A little writer, or The cosy embrace of an ever-shifting castle

A Story by Alena

What happens when little artists start questioning their skills?

A small writer sat behind a desk in his home. A home, rather a huge stone castle built from what can only be assumed was a solid rock. It was never cold in the castle however, it was a magical everchanging castle, no one really knew just how big or small it was, how many towers rose above it, every angle offered different scene. People didn’t really look at the castle for that matter. They usually resided inside.

The room of the small writer was a small writing room. His desk was in the very middle of the space with a fittingly small carpet underneath. Above, there was hanging a majestic chandelier with candles that sparkled in the reflections of so many glass threads holding the construction together. The main source of light were the windows and a fireplace on the left side of writer’s hand. The windows were also the main source of access to this room. No door dwelled in this bizarrely cosy, odd nook of the castle. The only way in and out were two big windows, none of which had glass or opening mechanism. More related to a very rectangular hole rather than a window, the one which led to a hallway of the castle faced exactly the front of writer’s desk. The other revealed location of this nook, towering high above the ground, it displayed a splendid view on the gardens and depths of brain. Indeed, this castle and all his residents lived in a brain. Particularly in the frontal cortex but where exactly, that was unknown even to them.

Perhaps the only occupant with sufficient knowledge on their location was the writer’s cousin. He was tall and liked to wear a certain reputation as a dress code. His clothes were always delicately neat and elegant, not one strand of hair would stick out from the short cover on his head, and his nose always accompanied by a pair of glasses, just for the show (there was no need for him to wear glasses). He wasn’t that old, yet older than the writer, he would always act a bit snooty towards the family living at this castle, mainly for the fact he himself didn’t reside here in particular, he just liked to come and stay. Stay for a long, long time and enlighten everyone about the mistakes they committed in their speech of wrong statements.

The permanent dweller and primer caretaker of the castle, the mother of the small writer, wouldn’t mind the cousin’s comments. She was too loving to throw him away for such a thing, though she could and would snap out on him from time to time. You see, she wasn’t the most patient of all kinds.

The mother, or rather: the mom, was a chaotic woman, ceaselessly running around, delegating everyone in the castle with chores, overseeing the processes of the staff and other family members, yet she would always squeeze a slot within her schedule which gave her time to spend with the close ones. She would talk them to their senses, argued with the cousin and grandpa or advise the writer as much as she could. Never once would she tire herself out, let alone admit she might have tired herself out. Even her appearance embodied the hyper-resolution that this small, strong person so devotedly held. Dress always higgledy-piggledy with a long, greyish skirt and at least two or three stained aprons still wrapped around the skirt as if she never took them off, just replaced each stained one with a newer version. Hair tied up in a bun that inevitably grew into a messy jungle, sticking out from all the sides, the curly, wrinkled lianas of hair. Even the blonde that she wore was dirty.

Under the chaotic siren-like nature however, there lied a kind person. Straight priorities within her overloaded brain, she was at all times trying to do what she could for her kid, nephew and father, trying to keep the castle safe. It truly wasn’t an easy task with an ever-shifting castle and part of the family accepted her commanding in return for the leadership and stability she provided. But not everyone was so opened to her commands.

An elder of the family, good ol’ grumpy grandpa, sitting in his wheelchair, moving very little, he was the pure resemblance of an outmoded childish revolt. He wasn’t satisfied with many things in the castle, though his opinion held little to no worth in the eyes of its residents. His words, a constant opposite to the main head of the family. That is unless the small writer did not come to a disagreement with her too. In that moment, a more compelling tole to act emerged, obviously, than taking the side of a child. A “show your respect to the elders” role, a pure enlightenment of the purpose of old grandpa. There was a reason why grumpy was the name he deserved and surprisingly enough, he himself got pretty used to it. Seemed like everyone in the castle was quite aware and proud of their reputation. Everyone except for the little writer.

The little writer was a small boy sitting behind his writing desk in the middle of his room. He didn’t had much of a reputation in the family, other than that his hands were unpredictable beasts of two faces. They could either run around the tiles of letters, so quickly and restlessly as if the letters were gonna burn him unless the parchment absorbs the hot lava swamp of a burning ink; or, they were made out of a jelly, slow, weaklings, exhaustingly dragging the quill through the page, reluctant of pressing its tip on the paper, as if the ink made out of glue, could not resist its adhesive power, to lift a tip from the parchment. Indeed, the small writer was a small but passionate writer. If only he could control the manner of his writings.

