Geiger Nelson III (9)

A Chapter by Joe

Geiger Nelson III (9)

It was coming on 9:30 and Cabin 1 was filled with the clacking of keyboard keys as Geiger began to get into the flow of his newest book. It had only taken him four hours of staring at the computer screen and drinking Rowdy Roosters to get into the swing of it. Behind him, on the coffee table, the radio played a soft rock song.

A silence so perfect, it kills.

So was the life of Abernathy Gray, known to the children of Lensburg as the Witch. Let's get one thing correct here, Abernathy Gray wasn't a witch. Nor was she the Witch. A fine difference there. She was just an old woman who was forming a hump and lean on her back and couldn't get outside to tend her garden, nor had the money to pay anyone else to do such.

Okay, maybe it wasn't the greatest beginning in the world, but this beginning sprung a pipe in Geiger's mind that shot out ideas and sentences at an incredible pace. He still didn't know what you could classify this new piece as. Horror? Mystery? Romance? Science-Fiction? It was all up in the air until he went back and read through it.

Geiger was just happy that he was starting. He'd been staring at the first sentence for a good two months before coming out here to 100 Oak Valley and it had been making him sweat bullets. His agent had asked him if he could have at least a novella done by New Years and, being the cocky guy he was, Geiger had said 'no problem! It's in the bag!' And now here he was, into September with only a good page and a half.

Not to worry, though, he thought to himself, as he paused to go to the bathroom and get another beer. The pipe that needed to be sprung had been sprung and now he was in the zone.

As he walked back into the living area of the cabin a news report was on, talking about how some guy named Carl Blue had gone missing in the New England, New Hampshire area and his family was concerned for his safety. Geiger switched the station to something more pleasant and found a soft rock station. Satisfied, he sat into his seat and began typing away again.

"She's the Witch, daddy!" The little girl cried as she spotted Abernathy Gray looking out her window.

"Don't say that, Lilly," the girl's father scolded. "That's very rude."

But the girl, Lilly, kept crying as they past Abernathy Gray's house.

So was the life of Abernathy Gray.

Bestseller? Could be. But that was never what writing was about for Geiger Nelson. It was always about the storytelling. The coming up with an idea for millions of people to read. He remembered a time when his mother would come up with stories at bedtime when he was young and he remembered loving each and every one, always asking for a certain one again and again, but he could never have that one again, because his mother hadn't read it from a book, she had come up with it as she went along.

That's why he wrote. So he could come up with a story on the spot and share it with the millions of people he thought of as his children (maybe a tad megalomaniacal, but it worked for him), just like his mother. But, unlike his mother, the story could be told over and over and over again, because it was there, in words and a typeface and bound. That's why he wrote.

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