The Writer in the Dark

Chapter 2

I turned on the lamp that stood on my desk. The light greeted the room with its eager warmth and revealed a vase with decayed flowers which I positioned next to my typewriter. I sighed ,as I took off my coat and muttered the words:,, You can barely keep yourself alive, how do you expect to keep some damn flowers?" For a moment I just stared at the vase and then made my way to the kitchen. With a smooth motion the violets landed inside the trash and I emptied out the water that was kept inside the vase for too long. My apartment was quite small, but very desirable. Well, at least I tried my best to keep it that way. The most important part, which was my desk, was placed in front of a large window that built the entrance for my tiny balcony. Whenever I looked out, the mornings usually offered a scenery of sunlight and people who would cut through it with hurry, trying to reach whatever destination there may be. In the night the moon lit up the tired faces of the people and let them find their way home again. I stood up here and watched, thought of stories and assigned them to every person who caught my eye. It's quite easy to focus your attention to others than your own life, it takes more courage to face your own mess.

Now I turned away from the window and started to make coffee. The intense smell of the beans awakened my senses and I closed my eyes, as a small smile escaped from my lips. Those were the little things that I could keep to myself and shared with nobody. The smell of coffee or fresh paper, the fragrance of a candle after being blown out. The sound of my feet pressing against autumn leaves, crunchy sounds that comfort me whenever I took long walks. Alone.

The faint screaming of the coffee pot ripped me out of my thoughts and I took it from the stove. I still had a lot of work to do, because the central writers department kept sending new clients after clients my way. There was no denying that I was considered to be among the best. I worked fast and precisely, didn't ask a lot of questions, because I always had a well knowledge of human nature. Deeply knowing what the desires were and how they should be executed had always been my best asset. A lot of the writers stopped, because they couldn't seem to separate their personal values with the ones of the clients. Some of them even lost a good portion of their sanity along the way. Those were the stories that were shared in the headquarter office.

Whenever a writer stopped, they had the duty to take another job in the department. A secretary, for example, who had the duty to pass on the orders or had to introduce clients to the writer. You could also become a guard and keep an eye on the fact that everybody executed their job.

But there were also other alternatives.

The ringing of my desk phone echoed through my apartment and I bit my lip as I slowly approached it. I took a deep breath as I picked up the phone and mumbled ‚,Nevisa.'' It was Macy, my personal secretary. ,, The sun got nothing on your mood, Nevisa.", she said and I chuckled as I reached for the pack of cigarettes on the tiny table that was placed next to my couch. ,,Well, well. I have the strong feeling you are about to brighten up my night, once again.'', I replied. I could hear Macy going through a file and by the way she was fiddling with the pages , in an unfamiliar way, I could tell that it was a new client. I took a deep drag on my cigarette as I listened to her flipping through the pages, the rustling sound made its way through my phone and ear ,as the papers softly crashed into one another. Before she could even say anything I declared:,, I can't take this case.''

She paused and for a brief moment there was silence on the other end, what followed was a sigh.Then she said:,, You know you have to, Nevisa." I took a look towards my desk where it was drowning in a sea of new files that belonged to new clients. I still had to work through all of them, still needed to finish their stories. ,, How about you knock on the pyramid of files on my desk and ask for an audience?"

How about taking a break then?

Taking a break? This topic was marked with utter strangeness to me. I never stopped. Stopping to write would have meant to have time for myself and that indicated to thinking about myself, sitting down and letting the heavy thoughts wash over my head. Everything that I was desperately trying to bottle up, everything that would have made me feel something, would have broken through the tiny cracks which just sought for a reason to finally burst. So yes, you could say I was a poor unfortunate soul, just a tiny atom that drifted through the air and collected whatever came along the way, but never aspired to be more for itself. Those were simply part of the rules. Saving up your energy to make others feel what you were not supposed to feel.