Tuesday 5 March 2013

Blank Pages ... A Short Story

A short story piece by Victor Lockwood that is the first part of a series entitled 
'Neighborhood Short Stories'




The World of Blank Pages

By Victor Lockwood



Frankly, it's a pity that you're kids.

It's not your fault, I know, but still. I have no intention of blaming you for it, because that wouldn't change anything. Besides, I'm paid to be nice to brats such as you, and I'm going to earn that money.

No, if anyone was to blame, it would be my editor. After all these years, there's still one simple fact that he doesn't seem to assimilate: being nice is beyond me. I mean I really don't know how you manage this, especially with kids.

He wants me to write something for you. Some sweet tale, I guess, or even worse, something appropriate. How should I know what's acceptable for a child or not? I can't even recall the last time I saw one.

Don't get me wrong, I've got a story to tell. A very, very good one. A serious one. A story filled with drama, passion, intrigue, with smirks and whispers and grins, and with all these kinds of things you couldn't possibly understand.

I'd thought of singing my story at first. I'd even bought myself a guitar. When it was delivered I tried to play. The notes were all there anyway, how hard could it be? So I grasped it, and I let my fingers run between the strings. Well, in fact they did not run; they fell, rather, like in a trap, between thin bars of strange, quaking sound. Each time I tried to scratch it, the guitar would bite my fingers with its vibrant teeth and mock me with disharmonious chuckles. My story deserved better, I reflected. The only way to make a great song out of it would have been to work with other people, which I have always absolutely refused to do, and it shall be so forever. I ended up deciding that writing a song was dreadfully cliché, and clichés are for kids' stories, but not for mine.

Then, I imagined I could paint my story. I couldn't remember seeing a painting myself, but I knew that some people splashed and splattered some random colours on a canvas, then put their hands on it and mixed them all up, and when it was dry they called it their story. So I bought myself a wide range of brushes, an even wider range of tins of paint, and when they were delivered I got the easel standing and the canvas ready. Soon the tins were half empty, and my canvas still half white, and my living room infested with fat blots hanging on the ceiling and streaming down my walls. Even my dark shirt had been soiled by colour. I panicked for one long second, seeing this bright virus spreading slowly into my life, a colony of insects made of blinding light. I scrubbed, scrubbed, and scrubbed some more, until the very last scab of paint had been scratched away forever. I was relieved: my apartment was once again as grey as it should have remained, and not this absurd daub anymore. My story deserved better, I reflected. While throwing the wretched canvas away, I considered how messy, sticky, irrelevant and vain painting was. Painting is for kids, but not for men.

Then, I contemplated dancing my story. Not for long, though.

So here I am, with literature as my only solution. I would've been happy about it if my editor hadn't been so obsessed with you kids. 'They are the future!', he says. 'You know, all these cherubs around, they are the future. And don't be mistaken, they have all the money!' Seriously? Cherubs? Who in the world would even consider still using that word? Well, you wouldn't know anyway, what do you know of the world?

I've published something once, you see. It was big. I mean it was a short story, but I was young back then, so it's as if it was big. It worked well, I sold many hundreds of copies, which is good for a young author. Obviously I'll do better with my upcoming story.

To be honest, I don't really remember what my short story was about... I preferred forgetting it in order to focus exclusively on my serious story. What I only remember from that era is my first meeting with my editor.

'You know, everything is in the twist', he claimed. 'It's all about the twist. And your twist, boy... Man, that's a twist. Believe me, I can detect a good twist when I read one, and this one? Yeah, it's going to work. The parents love the twists. The mums especially. I know they will buy that, boy, they'll buy it, and read it, and talk about it, and offer it as a present. Don't think the parents have the money though, it's the cherubs. The cherubs own everything.'

Afterwards we made a deal. It definitely seemed like a good one at the time, but now I'm not sure it was. It was about the Neighbourhood. I was to publish my short story, and then move in to the Neighbourhood. My editor was to pay my loan, pay for my food, pay for everything, while I just had to sit at my desk and write for the cherubs. I know artists, and artists only, live in the Neighbourhood. Like me they have editors, or managers, or producers, or paint providers, who pay for them in exchange for their art.

You may wonder, Why am I feeling uncomfortable about the deal now? It's my editor; he says kids tend to wonder about things, although I don't know if he's right. Anyway, the deal could seem great to you, but that's only because you don't know all of it. The contract I signed at the time had a single line, at the very end, written in tiny font size. Remember this, kids, read the lines at the end before any other. That's a tip only adults know, so I'm being generous. Keep it for yourselves. Both the tip and my being generous, my editor wouldn't like to hear that.

This last tiny line informed me of the timetable that I had to live by for the rest of my existence. I was forbidden to go out of my apartment before starting my new kids' story. I could write a paragraph, even a single sentence, and I would be given the right to visit the Neighbourhood at last.

Only it never came. Not a paragraph, not a sentence, not a word. How many years have I been sitting here for, I don't know. Well, I got up to fetch my guitar at the door, to paint, and then to scrub, but that's all. I don't even eat in fact. I'm on an intravenous drip. I would hate for an idea to come to my mind while I'm cooking! I couldn't afford to lose it.

