The Writer for hire
Saturday, February 09, 2008
I sat down at my usual perch and surveyed the landscape. The restaurateur looked out of his kitchen to see who the visitor was and upon seeing my familiar visage, smiled a knowing smile and went back in. He was on my payroll, like other restaurateurs and barkeeps in this city, satisfied a great deal with the additional moolah that flowed into his coffers, as payment for the services he provided the Writer for hire.
I placed my bag on the table and took out the tools of my trade. A notebook, with easily detachable pages, and a pen. The Pen, I might repeat for dramatic effect, for this was the unmistakable symbol of my trade. This pen was synonymous to the Magnifying Glass of a Private Eye, the Spade of a Grave Robber, the Thong of a Lady of the Night and other potent symbols of a workman's or working woman's trade. I carried it with pride. The notebook was a symbol of lesser potency though. Unlike the 'pen which was mightier than the sword', Literature down the ages has been rather unclear on the symbolism of a notebook. Hence, the pen is taken out with a dramatic flourish, while the notebook gets placed on the table in a nonchalant manner.
I returned to my survey. Prospects were becoming harder to find. Was it because of the copycats who also became Writers for hire, surely after witnessing my success in the field or because of the possible drop in the novelty value of my services, I don't know. I did not worry about it, however, as peddling my services was now more challenging and as the only scion of a lineage of Writers for hire, I loved the challenge of my work. My father was a renowned Writer for hire who fell in love with and married one of his customers. He had an unhappy marriage and his wife, my mother, had left him after a few years. He did not work after that, but taught me all he knew about the trade. On his deathbed, he whispered into my ears in his dying breath, "You should fear the day when She comes along, my son." "She?", I repeated questioningly, but my father was dead.
The restaurateur came over with a bottle of wine and bent his finger in an indicative gesture. I followed the direction of the finger with my eyes and saw my quarry. Taking the bottle of wine, I headed over to her table.
"So, what is your story?", I asked her, seating myself in the vacant seat in this table-for-two, placing the wine bottle on the table, next to the notebook and pen.
She looked at my pen. I looked into her eyes. Curiosity, but no fear. A good sign. She did not fear me.
"What do you mean?", she replied. She was going to make the game harder to play, as ladies of noble birth usually do.
I continued looking into her eyes. Writers are gifted individuals, transcribing thought unto paper, but Writers for hire are more gifted than the rest of the literary clan. In addition to expressing his thoughts on papyrus, the Writer for hire is also an unparalleled observer of human nature, born with the mythical soul reading ability of a forgotten God of a pagan religion and the glib tongue of a confidence trickster. A lesser mortal might shy away from the gaze of a Writer for hire, but this lady was of noble birth. She stared right back into my eyes.
I picked up my pen and started to write. As the nib moved over the paper, constructing an ode, in the nether regions of my mind a being was being constructed. A being that was taking form, changing from shapeless clay to a curvaceous, shapely form. A female form.
I looked at her eyes, her nose and her rosy lips. I looked at her wavy hair, of burgundy colouring, flowing over her petite shoulders. I looked at her bosom. In my mind, the form slowly donned these characteristics. The form was now my Muse.
After my Muse was constructed completely, my fingers twitched, gripping my pen harder. It wouldn't stop now. I started writing furiously, weaving a tale in verse. The lady watched me curiously. She wouldn't look at my notebook, in the same way a model would not peek into a painting before the artist had completed it. However, this foible on the part of a Muse or model is what Writers for hire exploited. I stopped writing and handed her my incomplete work. And watched her face.
It must be told at this point that written communication of a romantic nature has a profound effect on the fairer gender. It has been theorized, without requisite scientific proof, that human females experience low levels of serotonin while reading a well worded missive of an amorous nature. In other words, the lady experiences the emotions of falling in love. There are numerous instances in recorded history, of a love letter written by man winning the affections of a woman.
However, the Writer for hire, as explained earlier, is not an ordinary writer. He is also a master of romantic communication. A simple love letter is not what he writes. The words crafted by a Writer for hire transcend the limits of the amorous relationship of a man and woman. He crafts a love letter to a lady, professing love from all of humanity. Universal love, in it's purest form. A lady reading such a letter would feel something that she has never experienced before, explained in a chemical sense as dangerously low levels of serotonin, literally expressed as something that cannot be expressed in human speech and is compensated by heavy breathing and moaning.
