The Writer

A lark of some variety, chirped outside his window.

Or did lark’s chirp? He wasn’t really sure. He should probably know that. The writer sighed. A deep sigh, the kind that would indicate a tiredness with life to anyone that might hear it. There was nobody to hear it though. He was alone.

He stared at the blank screen in front of him. He had been doing a lot of that during the past years. It all came so easily to him once.

He remembered the flashing of cameras as they took his photograph when he was young. It went on for months after his first book. His only book. A prodigy the press called him. The writer of our times, they said.

In his mid twenties he wrote a book. A book based on an epiphany on the hidden undercurrents of the youth of the day. Somehow he had nailed it. The book published and sold in the millions. He won every award you could win. The money came. He had become — the Writer.

The wind blew a half dead leaf outside his window, he watched it dance around before settling on the ground.

Newspapers reeled with his praise. The magazines captured the smiling face of the young Writer. The publishing industry went bananas. Expectations rose. What will he Write next — they asked? Surely this was just the beginning?

It wasn’t. It was the end. For thirty years he could only stare at the blank screen. The second book did not come. The newspapers stopped talking about him. The publishers stopped calling him. The money ran out.

He had found a quiet serenity in the woods here, inside his cabin. Once a week someone came to deliver food, but other than that — it was just him. The Writer and his screen. That and the words that never came.

In 2061 the internet was everywhere. Even here. It bought other peoples writing to him. The trends of the time seemed to be crime novels. Books about serial killers, about pedophiles, about desecraters of good men and women. And the hero cops that captured them. The public gobbled it up.

He was a Writer though. He could not do that could he? The subject disgusted him. It was not him.

The sun was setting around him.

He scratched his belly. He was fat. He had been getting fat for years. The desire to do something about it vanished a long time ago. He smelled bad too, but he did not realise it. That started happening a long time ago too.

Only one thing had existed in his mind over the last three decades. That second book. The next time the newspapers will write about him. Take his picture. He had tried many times, but the story would not tell itself. He had no further epiphanies on life. He was just getting angrier. More desperate.

Perhaps he should cave and just write popular fiction. He sighed again. Surely he would do it brilliantly. Back in the day the magazines said his words came to life on the page. As if it was creating reality itself. Surely if these hacks today were doing bestselling crime fiction, he could excel at it. After all, he was the Writer. If others could invent disgusting criminal minds, surely his would be the crowning embodiment of evil.

The light was disappearing outside and night fell.

He was writing. His evil was going to be better than other people’s. Better than the fake writers. He would create the master evil. A truly festering wretch that would plague the world. And the hero cop that would hunt it.

So he wrote. For hours, words flowed by force. Writing on a subject he loathed, creating characters that reviled him. It had to be done. It was what the readers wanted. And he was a Writer.

As the night turned later and darker, the things he was creating in his mind caused his face to contort. He did not realise that his face had taken on a look. His body ached. He was succeeding, the story he was telling would grip the world again. Readers would be shocked.

The automatic fireplace lit itself as the light fled from the room. The only illumination coming from the fire in the corner and the light of the laptop that flooded the Writer’s face, creating shadows behind him. His face lit up, with the visage of a Halloween pumpkin come to life. Behind him the shadows in the room lengthened. Even moved.

Clouds gathered in the night sky, the forest was still.

Out of the shadow it rose. As if climbing out of a hell that had borne it, it rose from the ground. Humanoid, dark. The face just a swathe of cloudy darkness and the indications of features. The Writer wrote furiously, sweat dripping off him in rivulets.

The creature crawled to its knees and then rose to its full height towering behind the chair. Lanky, thin and foul. The fire danced shadows across the floor, the creature tilted its head looking down at the hunched figure. The tap tapping of keys on the computer the only sound.

It swung the chair around in a fluid motion, gripped the man by the throat and lifted him effortlessly off the ground and in front of it. The Writer gasped.

The grip around his throat was impossibly strong, he clawed at the hand there to no avail. The grip was unrelenting. As his eyes focused on his assailant fear began to creep into his mind. The faceless darkness stared back at him, a mock imitation of a tilting head — as if trying to understand.

As the life began to seep slowly out of him, the Writer began to understand. He knew what this was. Not the shape perhaps, but the feeling of it. He recognised the beauty of this thing. It was superior than other people’s. Better than that of the fake writers. It was a thing that would grip the world.

As his throat was crushed and life finally left him, a smile stole on to the face of the Writer. The writer of our times, they said. His words came to life, they said.