Roving Stray
Word Count: 1521
The one fundamental basis for a story, the one puzzle piece that needed to exist to make it all come together into a whole; it eluded him, darted around the fringes of his vision, hid in bushes as he walked by, blended in with the scenery as he drove down city streets. For the Writer had never known what compelled him to keep going, this particular search proving more and more fruitless by the day. Everything that ever ran through his mind tied him down to the real world: paying the bills, going to work, walking the dog, feeding the children, kissing his husband on the cheek. The Husband always took his time to try and assuage the Writer's fears, that this ideation would come sooner or later; he just needed to unwind a bit. Each day, the Writer would take hold of his authentic fountain pen, dip it into a black inkwell and write a short poem before going to sleep, but every time the poetry seemed aimless:
Where has the time gone?
Even the trees are mocking me.
They shake their aging branches
Throw their fruits downward to hit me as I pass under
I am lost, and cannot be found.
Don't search for me I am buried where the rock has eroded
And the moss has died.
He awoke the next day to breakfast-in-bed, a specialty the Husband always procured when the Writer felt like the world was going to come crashing down. The Husband did this naked, of course, as the children were asleep and the sight was definitely not for sore eyes. He would lazily trace a finger underneath the Writer's chin as he ate, smiling deep and full, penetrating the Writer's eyes with his own, as if searching... searching for that hope for him. The food was incredible, but his world was still not intact, because the one piece of logic hadn't woven itself into him, and he felt as if his aim was off; the compass that usually kept him centered and traveling down the correct path was beginning to wander down another one, where the rocks were treacherous and the pitfalls aplenty. He wracked his brain trying to divert himself from it, to climb back to where he was, but fate was pushing him further and further away.
The Husband left the Writer alone for the rest of the day, to his own devices, to his own th--- he didn't have those, they were still just out of reach. He likened the quest to that of Tantalus, forever reaching upwards towards fruit he would never have. The forces that be constantly tantalizing the Writer, with no foreseable or discernable purpose, if only to keep him running into a wall. The Writer took a stroll outside, listening to the sound of his shoes against the pavement, finding musical rhythm in their echo, but nothing of purchase. He could not barter with the Metaphor Gods for something out of that, surely. The high-rise buildings that stood like unnecessary guardians against the sunlight in front of him were imposing, menacing, all that ever culminated from capitalism and high-technology. The sunlight that did reflect off of them suddenly felt unnatural, as if the light that came from touching such a blight upon the Earth had become distorted and consumed in something unholy. But the Writer shrugged this off, too, because it rang like some sort of postmodernist critique rather than something worth writing about.
So he kept walking.
Rain began to fall in discordant, haphazard sheets, thrown to-and-fro like a kid never quite finding where his toys should go, so he opts to discard them in the most violent ways possible. The Writer watched as people cowered under umbrellas, desperately craving relief, even if the rain got underneath that small den of safety, even if it soaked through their expensive pants and designer-brand underwear and whatever else. He himself went for a regular raincoat, so he could watch the droplets be blissfully ignored by the exteriors of his clothing. The water never found a path to what he wore underneath, so it could become one with the ground it sought with rapaciousness. Even with all this goodness, the concept still darted away. His dreams often caricatured the prospect into some sort of devilish Beast, except this Beast did not want to kill him, but rather wanted to gnaw away the fabric of his imagination. He imagined that if it were in a house built solely for that creative thought, the Beast would punch holes in the walls, shatter the glass and piss all over the carpets. It would shit upon the will that gave this place life, and straight-up kill the Muse that lived there. He'd watch her die in his dreams, every night, and he felt that with her death, no more epiphanies would come, and he'd be left... astray.
So he returned coated in wet, miserable in and out, yet oddly... complacent. The mood he often feared having resigning himself to whatever destiny was being carved out for him. If that meant that he would never write something worthwhile again, then so be it. Complacency was the bane of a good writer; he had learned long ago that you should always be in discord, something should always be in a state of flux, for writing to come easily. The best writing he had ever written or read had been born from true, hardened conflict. Be it from the soul, or from the heart, or from the body, that one status quo became everything that the writer wanted to exude; the words could then cascade from the tip of a pen or the tap of a keyboard to the piece of paper in front of him, or the future one to come. The Husband gave him a worried glance, too quick to spot for anyone else besides the man he married.
I wish I could mouth the words that would make you tranquil
Let the syllables flow like a darting creek
Cut through soil, cliffs, or even, the bastions of man
I wish I could encompass you in reverie
Be the sweet sunlight dappled along your cheeks
Or the warm wind;
I'll overcome this trifling matter
Even if... even if it takes everything to do so.
The poetry was coming out easier, but he was not sure why. And as he shut off the light and snuggled into the man who lay next to him, he could feel something different. As his dreams began to overtake the sordid mess of reality, they too began to change. The Beast that rampaged through the houses of his aspiring mind began to calm, began to still itself. And no longer did it run as fast, did it seek to find a home in the shadows and dark recesses of his synapses. The Muses began to slowly return to life, but not quite, something still kept them from playing his song, his orchestral composition. Whenever he imagined them playing music, his mind would shift to an empty, barren field filled with endless lyres, all broken and twisted, some utterly destroyed. And it was as if each instrument was a part of him that was slowly dying away as he felt himself disconnected more and more from the fruits of his passions.
As he dwelled upon the matter, the Beast came closer to him. As it did, the creature itself began to transform, shifting between various images throughout his life car crashes, LGBT rallies, wars and strife, his mother, his brothers, wild animals, his dog, his husband, and, finally... himself. His doppleganger began to mouth words that couldn't become sonorous, forever trapped in chains of silence. But he felt that he could understand them anyway, so he pieced them together:
Write what you feel inside, stop trying to write to please others. Fuck the critics and the ones who beat you down, the ones who want to mold you into an image you can't see yourself fitting to. Let the writing be the blood in your veins, the electricity firing in your heart and mind, the flesh of your skin and the air that you breathe.
The dream world disappeared, and the Writer jolted awake, something fresh in his mind for the first time in a long time. So he turned on the light, making sure not to wake the love bundled up next to him, and wrote one more poem.
Unleash
Tidal waves that batter the senses
Unfurl
Great plans to dethrone radical dogma
Unravel
The twisted, maladjusted paradigms
Repeat
The altruistic acts you live by
Revel
In the happiness you procreate
Reveal
All the secrets that keep someone afraid
Stop
Worrying what others think of you
Cease
The endless doubts that paint your actions
Be
Whoever the fuck you want to be.
When the last line was finished, the thing-that-wanted-to-stay-hidden made itself known. The Writer took hold of it with his mind, never letting go.
A single thought.
But he'd let it settle for a while, sleep was much easier to deal with.