As the lady ran her fingers through her hair and crumpled the pages of my notebook in ecstasy, I asked her for my payment. This was a job well done, and as a Writer for hire I had to collect payment for my services. Most ladies would pay handsome amounts and a few would even beg me to continue writing for them. But they would all pay. They would have to pay. Otherwise, I would not complete my work. I used this as my leverage.
This lady did not ask me to continue, however. She paid me handsomely and then leaned over to whisper into my ears, "I will see you in your dreams", and left. I did not understand what she meant and assuming it to be a part of her hallucination, I paid the restaurateur his share and left.
That night, I dreamt of her. I did not remember the dream after I woke up, but I found myself thinking about her as I dressed and left for a public house to begin the day's work. The bartender nodded as I entered and pointed his thumb backwards with a smile. I had a prospect.
It did not go well. My Muse was still the lady from yesterday. My mind was supposed to be blank in the morning, devoid of a Muse as usual, but here she was, akin to an uninvited guest overstaying her welcome. I tried to re-construct my Muse, to no avail. She would not leave. My current prospect was beginning to get impatient. Fearing the loss of this prospect, I started writing, observing her carefully, extra carefully and handed it to her while it was still incomplete.
"What is this?", she asked, looking really impatient.
I read it. It was an exact copy of yesterday's work. I shook my head. I could not understand how this happened. It had never happened before. I did not know what to say. The prospect left in a huff.
I ran all the way to the restaurant. I looked around, scanning the patrons' faces, trying to find the lady from yesterday. But she was not there. The restaurateur had not seen her either.
It grew worse as the days passed. I could not work. Everytime I tried to write, the same Muse showed up on the page. She would not go away and I could not live without her. Writing her brought me pleasure. The day felt complete and I looked forward to my dreams; she showed up in every one of them. I did not understand what was happening to me, but I loved it. I went to the restaurant every day, but I could not find her. She had vanished. No one knew who she was. She..
Was she the one?
I had finally understood what my father's dying words meant.
posted by foogarky @ 3:11 AM,
11 Comments:
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At 9:28 AM,
Miss Bleh said...
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That was too good, loonan-chan!
Now ask 'her' to read it sometime :P -
At 11:28 PM,
crovean said...
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dude, really neat style... but beware... the writing style sometimes takes the zing away from the story :D
sweet!
p.s: so whos on ur amorous bullseye dayafter loons? :P
-A. -
At 6:20 AM,
said...
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You're talking about me, arent you? OH, LOVE YOU DOLL!
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At 11:58 AM,
Mihir Pathare said...
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Amazing post! I loved it. :)
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At 5:51 PM,
Unknown said...
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Very clean...
Appreciated!!!...i read dis during a computer science lecture...at the end..i had no idea wat my lecturer talked abt..i was immersed into ur writing. -
At 6:13 AM,
Oro?? Nani?? said...
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heh! ryu-san likes this! :) I do think the tone drifts a little bit from romantic/reflective to comedic. I think the piece would really benefit if you cut back on some of the comedy and verbosity hehe :)
gr8 stuff tho! -
At 2:17 AM,
Jaguar Paw said...
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"You should fear the day when She comes along, my son."
MON DIEU !!! -
At 12:13 AM,
Unknown said...
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Good story. But it could have been with a nice ending instead of a trail-away. Like a leaf in the wind. You only see the leaf falling from the tree but you cannot always tell where it will land. Try to fill in the missed out fun in your future stories when it comes to romance and love stories.
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At 4:33 AM,
said...
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Exquisite.
A fine tea time story.
Only,I thought the use of blunt scientific words like serotonin as potential candidates for trampling the monotonic environment.
If I could,I'd have gone with a literary alteration of the word or effect. -
At 4:35 AM,
"' said...
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your style is so original!!
i am jealous now! -
At 12:40 PM,
foogarky said...
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Why thank you, B.R.C.S.
I like the style I used in this too, but some feedback I have received says that it is unnecessarily verbose and it could use a lot of pruning. Ah well.
The Author
foogarky
foogarky is the pseudonym of the fictional construct who battles for supremacy with other constructed personas in the mind of a crazed individual. He describes himself as a man living in a non descript house in Rio De Janiero, Brazil with two dogs and a parakeet.
About This Blog
The Loony Lampoonist serves to parody, spoof and satirize everything that needs to be parodied, spoofed and satirized. Due to the fictional nature of this electronic journal, any anecdotes appearing here ever so often that seem to be personal in nature, would suffer from the effects of conflicting personalities, the creation of fictional events and the inclusion of non existent characters who did not make it to the big league in the author's literary works. Thus, the Loony Lampoonist is also a purgatory for characters and ideas that have missed the limelight.
