The Phrase

He writes it down. He writes it over and over. Hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of times. Life is just as repetitive as his writing. Over and over he wrote the phrase one the paper. Once he filled a page, he would slide down the desk and type up his work on his 30 year old type-writer. He didn't sleep, only ate when when supplied food at his desk, and drank from the water dispencer behind his desk. He even wrote while going to the bathroom. The same phrase, over and over. Hundreds of thousands of pages filled. Millions of pens, out of ink. All for this one phrase.

Naturally the man's wife of 25 years, did not think this was a healthy habit. Of course, she was also a bit annoyed at 25 years of non-stop writing and typing. She obviously has had multiple affairs with other men. Hell, she even brought strange men home and made love to them as her husband writes in the other room.

Oh, but that writing. Over and over. Ever since that one night at the bar. This writing was no accident, oh no. It is his sentence. His life sentence. It was the well-dressed man in the back of the bar that assigned this task. Our writing-friend met this man exactly 24 years ago to the day. He was having his usual beer at the usual bar, watching the usual sports talk show program, on the ususal Zenix tv suspended from the ceiling. The well-dressed man approached him and asked politely,

"What do you wish to be?"

"Um, what do you mean?" said our friend

"You are an english teacher, correct?" the man asked

"Yes sir, that I am."

"What do you really want to be?" asked the man politely once more

"Huh...I don't really know,"

"Actually, I've always wanted to be a writer, but I never

have time. Plus, I could probably never think of anything

to write about." he replied

"I have an idea." exclaimed the man

"Take this," the man handed him a piece of paper with two words written on it,

"Go home and write this. Then, you will find that writing is your life."

Before our friend could say any sort of 'thank you' the man had already walked out the door. The man stopped for a moment out side the bar to fix his hair under his odd, extreme black fedora. Then turned and walked away. But before the man left, our writer-friend notice the man's shoulders shake and shudder, as if he were laughing. Curious as to why the man was laughing, he walked outside. It was as he looked down the now empty sidewalks, he noticed the well-dressed man was gone.

Our friend went home around 10 o'clock that night. He walked over to his favorite chair and plopped down on it. He couldn't stop thinking about the piece of paper the well-dress man had given him. He pulled the folded piece of paper out of his pocket. He stared at it for a good ten minutes. Slowly, he opened the paper. He looked in confusion at the words on the paper. But he didn't ask any questions. He pulled out a pad of paper and a traditional ball-point pen. He wrote those two god-forsaken words on that first sheet of paper, and it changed his life forever.

Over and over. Back in present day, he still sat at the same desk, with the same two words. His wife strolled into the writing room with a strange man. The man was tall, lanky, and had glasses. The writer's wife introduced the man as a shrink, Doctor Fields, I belive his name was. He took a step closer to the writer trying to introduce himself for himself,

"Hello sir, I'm Doctor..." The writer cut him off

"Go away fuckhead"

"You son-of-a-b***h, be nice he's trying to help" squawked the writer's wife

"F**k you, b***h!" the writer yelled, not looking away from his typing.

The writer's wife walked behind him and grabbed his shoulders.

"Get your filthy, s**t hands off of me, c**t"

"You ungreatful b*****d!"

She jerked him away from his type-writer. He grabbed at his chest where his heart would be and scrambled back to his prized machine and began typing again. She tried to jerk him away again, but failed. He kept typing with one hand and swatted at his raging wife with the other. Now, the Doctor was trying to break up this cruel fist fight.

"Stop it! Both of you!" the Doctor said sternly

"Fine, you win, a*****e" the writer replied.

He typed up one last sentence.
He took one step away from his type-writer and died on the spot.

All and all, ambulances were called, tears were shed, but for days, weeks, and months the writer's 24 year collection of writing was left un-read. Then one day, as the writer's wife was packed everything in the writer's room into small card board boxes for the move, she finally got to read it. She finally got to read the work that had taken up so much of her husband's life.

She held a stack of about 20 pages. Every single one of them said the same thing. 'Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump,..." and so on for 20 pages. 50 pages. 100, 200, 500, 1000, 2000, and so on. Then she came across the last page he ever wrote. After all the 'thump-thump's you could handle, on the last line of the paper there was one sentence. One last sentence. The last sentence her husband ever wrote before his sudden and untimely death. It read:

Writing is my life and this is...

The End

Reviews

[WriterMe]

That was.... very interesting. Well first of all you might want to rate it as mature and secondly, I think it was a very unique piece. It tried to convery something, but i failed to notice what it was. I liked the way you described the guy obsessed with his work- writing. And the ending was very suprising. I loved it, infact.
Great work =]