In those moments, the moments when he recalled the trips to his best friend’s place, a friend called Heart - who was according to the cousin so confusingly misnamed as he lived in the limbic system - the small writer would start pressing and dragging the strong sharp quill with the most eloquence and artistry, the most refined fluency of sophisticated strokes. Yet when someone asked him to write any other way than the one known to him, he would freeze and the quill would subdue to error, drips of ink would drop here and there as the ignoring writer stared at the blank wall consumed by thoughts. None of what he wrote would make sense, none of what he wrote would be longer than a few words. In the end of these instants, he would find a hint, a word, moment in time, a memory re-calling to his small hands to turn the quill in a new direction, dip it deeply to the ink to assure the flow of feelings. He would once again write the way he loved and knew. The only way he ever wrote.

And the mother would throw her hands up in despair and begged him to write other way, begged him to try as the clients asked him to, try to comply, the writer’s hand was stubborn and parchments fidgety, even the chair felt more uncomfortable and room more confined. The wooden seat would start to push the writer’s frail bottom, making him stand up at times, creating excuses such as “I need more water”, “I need more air” “I am hungry”, while his mom would run around, carry all those things only so that he can sit down and work, only so that he can write for the client. But no matter how much she tried, it wouldn’t stop the quill from floating, wouldn’t stop the chair from pushing, wouldn’t stop the parchments from warping, and only if a tone from Heart’s concert hall could be heard so far it reached the castle, the writer would start writing again, in his old, stubborn way.

“Can I go see Heart, mom?” would often ask writer.

“Absolutely not,” she said, “a new client’s under way, we need to write.”

No matter that only writer’s handwriting inhabited the parchment papers, it was always “them” writing.

When a writing session occurred, it was the whole family nestled down in their own positions in the small room, supervising the whole process with worries and comments.

The mom would always stand to the front of the writer, a bit on his left, right after the fireplace. There, from her small corner, she would walk up and down biting her nails, running for all excuses her son could come up with, and complained about the big window that she had to jump every time she left the room.

The cousin would stand importantly on the right side of the writer’s desk. Usually with an act of a focusing stare, he would hold his chin with one hand, propping it up with another and sometimes nodded “intelligently” or adjusted his glasses. Then he would proceed to say the corrected fact of someone’s false statement, just waiting for that mistake to happen, more focused on the words people connect orally than the ones written by his small cousin for the client.

And in the very end, of course, that was the grandpa. Lurking in the darkest corner of the room, hidden from the sight of the outside window, yet sitting right next to it on his wheelchair, the only member facing the back of the small writer, he oversaw the whole situation and didn’t forget to state his opinion on everyone’s behaviour. Like a commentator that no one wants to listen to, and for the most part no one really have. Except for the cousin devouring spoken words for the opportunity to correct it.

And this is how it went every day and so, one would not think today was going to be any different. But to the surprise of everyone, especially the narrator, it was. For, the client that came, could turn the castle around forever.

Now, the thing about clients in the brain is quite simple. They come to the writer, usually in a form of a huge glowing hand, and give him a paper with a request. If the writer fails, his property and living start to be questioned and that negatively impacts the already mentioned castle. Naturally, throughout the years of constant, personal adjustments in the writer’s work, the castle suffered a lot of damage. It has been going for so long, almost no one knew anymore which things were a designer’s choice and which are outcomes of failed text (like the constantly opened windows without a glass, or doors, or, well, windows). No one knew what more can change in the castle, but almost no one seemed to care except for the mom and the small part of writer, who knew very well this all was his doing. Nobody else seemed to fear the reality of losing the castle, nobody else seemed to accept that could even happen. Yes, the little writer doesn’t comply easily, but he writes and that’s important right? But one day, today, was about to change it all.

One day, today, like any other, a giant glowing hand came through the outside window to the tower and delivered a letter of request for the writer. But something changed in the writer. And something changed with the requests he used to receive. It asked him to write what he loves. A story full of dialogue and emotion, that kind of feeling he would experience in the concert halls of Heart’s place, the kind of story to which every order would almost inevitably turn to. Suddenly, he was unable to lift the quill.

