A Writer’s Nightmare

This is not a fan fiction, but hopefully will bring a smile to the lips of anyone attached to Harry Potter.

A Writer’s Nightmare

He is looking for a girl, who does not know he exists, or the story has brought him here. He has no reasons to be discreet but still he has to be careful. He is standing near the doorway and surveying the golden banquet hall, which is filled with refined bodies in saris and jackets, and beautiful young women with straight hair who never make facial expressions. But they will, soon. Any moment now.

For the famed beauty of the town is about to make her appearance. There’ll be jaws thrown open, there’ll be a quick hush, there will be a rush to move and make her way. And there will be envious sighs of admiration. How’ll Sheila like that? He stood in helpless indecision. Sheila does not like to be around too beautiful women, he knows; and that makes it doubly difficult for him to move---

Joe threw the paper away in desperation. How the hell is he going to continue with that? Write a regular boy-girl story? Nope. He’ll never. But that’s where the starting paragraph of the writing competition has taken him---and that he is to complete in a story, not small enough, and not large enough, and “adhering to the physical laws”. That means no magic. And that has no exclamation marks. I mean, who writes without an exclamation mark?

“Er, may I help you?”

Joe jerked up his head, and there, standing by him, was a boy of thirteen or fourteen, with untidy hair and round glasses stuck together with scotch-tape above his nose. There was a scar the shape of lightning visible under his bangs.

---“Harry,” exclaimed Joe, “you aren’t supposed to be here. Go away.”

---“Ok. Um.. I’d go then.”

---“No no. Ah, that was rude. Stay, stay. Wha-- what’re you doing here?”

Harry grinned, “you thought of me, didn’t you?”

“I might have, but--” Joe uneasily moved in his seat, “hold on. You’re not Harry Potter. You are that actor, Daniel whatever...”

---“I magicked myself to this form. Reckoned might help to identify.”

Joe nodded assent. Harry sat down by his side on the table. “So, you were saying--” Joe started. “Can I help you?” replied he.

---“No, Harry. Unfortunately, you can’t.”

---“Can’t I?”

---“Or,... may be you can. May be you can magically create a non-magical writing... may be... you can.”

---“Can I?” he smiled.

---“I don’t know. You should know that.”

---“Can I know that before your knowing it first?”

Harry’s grin widened as Joe’s eyes narrowed, “are you sure you are Harry Potter?” he tilted his head, “you talk like an intellectual.” There were footsteps heard in the corridor. Harry got up, and held himself with an air of self-consciousness unusual for his age---“because I’m here with you,” he spoke down to him with a smile, snapped his fingers, and was gone with a loud crack. “Harry, you’re not supposed to do that. Dobby does it---”

---“Who’re you talking to?” the door opened, and Sheila entered.

---“Er, um.. no one.”

---“Joe, are you doing that fantasy stuff again?” Sheila had her hand on the hip.

---“No. Yeah.. just this writing.”

“Mr. Writer.” She walked over and kept the tray on the table. Was there a tinge of approval between her tight-bound lips? She bent over and said, “Ok. Just this one glass of milk, and you will write the whole night if you wish.” Joe leaned forward and had it from her hand like a child. Her bosom distinctly touched his shoulder. She held him as he drank his way through, in a way of showing fondness only a woman can.

“Good boy.” said Sheila, and she left.

Joe felt a surge of inspiration as he pulled the paper back. Sheila fondles him. Sheila loves him. And he will write. Does the process of our imaginations adhere to physical laws?

---“Very wisely spoken, Mr. Joseph.” said a husky but soft voice. Joe looked up, and there was, no mistaking, Albus Dumbledore---a seven feet tall man with three feet long beard the color of silver, just the same as his hair---bending down and peering at him through a pair of half-moon spectacles.

“Before knowing we can’t know,” he straightened himself and clasped his hands behind, “we must know if the answer can or can’t be known.”

---“Are you freaking kidding me? SHeila.”

---“Most certainly not, my dear sir,” he lowered himself humbly, “and the name’s Dumbledore, if you please.”

---“Oh, right. Have it your way, then.”

---“My way, dear sir, is to be of your service.”

---“Why am I even talking to you? You are not real. Sheila. SHeila.”

“Am I not?” The great warlock walked across the room, his cloak swishing behind him; then he turned to look. “Allow me to bring the matter to clarity, then. You’ll of course correct me if I am wrong.” He waited a moment. “As you have been so very obliging to point out, dear sir, that at this moment you are, in fact, talking to me; and as in reality, you got to be occupied in one way or other, given that you cannot possibly be doing anything else right now, may I claim my share of reality as the object of this ‘talking to’ ?”

