You pull the crap out of your pocket and sift through it- the four singles, a five, and your last twenty that has to last you for two weeks, the maxed out credit card, the Borders card that is really only temptation for mind candy, since when the hell do you have the money for something as frivolous as books when you can read them in the store for free? You just can't take them home. Just as well, since there aren't any more free parking spaces on the shelves. Someone's random phone number on canary colored paper slips through your fingers and you wonder who the hell it belongs to. The list of songs for fun and the list of songs for profit, bits of thoughts you can't remember scribbled over everything and that, my friend, is what you're looking for.
Now that you've found it, it aggrevates the hell out of you because you can't figure out what it says. Thinking back, you remember writing it, on the workbench in your friend's garage while he was rebuilding his computer. Words so profound you wanted to scorch them into your skin with the soldering iron. Now you try to recall them, to capture the shadows of their footprints. It's hard. Keep going, you tell yourself.
The pen on the paper isn't working. It's one thing to drag thoughts screaming back into your head; it's something else entirely to keep them there long enough to move your hand to reshape them. Move to the computer. It's quicker, the tap, tap, tap of fingertips on the keys only slightly annoying, and the speed more than makes up for it.
"Clara, what are you doing?"
"Career exploration homework, mother."
"Oh." Awkward [moment in time] be careful trying to bridge these distances. "What are you researching?"
"Espionage, mother."
Condensing condescending drippy smile. "You should stick with writing, honey. You blush too easily to be a spy."
She shuts the door on you and your easily triggered blushes. You feel your face and sure enough, it's hot. Damn her to hell for being right.
You don't want to be a writer, not really. It's just easy. Syllables and line breaks shift through your mind all day, twine around your conscious until there are no images in your head, only words. Brilliance can be damning in and of itself, you tell yourself. Good at something once, and no one leaves the door open to anything else. You wonder if Mozart tore his hair out while sitting at his piano, gouged his ears out and made himself deaf. (Was he the one who was deaf?) You wonder if you should blind yourself, as if not seeing the letters might dull your senses enough to be able to deal with them. If feeling stories with your hands would be less heart pounding than being visually overwhelmed by them.
Start typing. Just write. If you get it out, the pressure might not be so unbearable.
He pulled out M----’s letter and read it for the millionth time. He had kept it after all these years. It was beyond destroyed now, but even though the writing was intelligible he knew it off by heart, so he had no trouble reading it. He guessed that almost sixty years had passed since she had written the note to him. And in all that time, all those seasons, days, hours and seconds, he had heard not one word from her.
Delete it. Try again, turn the music up louder this time...
“Sleeping with your supervisor again?” she asked acidly.
S---- shrugged off C-----'s glare. She had known that C----- would notice the scarf she was wearing the moment she had wrapped the thin, soft fabric around her throat. There was only one time she ever wore that particular scarf. Certain mornings when she took longer than usual in getting home from work; certain mornings when she had illicit hickeys to cover up. Once upon a time she had toyed with the idea of buying turtlenecks and pancake makeup, but she had passed out of that high school-esque phase. Turtlenecks made you look as guilty as scarves did, and makeup couldn't withstand the hot spray of the shower. Or -----'s kisses.
For god's sake. Change the fucking song. What are you trying to write, anyway? Try espionage. Stick a gun in your jacket pocket and feel its weight against your ribcage. Then work from there. Everyone knows that you have to live things to write them.
You write. Fingers dance over the keyboard, spinning a personal fantasy that runs along the lines of a bad movie, shots fired from alleys, avenging angels, leather pants and a fast car. This is your brain. This is your brain writing. This is your brain writing to J-pop music.
Watch out, kids.
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