His mom would see the request and smile. “Honey, that’s so great, that’s amazing, you may write now. Oh, should I bring you water?” She quickly turned around and came back with a jug of water with mint and lemon on the top, poured it into multiple glasses and offered a glass not only to her son but the other members too. Grandpa refused it, “I don’t need this fancy-shmancy water, thank you. Instead, I will get myself a chai tea.”

“Actually, it’s just chai.”

“What?”

“The word chai already means tea,” the cousin smirked behind his glasses. “I would assume you already know that.”

The grandpa frowned. “Oh no, no,” he said with a mischievous grin, “I most definitely want my chai tea. It’s a traditional tea that my mother used to make, unique breed…”

The cousin rolled his eyes up and ignored grandpa’s rent. Meanwhile the mother left for a chai and confused took few step backwards after hearing what her father said. She quickly realised what was happening and left the tray with teapot on the shelf above the fireplace. Only then she finally noticed the blank rolled paper on the writer’s desk. His hand was holding the quill immersed in the ink flask but he sat this way as if in a trans, not able to move or look away. The yellow scorched paper was mocking him with possibilities, the blank, the void, blasting a huge hole into his mind, blinding his senses, clogging the brainwaves as in a traffic jam of an overpopulated city. Nothing was able to move, nothing was able to progress. The drivers step out of the car and scream ‘Oi! would you mind letting us pass? We’ve been here for hours!’ and the little writer resisted the calling and muted the urge. He could sense the tickling on his fingers, the anticipation of the drivers in his neural traffic jam, he wanted to write but he couldn’t. The jam led to a blind spot, a huge whirlpool that would suck them all, no matter where he looked, each route, each car, all heading towards a black hole, a star too dense it overpowered its own self. That was the fate of all the drivers who would continue. And the writer resisted to give out that command.

The mom approached her son closer, “honey, what’s wrong? You have been sitting like this for a while.”

“Oh, uhm,” the writer looked her in the eyes “nothing, nothing,” he mumbled, “This is all I ever wanted right? No problem, I’ll start right away.”

The writer took the soaked, now mushy and moist quill, out of the flask and pressed its soft tip on the paper.

“That’s right,” said the grandpa peevishly, glancing here and there on the cousin who with the utmost satisfaction slurped his water, “now he gets a request for what he always writes and it might just take him longer than whenever. I’m telling you, what, just what will grow out of this kid?”

“Asking that question is highly irrelevant,” said the cousin sneering behind his glass with lemon, “how can you get an answer? Only time will tell.”

‘Only time will tell,’ thought to himself the writer, ‘that’s not the worst beginning, let’s see what we can do.’ He slowly dragged the tip, leaving a small stroke, then another, and another, until he wrote the very first word: ‘only.’ He lifted the quill, pressed once again and with a little bit more confidence finished ‘time.’ Then with even more precision ‘will’ and ‘tell’ came to existence until he had a whole first sentence ‘only time will tell.’ Then he added a period. A period to his sentence. A terrifying period to his thought process and ideas. The drivers honked again ‘can you let us pass?!’

He gritted his teeth and continued writing, just don’t let others notice you are slow, just don’t let others see the vulnerable moves of a quill. What was happening anyway? The small writer didn’t understand. He always wanted to write like this, and he always would. No matter how much he tried, his work would always end up being highly similar to each other. Many dialogues or internal monologues, many dramatic overlaps and a story, story revolving around characters and hardly anything else… The little writer didn’t know if he had an idol of writing, he didn’t know if this style had a name. He didn’t know what a style was, yet he was the only one capable of writing. And the only one immune to the comments of others when it came to his passion. So why now, did he struggle so much to write even a word? Why now felt the quill so heavy and the ink so intimidating. Like a pool that one could jump into and slowly drown, stuck in the dense blackness of their own mind, surrounded by dark scribbles, pulling them and pulling them deeper, with the adhesive power of a dark, gloomy quicksand,

Writer tried to avert his eye from the ink and write; write anything as long as others seem calm. Trick them and pretend you have the control. Before you sink into the deep, dense ink.

