These final words

A man gambles his soul for the time he needs to write a masterpiece.

These final words

There’s only so much time left to me, I thought to myself. Why the hell was this so hard? I thought I was supposed to be good at this.

I stare out of the window, if only to avoid the menacing face of my watch. Not much time left at all. The notepad sprawled out on my desk, pen laid neatly alongside it, blank page reflecting my own blank mind back at me. Fifteen minutes, the presence of the watch on my frail wrist was, like many things, sufficient to invite a sinking feeling like a dropping elevator. Impossibly clammy hands. A permanent, unforgiving lump in my throat which no-one else in the library can see. An urgency to write something, anything, before his return. The pressure was insurmountable, anxiety becoming my very being.

I had asked the devil for the freedom to use these talents I had, after all. Freedom from the wearing grind and boredom of the real world. The catch, to produce the greatest novel ever known, or else to become physically the very novel I had promised to write. I’d squirmed at this, so, him goading me into it, we’d agreed to start at a poem. One poem. Surely I could manage at least that.

The library enveloped me in a new, ethereal silence. The blank pad seemed to loom intensely towards me. Ten minutes, ten impossible minutes. Produce something on his pad, with his golden pen, or become trapped in the pages forever. Anything I like? Why was this still so hard? Was I such a fraud as this?

My arm ached, trembling, resisting as I picked up the pen and lifted it to the blank pages. A droplet of sweat splashed to the paper. I scribble, panicked:

“Roses are red, violets are blue...” What? I ripped the page out in frustration, and tossed it aside. Like many other failed attempts, the crumpled paper shot up in flame and cinder before vanishing forever, like my many aspirations.

“Once upon a time there was a...dog who wants to...” GRRR! RIP! WHOOOSH!

Smoke ash and nothingness.

“When I was a young man...”

“It all began one fateful day..”

“In the not too distant future...”

The pages were unlimited, my ideas themselves were pathetically lacking. My clothes tightened over my flabby, spoiled body, the hot waters of frustration and self hatred rose to meet me. Five minutes.

Hands clammy beyond belief, unable to even take deep breaths out of sheet panic, I began to accept my fate. I had always believed that I could grow up to be a great writer, if I only had the time, the means, the freedom, I could truly become one of the greats, soaring free, expansive and inspired. Here I had revealed to myself the dullness of my wit. As I realised this, and the first hot salty tears flowed, I started to realise...was I my own story?

I picked up the pen once more, to try just one more time when I was overpowered. The scent of sulfur and ash all too familiar. A subtle darkness, fiery breath on my neck. The sensation within of the deepest grand piano keys pressed all at once.

“Time’s up, boy.”

My eyes widened in panic.

“More time!”

“We had a deal.”

“I was going to write something about myself..”

“My child, what do you imagine these pages will now become? I shall enjoy reading your soul.”

I paused, wondering what on earth he meant. Then I felt it, light, blinding white, long fingers of pain spreading to every corner, inch and crevice of my being, burning fire, sparks, and smoke.

 

So, this is my final existence. Not even alive as the novel I may have hoped to have been, my soul and essence exists now only as this very story. Unable to even exist as an account of my full life due to my own cowardice, compromise and inability, reduced to but a few pages of a notebook. All I am, now, ends with these final words.