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A bizarre story about writing. |
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A thick layer of clouds covered the otherwise sunny southern California sky. Large buckets of rainwater fell to the ground like San Diego was the world’s largest touch-less car wash; I only wished that I ‘d had my car here. Old blue, what I respectively called my car, needed a good washing and waxing. Although I was walking down a deserted, wet street I kept thinking I was being followed. Then again maybe I was being paranoid because this overcoat always made me feel like a spy or at least a character in a spy novel. I couldn’t shake this feeling and it was even harder to relax when the short hairs on the back of my neck were stranding straight up. As an ordinary man I didn’t feel the need to bone up on eluding a tail skills. The only things I could think of were to keep looking over my shoulder or changing my course often enough to try and confuse my potential stalker. In the process all I ended up doing was getting myself lost in a seedy part of town. I was definitely out of my sorts here, I was just a small city boy lost in the large metropolis sprawling around me. It was getting darker and darker, not the sky but the neighborhood. I didn’t want to be in this predicament and there was only one way out of here that I could think of and that was to stop and turn around and head back to my hotel. Phone booths in this part of town lacked all of the working parts. My only hope was to wish that this was just my mind playing tricks on me and that I wasn’t really being followed. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a game and I found myself in a circle of five men, wearing the same type of raincoat and holding handguns in Ziploc plastic bags, telling me to surrender or die. I didn’t argue as I watched most of my life flash before my eyes. I don’t think anyone wants to be so scared that they see the highlight film of their life, especially when you lived the non-existent type of life that I led. Since they followed me I was pretty sure that this wasn’t just a random mugging or kidnapping. I couldn’t for the life of me, think of anyone who would arrange to have me followed or harmed. This was the most terrified I’ve ever been. A tall black man with a pocked marked face frisked me and stole a nearly full pack of bubble gum from one of my pockets. He grabbed a piece for himself before offering the pack to my other assailants. They all refused his generosity, but I never saw that pack of gum again. Before I knew it a brown panel van drove up next to where we were. It was a Chevy van and the only distinguishing mark on it was the name of a florist on the side. Truthfully I didn’t think the FTD man was apprehending me and these men didn’t look like the type to stop and smell the roses, let alone arrange them into a bouquet. Another of the five men, possibly of European descent, with a distinct odor, possibly a cheap cologne or even expensive alcohol, picked me up and abruptly through me into the vehicle. The worst part was that sudden stop and then having my hair being used as a handle as someone put a blindfold over my eyes. The total darkness from the blindfold was actually a blessing due to the migraine I felt coming on. Light only made me wince in pain while my head was splitting apart. The not being able to see where the van was going to turn, stop or even start again was harder on my equilibrium. Let me tell you that this van made more turns than a group of line dancers doing the “Funky Chicken”. The whole wobbly trip I tried to listen to the surrounding air to hopefully give the law or anyone who might be looking for me a better description of where I was taken to. My captors had the same idea and they turned on the radio to the sounds of the rock and roll of the KGB, which just happens to be the call numbers to a local San Diego radio station. When the van stopped my mind raced with thoughts of my freedom or their plans for the end of my life. I just couldn’t help thinking about why I was followed and then abruptly taken from the very sidewalk that I put my shoes to. Even if this was a case of mistaken identity I knew that my chances of leaving this very place, wherever I was, without an armored invasion were not any better than a tree finding a safe spot in a forest fire. Even less gently than what I was put into the windowless box with wheels I was taken out. Still blindfolded and now bruised, both my dignity and my body, I was led to a building. This place had to be a house because I was positive there was wood under my feet as I climbed four stairs to a wooden landing that was probably a porch. An outside door was opened. They led me through to the feel of soft carpet and then ceramic tile. Another set of stairs was quickly introduced to my weary legs. As I was being led down these new steps I could feel a damp and drafty space. This cellar was to be my new home. Once the covering was removed from my eyes and I took in my surroundings. It wasn’t as dreadful as I thought it might be or in other words it wasn’t a medieval dungeon. There were no usual implements of torture. No stonewalls, no handcuffs, and unfortunately no bed of nails. Of course there was also no DVD player, stereo, large screened television, or even a picture on the walls, which was more than torture enough. The only furniture in the room was a single bed and a small