“I don’t care what time tells whom,” continued the grandpa in an emerging dispute, which emboldened the mom to start brewing the chai after all.

“Time doesn’t talk,” said the cousin maliciously.

“Of course, it doesn’t,” replied grandpa, “not to you that is! Me and time are very good friends.”

The cousin got startled for a second and begun to question his next move. Was the grandpa bluffing? Or did he seriously find a person with such a name only so he could win this irrelevant conversation? None would be surprising. Though highly unlikely turned out to be the ability of grandpa to predict that ‘time’ gets mentioned in any way. So, the cousin replied with masked confidence: “No, you aren’t.”

At that point a new argument sparked between the two and the mom desperately ran to hold her father from pretending to stand. The mom brought him tea, and bonbon and chocolate, he refused it all; she offered a truffle, a mint candy, honey, only in the end grandpa calmed down and asked to have a lemon served with chai. And as all of that was happening, the little writer suddenly let down its quill on the table, raised the parchment in front of him, positioned it against the sun to let the rays shine on it, watched it. And then in the split-second tore it in half.

The sound drew others attention and in absolute shock, they turned their heads. The little writer took the two halves and tore them again, then again, again and again, until tiny pieces of parchment fell next to his feet so slowly and gracefully, like a light-weight fluff. ‘This is not it’

When the family saw it, both grandpa and the cousin spit their drinks right on the mom between them in a comic relief, the grandpa started to laugh and cousin smirked, but mom looked terrified on her son’s actions and �" ignoring the lemon flavoured liquids drenching her face �" she came to the little writer: “Son, what is wrong?”

The little writer looked her in the eye, now, even the cousin and grandpa stopped laughing as he slowly turned his head towards them and back. With small courage of a trembling voice he asked: “Mom, what would happen if I didn’t write anything?”

The mom’s pupils widened, cousin’s glasses fell of his nose and grandpa started chocking.

“Nothing?” asked the mother. The little writer sadly nodded.

“Something is wrong,” he said, “I can’t seem to write.”

The mom tried to hold it together but unsuccessfully, she begun stressing out even more. “No,” she said, “no, I am sure it will be fine, it will be fine.” She started walking up and down the room, hectically, hysterically, repeating the sentence and holding her head in hands, occasionally gesticulating in the air. She was lying.

The cousin yet, haven’t picked up his glasses from the ground, his mouth tore wide open and he stood there in a complete trans while grandpa chocked on his own saliva as he tried to berate the writer’s incompetence. “Are you that stupid of a kid? You can’t write requests and you can’t write your own things too?”

The writer bent down his head. Everyone panicked. Not even the so-well served mistake of grandpa’s ‘too’ where there was ‘neither’ had been corrected. Seeing his cousin missing his chance, seeing the fear that filled grandpa’s words instead of peevishness and seeing his mother so hectic that not even lies could calm her down, the writer sadly took the quill to his hand again and once it touched the paper, he was determined to write anything. The fingers started furiously fidgeting. He tore the paper with a strong press of the quill once, he let the letters merged with each other in the other, next parchment flew of the window before even one sentence emerged upon its surface. And the grandpa kept on scolding, the cousin kept on mute, the mother kept on walking perhaps for the first time not caring of what others need, not caring if they complain.

The last parchment got filled with words when the sun was setting low. Any moment now, the client will come to see the progress, the hand will enter for requested package. Never once was the mother this careless to just walk, never once was the cousin so dumbfounded and the grandpa so tireless. And never once wrote the writer with such a despise and hatred for words and letters, never once was his hand shaking and crossing out so much, leading the strokes much longer than he should, pulling them across the paper to fill in more space with the blackness of the ink. ‘What is wrong with me?’ thought the writer? ‘grandpa makes sense now, it all makes sense now. Am I even able to do what I truly want?’

“You’re so incapable!” could be heard from the corner. “How are you unable to do what you always wanted?! How do you want to fulfil anything in your life this way? Is this what we gave up so much for? Just so you can struggle and never advance?“

The writer tried to recall the rays of light, the waves of music in Heart’s concert hall that always reached him, always found him when they were not supposed to. Now he needed them, he didn’t know for whom, he didn’t know the client and he didn’t care, for the first time, this wasn’t about the client, this was a writing to prove his own desire, to showcase his love and dreams. But every letter burned the eye with the ugliness it was written with and every side of parchment cut the hands, dried them out until they stung in scorching ache. Why was it suddenly so hard to reach the music? Why was it suddenly so impossible to feel the light? The uplifting, bright, shimmering stars?

