Closed Curtains Open Windows

Two Unfinished Stories

There is a gun to my head, a metaphorical one. If I don't write a story in an hour, I'll die, metaphorically, or at least my last cinder of writing talent will. When the bullet is fired, all my creativity, my skills will disappear in a cloud of ash. No matter what I do, the pen shouldn't stop moving, even if my hand hurts, even if the world ends. Gosh, I'm so scared. I'm in a hostage situation. I'm held hostage by my desire to amount to something. Is it even possible to do it? I mean, I've never done it before and I'm not sure if it's even possible, for me at least. You must be wondering how I even got into this predicament, I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything. Because there's no way I can think of a concept on the spot and turn it into a coherent story.

It all began a few days ago, when the house smelled like jasmine. My grandparents bought a fresh batch this morning. Outside the window, the sun slowly began to sink behind a veil of misty mountains against the backdrop of a cloudless summer sky, painted in hues of orange, red and lavender. Grandpa toiled in the kitchen, trying to make the perfect blend of tea with the dedication of a chemist while grandma watched her favourite soap opera, the one in which the daughter in law got reincarnated as a honey bee to take revenge on the mother-in-law who had her daughter-in-law's sister killed because the latter secretly worshipped the devil and tried to marry a pole dancer who was secretly a werewolf or something, after a session of meticulous praying. There is no point to this paragraph really, I'm just filling the space here while trying to actually come up with something to write about. Okay, this paragraph has overstayed it's welcome, time to stop; seriously, stop.

I know you skipped that paragraph, (I wrote that paragraph with as much attention as you read it with) I couldn't think of anything to write so that's my way of stalling. I'm at a very delicate age. I'm not old, I'm still young. But if I don't write a story now, I'll die, metaphorically. I don't have the luxury of sitting in a comfortable environment, listening to the right music to stimulate my mind. I need to write a story within this time period or I'm dead, metaphorically. This is the last time I'll be saying metaphorically, from now on if I say I'll die, it means metaphorically. I'll never ever be able to write again. Sure, I can scribble a few lies on paper and call it fiction, but that's not the same as writing, it'll never be the same as writing. Readers can always tell the difference. So can writers.

I'll become a completely different person if I give up writing. This part of me will die, this part right here. Not change, not evolve, not transform, not grow, ... Die! I'll be a shell of my former self! Like one of Murakami's characters after they lose their shadows. So how did I find out about this deadline?

Well, nobody told me, I just felt it. Like a kid who assumes that the world will end if he stops walking on the line of colored bricks on the footpath. Or the kid who assumes she'll be safe from the demons under her bed if she wraps herself up in a blanket. Only in my case, it feels real. Oh! so real! So real that it manifested itself as a presence in my mind and shouted:

"If you don't write a story in an hour, The writer in you will die! You have one hour! Save yourself!" I gave up on everything I was doing and rushed to my desk. Due to how busy and tired I was because of my job, I always blew off my writing plans to do something else, but the thought of losing this part of me forever was truly frightening.

I began my so-called writing journey when I was a kid. I cut a sheet of paper into multiple pieces, arranged them like pages of a book, stapled them together and wrote a few sentences in them. I wrote mostly about myself in the beginning and then I kept writing about how my life would have been if I took different decisions from the ones I took in real life. I genuinely had an interest in filling empty pages with imaginative stories, I still do, but somewhere down the line, I wasn't sure if I could survive the adult world with just my writing skills. I focused on becoming an IT engineer. I became a pretty good one I'd say; got into a great college, got a scholarship, got a great job after that. I figured I could always write as a hobby or just for the fun of it. But I was never the same again. I rarely touched my pen and notebook. Even the stories that I did start, I could never finish. Writing didn't bring me the same joy anymore, I didn't have the bursts of inspiration or motivation that I did when I was younger either. I want to write. I want to be the writer I always wanted to be when I was young. I can't say I'm entirely happy with who I've become.