---“You talk like a weirdo. You know that?”

---“One of the many names they call me, yes.”

“It’s not any use telling him sir,” Harry reappeared and approached from a corner, “He doesn’t want us to help. He wants it all in a muggle way.” “Do not underestimate, Harry, the muggles’ ingenuity to solve their problems.” said Dumbledore in his kind, cracked, whispered voice.

The situation was turning into an impossible one. Joe glanced sideways fearfully at the clock, and said, “Let me tell you a bit about reality. When things really happen, they go together, okay? Unlike you, they FIT. That’s why we pinch ourselves to see if we are dreaming.”

 
---“What a great idea.” Dumbledore was all enthusiasm.
 
---“Go ahead. Pinch yourself.”
 
---“You are not real. NOT REAL.”
 
---“Blimey, man. Don’t freak out.”
 
“The word here, I think, is a little humour,” said Dumbledore. “That’s right. Cheer up, man.” Harry sat down by the table and patted his shoulder, “hey, can’t you have one of us, like on the streets, conjuring up... like muggle tricks?”
 
---“Or a broomstick perhaps, you know, for sweeping purposes.”
 
---“Or a wand. Just something... fashionable to hold.”
 
---“Much like a walking stick.”
 
---“Sheila. SHeila. SHEILA.”
 
Without, a responding sound was finally heard. Harry vanished with a snap, and Sheila, looking quite dishevelled, hurried in. There was quarrel in her eyes.
 
---“What?” she said, and there was quarrel in her voice.
 
---“I.. I..” Joe stammered, “need you to--”
 
---“Need me to-- WHAT? I’m not your servant, you know? I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
 
She didn’t seem to heed Dumbledore, who reverently stood back, his hands clasped, in front this time. Still startled by Sheila’s changed mood, Joe tried to collect himself--
 
“I need you to.. be by me.”
 
---“For you to puppeteer? I’m not your puppet.”
 
---“Sheila, I love you. I want to give you a life--”
 
---“No you don’t. You just want to make me act the way you like. I WON’T ACT THE WAY YOU LIKE.”
 
---“Sheila, Sheila..”
 
---“I AM NOT YOUR SLAVE.”
 
In one jerk of a motion she was halfway across the room. When she turned back, the lines in her face of her initial impatience were gone, only to be replaced by a far more sinister composure. And her eyes sparkled. “I won’t act the way you like.” she repeated, “what have men ever done for us? A description of the b***s, a description of the buttocks? For other men to drool on?” “Sheila. That’s not right.” he mumbled. Her lips bent into a cruel smile, “I don’t need you to give me a life, I won’t fit into your silly plots. You imagination-less, depthless, pathetic creature.”
 
In measured steps she walked back, almost tiptoed, to the door---and looked back with a jerk. There was that spark in her eyes again. Was it love? Hate?

There was silence. She was gone. Dumbledore mouthed something like “The most difficult of problems”, and noiselessly turned and disapparated. And there was loneliness.

 
Joe sat gloomily. Sheila knows him. Can a simulation know the simulator exists? And if so, can it really be called a simulation? Sheila hates him. She will never come down on paper through his pen. She will come and go as she pleases, to mock at him, and to torment him. And make him love her, and stamp on his heart. No. Exclamation. Marks. Is there a mark for pain?
 
Joe finally glanced askance at the clock again. It was 2. Two hours past the deadline for submission. Joe let out a sigh of relief and lied down. He fell back to sleep. Nameless characters that don’t fit anywhere danced around him.
 
A pill rolled down the table as a tired hand placed the tiny container back on.

Author's Note

This is a failed entry to a writing competition dating back to--I think, 2017. The judge was guy named Joseph something, a writer of regional repute (the first paragraph is his, which is why I cannot put it up anywhere for formal publication), who had put up a bunch of very weird rules. I did submit the work 2 minutes prior to the deadline, but incensed perhaps by my satire, he never selected mine even though I had done such a fine job with it. So incensed was he, perhaps, that he didn't even notice that I in fact abided by all his rules.

And yes, I know, I've done a pretty cool job. Having given the six-month cool off period to remove writer's bias, I came back to it---again, and again---and found it does have what one calls finesse, one I can comfortably call mine. But that's for you to judge, isn't it? 😉