The Quest to Find Writopia *WIP*

The morning was filled with a off-tune chorus of cawing crows gathered outside my window, rousing me from my slumber. I continued to lay there in my bed, not intent on getting up after the night I had had. As I rolled over, still wrapped in my sheets, the sound of the birds outside eerily began to merge with screams. Not any scream, but of the woman I had murdered the night before. She called out to me...

“Daddy!!”

Again, my concentration had been broken by the call of duty, to aid a demanding child. If there was only a way I could escape to a serene place where I could write and not be disturbed. I’d whisk myself away to some secluded cabin in the Alaskan tundra, curled up by the fireplace with my laptop and let inspiration take over.
It turned out she only wanted a glass of juice. Now, back to my writing...

Normally on my morning walk, I’d enjoy the casual looks given to my by passersby, but this time it was though all eyes were on me, digging into my heart like they knew what I was hiding. I couldn’t cast an innocent smile without feeling a hollow lump in my gut.

No, that hollow feeling that I had really felt was my grumbling stomach. Now I was hungry. I marched down to the kitchen, trying to keep the scene in my mind as I rummaged through the pantry and refrigerator for the perfect snack: turkey and Swiss cheese on wheat bread and a Diet Coke. Now I was set, and it was time to head back to work.

“Honey, can you put out the trash? Tomorrow morning is pick-up.” Sigh. I set my plate down on the counter and head out to the garage, where the odorous plastic bags of garbage awaited me, yet another distraction in my attempts to complete my novel. Though the queen of the house reigns supreme, so I do the task and return to the kitchen for my snack.

Suddenly, I am greeted by the ring of my cell phone, playing through the tune to “Ride of the Valkyries” until I finally decide to answer. Wouldn’t you know, it was my boss. “Sorry to disturb you on the weekend.” Yeah, I’m sure. “I need you to email me those reports again, as the financial department made a critical error.”

“You got it, chief.” I grabbed my plate and soda and rushed back to the den before I was snared by another task. Quick email to my boss, and then I was ready to write again, or so I thought. In the confusion of trash pick-up and fiscal figures, I had lost sight of where I was about to go in my novel. leaned back in my reclining swivel chair, closed my eyes, and let my muse return on its own.

I don’t know why I returned to the moor where I left Helen’s body. It was as though some force, perhaps even her, had led me there. Regardless, I found myself standing there with, my feet lost in the mist, hovering over her corpse with a hole in my own heart. While I tried my best not to, the night before played over in my mind like an old film, and then I heard a loud bang, like that of a gun. Janie’s got a gun. Her dog day’s just begun.

I shook my head, and looked at the computer screen again, wondering what I had just typed. Suddenly I realized that I had picked up the sound of my son’s Aerosmith CD playing upstairs in his room, and started typing the lyrics. I laughed. That was the reason I usually listen to classical music when I wrote, to avoid the mixing of manuscript and lyrics.

I scanned my desk, ridden with papers and Post-it notes and various tools I used when in writing mode, and found my headphones. Plugging them in, I immersed myself in the soft piano of Chopin as I finished my sandwich, and hopefully my writing as well.

Looking around for the source of the shot, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face in the nearby bushes. That hawk-like nose, piercing black eyes, and lips that seemed to be fixed into a sneer.