The Owl King

Chapter 1: Rumors

When I was a child, I thought like a child. But I did not do childish things. In fact, I don't think anyone could call what I went through childish. But that feels like a time long, long ago. Even now if I think back on it, my mind becomes a fog. And then one day I just---forgot entirely. I do remember the days after vividly. I graduated and parted with my drama club family. I struggled with my major but suddenly all these dreams and thoughts of harrowing tales wouldn't stop springing to my mind like an unlimited fountain from a spring that burst and never dried up. At first I would scribble the stories down in notebooks when I was supposed to be paying attention to the lecture in front of me. Now at twenty, I've found my calling and have become one of the bestselling fantasy novelists of my generation. I've heard all the praises. To be so young and have one of the most sought after series. One scholar I met at a gala party in New York City told me fantasy novels were an elder mans game. The older the person the wiser the writing as if the pages were scrolled on ink and parchment paper itself. I gave them their props as they rightfully deserve, but I planned to hold my own. I'd rather contend with the older crowd than the young teen romance category. I had no interest following on the coattails of finding a way to weave a story about a werewolf or vampire. I'm just waiting for the mummy revolution to peak.

Now, I stare at a blank page. My well is congested and I need inspiration but a deadline for my eager fans want a rushed job. No one asks a baker to take the brownies out of the oven because they're clamoring to eat it before its ready, mindlessly spooning the hot batter into their mouth. I understand the impatience but this is why the good writers have one hit wonders, or a series, and then slowly peter out for indefinite hiatuses. I can't just expunge something onto blank pages without inspiration to fuel my motivation. So I gaze out my window on the reading nook watching the city life buzz about. I wish I could just reach down and pull their thoughts from them and manage to get something cohesive enough to send to my editor. I wring my hands around my coffee cup too jittery to even take another sip, the perfume from my eight o' clock brew souring in my stomach. I can hear the battery warning on my laptop but I'm frozen where I sit. I came up with different plots but nothing made sense. I would need to cram at least four hundred pages into the novel and when I got rolling and tried desperately to fill the pages with random ramblings it came out in cliché bits and pieces that made no sense.

Tonight there would be another gala and this was a black and white only listing. I was prepared but that's who I was. I was ready within seconds. If I was given three hours I would be ready in three minutes. Always itching to go. Why slow life down anymore? Maybe it was just my mindset as a writer, maybe it was the pressure from the public. I was already a book behind and itching to be at this gala, perform my part of dutiful famous author, and then slip away with a spoon of ice-cream in my mouth and my silk gray pajamas on my body. Suddenly a thought rolled over my mind making me feel suddenly ill. When had I become the mirror image of my stepmother? My insides coiled tight like a sailors knot and I couldn't stand to have this cup in my hands any longer and be alone with my thoughts. I needed to keep busy to numb my mind and run on autopilot.

I glanced at the one newspaper clipping I saved of mom stuck to the corner of my cork-board. Around her ideas were peppered on yellow sticky notes. I was stuck in my fantasy that worshipping an absent parent who left dad and I behind for the stage, for fame and fortune, had abandoned us took precedent over reality. Before my epiphany I lived in a world where she would come back because daughters were invisibly connected to their mother's right? Like sons and fathers. I had dreams she would ride through our suburban neighborhood on the whitest steed---well in a white limo, and she would come out with a plume of feathers in a pink boa around her neck and her finest ball gown and she would announce she was here to storm the castle and take me away with her where we would live in riches and in the lap of luxury. That's the word she was, luxury. But that's all she was. She wasn't a dream that would ever come true. A mirage. She was just a word. One everyone knew how to speak, and only the rich could afford to. When I finally grew into myself and knew she was just another selfish story I made up in my head, I put my scrapbook and pictures of her away. Even now they're packed in boxes I doubt I'll ever open. The article is recent, her career had slowly plateaued when younger famous musicians rose to fame and glory on the stages of Broadway. And in some way, I had to thank her for popping my bubble of dreams because I didn't want to follow in her footsteps in reality. Or dad. Or my stepmother's assumption of what I should do with my life. I needed to do what I wanted. What my heart and head wanted.