confining gloom, speaking your heart to me,  and listening to mine, will  be my one.

“And you, who trusts me with your heart’s secrets, will be mine.”

I went into the desert to study the shifting shadows and sandstorms, the vibrant colors absent the watery fingers of humidity.

Above me was the unfettered clarity of an open sky with abundant room for condors’ wings.

As the sun’s heat held me in place like the thumb of a god pressing me down, the sand’s sibilant voice had a hint of a child’s singsong.

What do you hope to accomplish here?

“To capture the essence of your beauty in words.”

The desert grew silent, almost contemplative, as I waited for it to speak again. I could see the small eddies of distant sand swirling, as if the embodiment of the desert had gone away to think.

In moments that seemed like hours, it said to me:

You come unbidden. You are unwelcome. You are not loved here.

The words hurt, but did not surprise me.

“Then I am a lot like you. When life gets difficult, we say we’re going through a ‘desert experience. They too come unbidden, unwelcome, and unloved. They are learned from, in hindsight, but never sought out.

“For most of us, we like to forget you even exist. We are creatures of comfort, and you are not comfortable.”

And yet, here you stand.

“Because there is a beauty in you that is not in comfort. You are a scouring, purging, cleansing force that challenges our survival. You slough off the dead skin of our self-importance.

“And sometimes, families draw closer for having the experience.

“You challenge our resolve, and make us better, though there are times your sand triumphs, and consumes us.”

I did not know this.

“It isn’t for you to know. You simply exist, and there is wisdom to be gleaned in the ruins of our civilizations you’ve consumed, that await discovery from future seekers like me.

“Your existence hides our wisdom in the folds and rises of this landscape, and in order for us to find it, we must risk who we are, and lose ourselves to you.”

day, (well, it seemed like every day), Neal would find himself in a coffee shop surrounded by (sometimes) low chatter, and the busy buzz and whir of baristas making coffee magic, scrambling to fulfill just-so orders of people who would be better off brewing at home.

He didn’t know how they managed.

He didn’t know why he cared.

His laptop was a comforting weight against his side, and he’d hoped he beat the rush of college students and other wanna-be writers like himself who would camp out at tables for hours, slowly sipping coffee he thought was too steep in price.

It was just because the barista he had a crush on worked this shift, and he always felt lucky when he was able to land a table, because as it turned out, he wasn’t the only one who had a crush on her.

These days, though, one couldn’t be too careful; he didn’t want to be seen as a stalker.

Truth was he had all the confidence of a tasered turtle, and for the life of him, being a wanna -be writer and all, could think of nothing clever, witty, romantic, (and if the day was going on a particularly sharp downhill angle, intelligent) to say that would make the opposite sex pay him any attention.

He wondered sometimes if that was, in fact, the reason he wrote at all. He could be anything in a story, and with enough research, he could pull it off. A knight, an assassin, a military genius, a cutting-edge scientist, a brilliant fencer, a chess master. It occurred to him, the way one sees through thick fog, that he never made himself a boyfriend, a husband, or even a friend with benefits.

Truth was, (well, another truth was), that he actually preferred a connection. It was less risky if the liking of each other was not only mutual, but constant, steady, like the North Star guiding sailors into the harbor for centuries.

Like that.

But that wasn’t the climate of today’s milieu. It was all so loose and casual, messy and shallow, like a ball pit in a fast food restaurant playground.

He felt he had more to give, but it seemed he could never get around to saying it, much less asking for it. Monogamy was a thing of the ancient past, like illuminated manuscripts now kept in climate controlled cases in parts of the library nobody visited.

The line moved, and he was next, and his crush was there.

“Can I help you?” she said, all smiles and pretty eyes, and he dared not look to see what else.

“Uh, yeah. I’d like a caramel macchiato, please.” He sometimes thought he could die drowning in a vat of caramel. It would be ugly, but sweet…

“Okay. What size?”

“L-l-large, please.” When did that develop???

“Okay, that’s five twenty five please.”

He gave her his card; her fingerprints would be on his card.

Don’t swoon, Neal.

“Thank you. Marta will have that for you at the end of the counter.”

“Th-thank you.” Dammit.

He was still holding the card, where their fingerprints now mingled in delightful oblivion to their union.

“Here ya go,” said the comparably nondescript Marta.

Neal took his coffee, the cup pleasantly warming his hands, and settled himself in a corner, pulling out his laptop, setting up his writing camp.

There was this part in his story he was wrestling with, where the character was at a crossroads between a bold choice that might propel him forward to someplace he might regret, or turning back toward the sacred obscurity of his own cocoon, where he was quite comfortable, thank you.

The laptop fired up, and he took his first sip of the macchiato. It was perfect, the second bright spot in his day.

Glancing up, he saw his crush looking his way.

The bobbing of his Adam’s Apple suddenly hurt as he accidentally slurped more than he wanted to, and began, to his mortification, to cough as the hot liquid streamed the wrong way.

She smiled and gently shook her head, and walked into the back to see about something.

“Are you okay?” the comparably nondescript Marta asked.

“I-I…y-yes, I’m okay.” He closed his eyes, and sighed in resigned embarrassment.

I’m never coming back here.

Even as he thought it, he knew he would.