table. I could tell from just looking at it that the overhead light was covered in unbreakable Plexiglas. There were no sharp objects, no rope, string, pen, paper or any other way to commit harm to myself, unless you consider boredom harmful. My captors also surprised me when they didn’t chain me to that bed or strap me to a wall. They allowed me to roam around this room on my own free will and even left me a couple of books to read that were straight off the shelves of Writer’s Digest Books. Either my captors were writer’s themselves or they wanted to make sure that when I wrote about my adventures that I did so with style; Strunk’s Elements of Style. The other book listed nearly 400,000 synonyms and antonyms. I was perplexed as to how exactly they wanted me to use these two references books because there wasn’t any writing utensil whatsoever in my prison inside a home. The confusion was erased after a couple of hours being in that room. A portable cart was wheeled into my room by one of my new circle of unfriendly friends. On the uppermost surface of this cart was a typewriter. “Write…” said this man’s rough and uneducated voice, “or die!” The only thought that went through my head is that somehow my reputation as a writer had preceded me. It wasn’t a thought I relished or really wanted to elaborate on. There was no comfort in knowing that I now had a bunch of the world’s worst critics with guns threatening me to write. “Is there a certain topic I’m supposed to…” This is where I pick up the Roget’s Super Thesaurus and looked up a word replacement for ‘write’, “…uhm compose about?” There is a big difference between having a great reference book and actually using it…correctly. I decided, after I slaughtered my one chance to impress my newly acquired fanatics, to read the helpful hints and introductions to both of those books the next time I had a chance. The man with the smell of cheap cologne or expensive alcohol answered my next obvious question. “You will get two hours to write per day. Anything you need we will provide you.” I decided, right off, to push my luck, by asking for a dictionary and an Internet connection. The book I got the next day but the electronic window to the World Wide Web was most emphatically denied. Twenty-two hours is a lot of time to do basically nothing but think. Basically this was the only thing I was allowed to do besides eat a couple of meals and get a few hours of shut-eye. It was strange that I actually looked forward to the time when they would wheel in the typewriter and chair for me to type even though I didn’t have the foggiest notion of what I was supposed to be writing. Being of sound mind and body I leave all of my worldly possessions to my wife. This was the scariest sentence that I had ever written. With just these few words I’ve identified my biggest fear of being extinguished after I stop being useful. It exposes my personal life, my sex life and most of my commitments. I was vague and concise at the same time, and now my kidnappers knew, if they hadn’t already, knew that I had someone at home waiting and watching for my return. They also knew that I have items that I think are valuable enough to pass along to my heirs. This little bit of writing in the time I was allowed to write was not pleasing to these armed fanatics and I was punished accordingly; they brought me another reference book on writing. As I skimmed the pages of “Write Write Write” by James Stroud I saw someone’s personal notes in the margins. To me, this meant that I wasn’t the first amateur writer that these men had a fancy for. During the next twenty-two hours I paged through the books I had, which now amounted to four books, looking for handwritten notes. My only hope was that this scribbling would lead to my release and not my death. That night the dreams started… I was a prisoner to sleepless nights, endless days and to the mercy of my abductors. What made my life important enough for someone wanting to control every aspect of it? How did I get myself led into this mess and more importantly how do I get myself out of it? I’ve always been just a simple man using his writing as a release for his thoughts, imaginations and anger. The fancier things never really impressed me and I didn’t require a lot of them in my daily life. My name at the end of a manuscript didn’t strike any emotion from any editor or publisher, yet I eked out a small existence from my written pages. The next morning, when they brought in the writing cart I noticed that there was a piece of paper still in the typewriter. Upon closer examination I saw where someone had written remarks in the margins of what I had typed yesterday with lines and arrows pointing to the place that these comments were directed to. They answered my questions… Your life isn’t important to us but we, the Writing Inquisitors, are here to help you establish a routine conducive to writing. There is only one way out of here and that is to keep writing until we tell you to stop. And while we are at it, you need to start writing more than a couple of sentences in the time we allow you to sit behind the typewriter, there are others who use it after you and your inability to write is affecting them. Another book was also brought to me, this one was called, “The Pocket Muse” and in its pages were plenty of prompts for a writer whose life was a dangling participle to be inspired by. |
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