Short Stories By Seraph

The Looney Writer

As the shorthand on the wooden cuckoo clock reached 11:59 PM, our main character opens a pink colored notebook. He sits in a very used but comfy brown leather chair in front of a warm and wooden lit fire place. He puts his left hand under the left side of his chin and shifts his weight.
The clock strikes 12 PM and the bird is released.
Cuckoo!
We focus in on the front of the man's face as if we have been suspended in time.
His dark chocolate eyes transition from tired disinterest to laser focus. What he is focusing on cannot be seen but is within the mind.
Cuckoo!
All the ideas and thoughts that he has flash across his face as he picks up a writing utensil. His head looks down as he slowly draws the pen nearer to a blank page.
Cuckoo!
He begins to write.

There has always been something odd about the writer's mind as long as writing has existed as a profession. Our vocabulary large, our imaginations wide, and an ability to see things in a perspective others can't. But little did I know, authors are quirky in other ways when it comes to the heart.
I have never been the type of man to connect well with anyone. I have friends but I don't quite understand them most of the time. As a writer, I should understand normal people's actions and feelings. But I do not. Heck, I hardly understand my own actions or feelings. I just feel and act like a cold metal robot along for the ride to wherever their creator's destination is.
My friends also have something called relationships romantic to be specific. I don't quite get that either. I see them hug, hold hands, and kiss, I assume other stuff too but I don't quite know what that is. They have told me romantic feelings are supposed to feel warm and fuzzy in my tummy. But I never have felt warm and fuzzy in my tummy about someone so I am not so sure if romantic feelings even exist. Much less am I even capable of it.
That's about it for tonight's thought. I am tired and want to head to bed.

The man closes the black journal and places the pencil down on the wooden hutch desk. He stands up from the wood blue cushioned chair and walks over to his baby blue sheeted bed. He lays down on top of his covers staring at the ceiling.
A woman stands in the doorway," Good night, Mr. Smith."
She shuts the door to a bright flourescently lit and medical supplies scented hallway and disappears.

We see the man walk out the doorway into a tan wall papered room with a black granite fire place and his comfy new black armchair. It feels cold as he had not lit the fire the previous night.
He walks over drowsily to the chair and he sits down. He reaches over onto a dark brown coffee table and picks up a red leather notebook. He instinctively pulls out a writing quilt with a feather on the end from a black ink bottle and begins to write.

I had the most peculiar dream last night. I was standing in a white hallway lit up like the sun was shinning at the other end and I was alone. No one around me.

Mr. Smith is brought back to reality in his tiny small single living space bedroom with grey walls. A woman with a kind voice directs him out of the room. With his black notebook and pencil in hand and still writing, he is directed out into a hallway by the woman in sea foam scrubs.

We flash forward to Mr. Smith, sitting in a wooden chair on a very beat up straw seat, but instead of being uncomfortable he shows heavy interest in his writing. At first the woman taking care of him would wonder what he could possibly be spending all this time writing about but as the days, months, and years passed her curiosity faded.

It's breakfast time and the other patients are eating their pancakes, bacon, and eggs ferociously. Our view gets brought along the long bright wooden table,  the center of it Mr. Smith sits not eating at all but nose in his notebook writing. The women cuts the pancake up into pieces and picks one up with the fork. She brings it over to the tip of his mouth where he slowly opens his mouth and eats the piece.

"Still taking care of the looney writer?" A male attendant to another non-cognizant person asks.

"Yeah," she replies with an annoyed look plastered across her face and sighs," I just wish he would kick the bucket already. So, I can be a nurse to an elder who is easier to care for."

The man and the woman sit at the dining table flirting with one another. They occasionally stop to feed a piece or two to their patients. But for most of the time, they are talking to one another just as long as their superiors are not looking. A bell rings.

"See you," the woman attendant says goodbye to the male one as he wheels an older blank faced woman out of the dining area.

She looks down at Mr. Smith's plate only a third of it gone. Eyeballing it she considers sitting down and trying to feed the rest to him, shoving it at his face as he tries to bite, chew, and swallow the food. Because she's too lazy and does not care about him enough she shrugs, rolls her eyes, and then leaves the kitchen with Mr. Smith entirely.

Andrew is sitting in his cloth tan chair on a front porch with a beautiful mountainous view. We see him writing in a white cloth backed journal with a wooden pen wearing a black cowboy hat,  a plaid t-shirt and jeans.
He stops writing for a second, lays further into the chair back. His eyes gleam as he stares dreamily at an autumn mountain-scape full of  reds, yellows and browns.

I have found it. I found it years ago but I didn't realize it until today. I found her. I found the women that will make me feel warm inside my tummy.
The woman I married has always been her the one I wanted. The one to make me feel.

A screen door on the right of the porch swung open and out walked a lady. She had curly medium length brown hair, her eyes were a warm brown, her skin the color of spring peaches, and two gold dots framed the side of her face on the ears. Her bodice was tightly adorned by a cream colored dress with a hem cut at the hips and a skirt flowing outward down to just above her knee.
Andrew stares at her aghast at her beauty. And writes...

My Amma.

A wheel chair is pushed into the living room with an old timey black and white television lit up in the corner of it.  In front of Mr. Smith, a curly pepper colored hair woman sits in a wheel chair, seeming equally as clueless.
Mr. Smith for the first time in a long time looks up from his notebook, hand in mid air, not writing and smiles at this woman.
She seems for a moment, however fleeting, happy for his acknowledgement of her presence. Her red lips curl in smile that leaves her brown eyes crinkling at the corners. Then it fades as Mr. Smith goes back to write and her face goes blank.
The nurse leans towards Mr. Smith's side and whispers,"  Remembering, Mrs. Smith, aren't we?"
She walks away and instead of having some negative wish to think about wanting Mr. Smith to die soon or some evil devil like smirk, she smiles. She finally understood why he writes. He may in some cases be slightly reality and memory challenged now that he is older but he is still sweet and just alive as he was in his 20's.
Mr. Smith-the looney writer- writes to remember.

We see her face turn serious and bleak. All this time the nurse has known him she has neglected Mr. Smith's basic human rights even if he didn't know it.