Stop That Knight!

"Come back with my characters," I yelled as I chased the swiftly moving knight down the street.

A few more steps and I had to stop, heaving and trying to catch my breath. What a time for my damn asthma to act up. I watched in despair as the horse with the knight and my characters riding pillion faded into the distance.

My neighbor, Mr. Scott, looked up at me from where he knelt, weeding his begonias. "Did you loose something?" he asked.

"Just my muse." I waved him off and trudged back to the house, absently rubbing my chest, which still hurt.

My sister, and fellow writer, was waiting for me on the porch. "Did you catch him?" she questioned, clutching her fuzzy robe around herself.

"No," I said, the very picture of dejection.

She frowned. "Well you might as well come in and stop letting the neighbors gawk at us in our pajamas, you aren't going to catch him now."

I followed her into the house, chagrined to realize I really was in my pajamas. At least I had on sweats and a long sleeved shirt and not some sexy pieces of nothing I would have been wearing with a man still in my life. My bare feet were a bit chilled from the road though and I was glad to be back inside and on carpeting.

I followed her into our writing den and stared at the half finished page on my screen. I decided to ignore it and collapsed in our nest of pillows. "Damn knight," I muttered. "He's definitely the evil black knight today. I can't believe he absconded with all my characters. Now what am I going to do?! That book is due in a few days!!"

Lee had taken a seat at her computer and was typing madly away as I complained. "You can start by leaving me alone," she replied. "I have ten more poems to write before this anthology is completed and my muse hasn't deserted me. Go find something else to do."

I heaved myself out of the pillows and left the room, muttering under my breath at her. Just because her muse hadn't run away with her ideas didn't mean she had to be snippy with me.

I went first to the kitchen and cleaned up in there, washing the dishes from the night before and tidying up the room. I brewed coffee as I worked and finished the dishes just as the last drop fell into the pot.

I poured two cups and doctored one with cream, sugar, and hot chocolate. The other I left black and carried into my sister. I left it on her desk, trying not to disturb her. She grunted her thanks but didn't look up from the computer, deeply mired in her poetry.

I carried my own mug upstairs to my bedroom. I set the mug on my dresser and began to tidy. First I drew my bed curtains back and tied them to the posts. Then I made my bed, untangling the sheets and blankets and smoothing them until they lay flat. When that was done, I gathered up all of the dirty clothes and carted them down to the basement. I went back upstairs and carried Lee's clothes down too.

Once the laundry was started, I went back to the first floor and vacuumed almost every room. Mindful of the fact that Lee was working, I stayed out of the den so I didn't disturb her anymore. When I was done vacuuming I changed the laundry over and realized there wasn't any other cleaning to be done.

I jogged upstairs to my bedroom then and pulled on jeans, a bra, and a t-shirt, then went outside and took my dogs for a walk. They enjoyed the walk greatly but I didn't see any sign of my knight in tarnished armour. My muse had definitely taken off for parts unknown with all of my characters for my latest book. I was never going to finish it before my deadline.

I turned the dogs loose in the yard when I got home and went back into the house. Lee was shuffling out of the den, coffee cup clutched in her hand. "Is there more?" she asked.

"In the pot. Want something to eat?"

"Sure." She looked around. "Did you clean?"

"Yeah and I started the laundry too."

"You should try to write even with your muse gone."

I ignored her and began pulling the ingredients for an omelet out of the fridge. "If Sir Pain in the Ass wants to desert me when I'm on a deadline, that's fine. I'm not going to kill myself trying to dredge up a storyline."

After we ate, Lee offered to clean up. "Go take a shower or read or something," she instructed. "You get some of your best ideas in the shower. Maybe your muse will come back."

I decided it couldn't hurt to take her advice and left her to clean up the lunch mess. I'm a decent cook, we both are really, but I tend to leave the kitchen looking like a disaster area in need of federal aid when I'm finished.

I turned the water on in the bathroom so it would warm up before going to my room and stripping to the skin. Then I dashed back into the bathroom. The water was running hot and steaming up the room, even with the door open. I closed it, sealing the steam in, and turned the cold on slightly. Then I swung the lever over that turned the shower on and stepped inside.

I sighed in pleasure as the hot water coursed over my naked body. Even if my muse didn't come back while I was showering, at least this was relaxing. I reached for the shampoo and yelped.

The top of the shampoo bottle had morphed into my muse's head. He gave me a look. "What are you doing in the shower?" he demanded, his voice distorted by the smallness of his head. "Why aren't you writing?"

I glared back at the bottle. "Maybe I would be writing if you hadn't run off with all my ideas, my characters, and my storyline! How about coming back home?"

He shook his head. "No. It's too much fun out here. You wouldn't believe the things I've seen."

"How about coming back and letting me write about them?" I wheeled. "I could make your adventures famous. Come on, you know we're good together. All you have to do is come back and fill me in. I'll write everything down, just like you tell it to me."

His head shook and the bottle shuddered. "No! You aren't tricking me. I don't want to return yet."

I wasn't quite ready to beg but I was pretty close to it. I had to finish my current project before the deadline. I grabbed the bottle, hoping to hold him there as I considered my options. I had to make him return with my characters. The bottle vibrated in my hand and morphed back into the regular cap.

"AUGH!" I yelled and threw the bottle at the wall. He had escaped me again.

My shower ruined now, I turned off the water and stepped out to dry off. As I wrapped the towel around my body, an idea started to form in the back of my head. I felt like I could see the light bulb go on.

I raced into my room, grabbing the first clothes that came to hand and scrambled into them. I didn't even notice until I was halfway down the stairs that I had pulled my tee shirt on backwards. With an inarticulate growl, I tugged it off and put it on the right way as I dashed into the den.

I slid into my chair, grabbing the desk so I didn't roll away and quickly booted up the word processing program. My fingers flying, the story began pouring out of me.

My muse had returned after all.

There is a companion piece to this poem: "My Muse"  [E]