The Ring

Want to be a writer? I've got the right spot where you can find your true calling.

Contest Prompt

"The Writer's Cramp"  Write a story or poem about a writer who just doesn't want to stop writing..'

“You were sleep walking again.”

I blinked, rubbed the stubble on my face, shook my head. “Did I say anything this time?” ‘

“I wrote it down. You mumbled it over and over with each pacing step. Then you’d turn around, never going more than ten steps to repeat it all over again. Here, read it.”

“The silver ring goes round and round. It has no end,” I read aloud, feeling the taste of the words as I spoke them. I found myself pacing and stopped.

“You’re giving me the shivers. Does anything come to mind?”

I looked down at my restless hands, one rubbing the other, washing away some invisible torment. “No. It’s the same as last time. Not even a fragment of a dream escapes from my past.”

“Try to get some sleep.”

I nodded, went back to my corner, donned the faded warmth of my wool blanket, and closed my eyes.

There was comfort in the familiar silence beckoning me in the darkness of the night. “No worries. Only calm.” I breathed slowly in and out, counting my heartbeats, feeling the rhythm as if each one was a step taken up to ten then all over again. “The ring goes round, it never stops until the right steps are taken.”

I sat up. “Why just ten? Then I stop, turn around. Do it all over again. It makes no sense.”

My feet would not stay still. “It must be where they start that breaks the never ending chain.” I threw off my covers, found myself standing, caught my balance, and felt my feet tremble with an urge to walk on their own.

This time was different. I was awake. My eyes searched and found the beam of moonlight searching through the window. “The bewitching hour.” My heart began to race. Only at this time of night did the beam of light move to shine upon the fireplace.

A cold shiver ran through me when I took the ten steps from my bed to face the slow breathing fire of its coals. “The ring.”

The roundness of a silver ring flashed in the moonlight on the mantle. I reached out to touch it. The ring bound the pages of a manuscript together. “It was here all that time, silent as the night, waiting to speak to me.”

“You’re awake?”

“Yes. Get me paper and pen. I must write. Stir the coals. I need light.”

I moved the small end table at the edge of my bed, sat on the stones before the flickering light and read,. “The Story Of The Ring.”

“Where did you get that? What is it? I’ve never seen it before.”

I turned over the title page only to find blank ones, one after another, only ten in all. “The ring never ends.” I took the pen and ink offered to me like a sacrament, settled in place, and began to write.

I was unable to stop. When the ten pages were filled, I knew what to expect. I turned the binder over to read, only to find empty pages again.

“It is bewitched. Burn it.”

“No. I’m a writer. My muse will guide me. It's why we came here. To find the curse that is this place and bind it away. I have to get it right.” I began writing again, my hands feverish to get the story that was the ring out of my mind and onto the manuscript, finished correctly this time.

“God help you. How will you know when you’re done? Why didn’t we notice the blank manuscript before?”

“More ink. I need more ink. I’ve just about got it. It’s a horror story. Fetch me a knife. I’ll use my own blood if I have to. Maybe this time I can put an end to it and it can stop."

“What’s happening?”

"I am the pages I write. I have put myself that much into it. Me and my companion must be set free. Burn this manuscript. Bury the ring. Do not look upon it under the spell of a midnight full moon. If you do, the silver ring goes round and round. It’s story never ends."



“How strange. The blood red ink is disappearing. The pages of the manuscript are becoming empty.”

“Let’s get out of here, while we can.”

WC 721