Do you kids even care about literature anyway? Yeah, I'm using the big word, because that's what I'm destined to write. I refuse to have anything to do with your mind-numbing, easy, forgettable trash. Loads of people out there are burning with the desire to feed you with that, and turning you into naive, self-centered and unconcerned citizens. In fact, you might want to interpret my refusal to write for you as some sort of respect. Although I'm not convinced myself.

I've got shelves at home, all empty except for the blank pages that will soon be blessed with the grandeur of my words. I never read. I hate it. I've heard that there were some good writers out there. I remember hearing of this Shakespeare guy, they say he's the best (you wouldn't have heard of him, he's for grown-ups only). Well, I don't know what he writes, but I know that I can do better, and that when he'll read my work he'll even feel ashamed of ever having published anything. My book, which will be the best ever written, shall turn all others into obsolete masses of paper, nothing more than the proof of some disgusting tree genocide. In fact, my book will save the world. Not that I feel any empathy whatsoever for trees, but if it comes to that I'll tell people what they want to hear.

I've got a Muse in the apartment too. My contract stipulates that I can go and see her whenever I need inspiration. I've been visiting her a lot over the last few years, but to no avail. Still, I want to keep on renting her; she's quite expensive, but I'm hoping she'll prove to be worth it some day. And she keeps me company.

I wanted to see her today, so I got up. I swayed a bit on my unsteady legs, then went though the living room, and into the next.

There she was. She never moved. She remained still, and did not look at me when I entered. She was as flat as ever.

Her frame was made of old grey wood, and it seemed as though it had sprayed its decay onto her face. She had been good-looking once, her features displaying a mix a pomposity and kindness. Today they seemed grotesquely unnatural, running deep across her forehead and her cheeks and the corners of her eyes like a thousand scars. Her once bright teeth had become rectangular drips of yellow pus hanging from her lip, and her smile was today nothing more than an exhausting and painful grimace she could never stop wincing. I knew a photo couldn't age, only fade, yet I thought that my Muse was terribly old.

I focused on the background, on the world surrounding her. All was blurred, and the colours were even paler. She was outside somewhere, and when I looked at her photo, I always said to myself that I would never want to join her there. My apartment was the best world that could be, the only one I knew. I heard the wind blowing strong outside, as if the weather behind my walls was backing my point up. I smiled the kind of smile that comes when you know you are right.

When I came back to the living room, however, my smile vanished.

There were pages everywhere, scattered across the room. What a mess it was. They were supposed to stay on the shelves.

The wind. It was the wind that blew them off like that. I had opened my window to get rid of the stench of paint, and the wind rushed in to bring chaos in my world. I looked out of the window, and saw some pages in the street.

I tried not to panic. I just had to go and fetch them, that was all.

I grabbed a pen, tucked my dark shirt into my trousers, and opened the door.

'Whoops! I'm sorry, I... I was just looking for my apartment. Hang on. 36. Oh well, it seems we'll be neighbours then!'

It was a woman. A girl, rather, standing here, wrapped up in the thickest coat I had ever seen. She loosened her scarf to uncover her little mouth.

'My pages', I blurted out.

'Oh, that was you, wasn't it? I saw it all! Was it an artistic project? It was really brilliant. Did you want to claim how vain writing is? Or the detachment of art from nature? I got that. It was very strong, you know. So you're a writer then. That's really great. I'm new in the Neighbourhood. I'm a singer-to-be. I'm Nat, by the way, very nice to meet you'.

What was she even talking about? I didn't get any of what she was saying, I was too overwhelmed by the fact that she was actually talking to me. I wanted her to keep on. When she showed her hand to me, I shook it, because from what I know that's what grown-ups do. There's another tip, kids.

'I was having a walk around the Neighbourhood. It's a nice place. I'm excited. It shows, doesn't it? (She giggled. I wanted her to giggle more). It's just that there's so much to do, and... and so much to share here. I mean, we're supposed to be the most promising artists in the country, right? Not that I want to boast about it, but it's such a privilege! I'm so humbled, you know? I had to come back though, because of all this wind. Wind is not good for a singer. My voice is so sensitive as well. I shouldn't talk that much, by the way. Tell me, I was just going to have some tea with loads of honey in it - honey helps a singer, you know? - so would you like to, say, join me? So that you could tell me all your stories?'

Then it hit me at last. Just like that. And as it did I said it:

'I have no story to tell.'
No, no story at all. Neither a kids' one, nor a serious one. The pages didn't count, my mind was empty.
She stopped at that, and smiled a bit: 'Well I guess we could make one up while we're drinking tea, then. What do you think?'

At that moment I knew that my new Muse, my only one, was standing in front of me. And she was the kind of Muse who had all the ideas.
I nodded much too enthusiastically.

'But before we go...' I said, and, picking up a page, wrote:

Once upon a time, on a cold windy morning, I left a world of blank pages.

Then I stepped out and shut the door.

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