No matter if the writer ignored the grandpa’s renting, he wouldn’t find Heart in his writing. He wouldn’t find his own self. And the mother so baffled and the cousin so frozen still unable to speak a word. Only after the sun finally set off, the glowing hand entered through the window hole. In that moment, the writer finished writing. He looked into the mess that mocked one’s eye, the big travesty, laughing to his face every time he remembered it, in a leap of anger, picked the ink flask and spilled its darkness on the parchment. The drivers reached the black hole. There was no escape from quicksand that drowned all the words.

And the mother stopped walking, the grandpa stopped talking and cousin closed his mouth. They came to their senses. To witness the writer throw away his own. Even if for a brief moment, that brief moment was enough to sink everything he loved into the dark whirlpool of blackness and scribbles. There was no way back from this darkness and scribbles. Not one word could be distinguished from its sucking power. All absorbed into one, it felt both relieving and heavy. As when with your pain disappears also the bond to your past.

Not even the writer knew what he was trying to prove or say by this action. Most importantly, he wasn’t trying to say anything. It was an act of self-defence. An urge to survive and erase what burned so much in his eyes. What came right afterwards however, was the abrupt, chilling realization, that with the cessation of bad stories, ceased the identity of his life as well. After all, none of this solved the reality. The inability. The fact not even the cousin was able to correct from grandpa’s mouth. That if the little writer was unable to write for himself, and unable to write for others, was he even a writer? Why did he write in a first place? How did this reputation of his even came to be? Up till now, he didn’t even know he had a reputation. Why do the clients come with requests if he keeps failing them all? And what happens now, when he failed him own self?

The writer and the whole family stood still in front of the glowing hand. The hand took the dark spilled parchment, carefully held what was left of the dry parts and with a slow movement flew out of the big window hole. Still, no one said anything. Until the hand had come back.

To everyone’s surprise, the same glowing hand returned and not only the castle hadn’t changed, it also brough another paper of request.

The shocked writer took it into his palms: “You can do better than that. I will ask you to write this as many times as needed, until you overcome your fear. Only if you refuse, I will consider this a fail. Awaiting new work, Heart.”

The writer couldn’t believe his eyes for what they read. Neither could the whole room. After it all, after the request travelled from one hand to the other reaching the mom’s palms’ clench as its last stop, she finally approached her frozen, grieving son, towering above him watched his small face, then leaned down to his height, stroked his cheek, and gave him a hug. She wrapped her hands around him tight and it took him few seconds to realize what was happening, to shut down his eyelids in the warm embrace, extend his own arms to fall into the smooth, silky fabric of her clothes and squeeze. He didn’t see anything and didn’t think on anything. He was worried, relieved, happy, and sad at the same time. There is no way out of this hell, out of this loop. Yet that means they got to keep the castle and he doesn’t need to sneak to Heart. If anything, it meant he doesn’t need to sneak to Heart anymore. That’s what he felt in his mom’s fervent hug. That’s what he read in her tender clinch.

And the feeling intensified as his own snooty cousin broke a tear and joined the warm embrace. “I don’t want to lose this place,” he said, “I like it here.” Only grandpa was too proud to take back what he blasted out before. He did not join in the hug. But his eyes twinkled with a spark of lonely remorse that he could not display.

“Keep writing,” he said looking at the hug. And ‘keep writing’ engraved itself into the writer’s heart. For it wasn’t just a ‘sorry,’ it was a tone out of a concert hall.

The little writer knew that if he’d stop, that’s when he would lose his identity.

It didn’t feel relieving per say, it felt dangerous and unique. There was a new challenge ahead. A challenge that would change the life of the whole family. A challenge to keep writing despite everything else.

Other orders kept on coming and the shifting castle kept on shifting, but throughout it all, the writer kept writing for what Heart had requested. Not all attempts were so drowning and sucking or burning, some were biting, and ripping and suffocating, but with every new thing he wrote, the darkness of the dense black ink felt slowly, little by little, a little less consuming.

Keep going.