I can’t remember when I started writing exactly. I recall sitting on the floor at home watching TV and bashing away on an old typewriter that I loved. Writing always felt like an adventure. A trek into my subconscious mind. Once inside, the mission should I decide to take it, is often dreaming up things unobtainable in real life. As a boy, these dreams consisted of movie terrors from outer space. Black and white monsters from the 1950s were on high rotation most afternoons. On a secret mission, breaking the code to life itself, I imagined I worked tirelessly with a group of American scientists at an isolated outpost. In my imagination, I discover, ‘monsters that time forgot,’ frozen in a clump under the Arctic ice. Naturally, I save the day, destroy the creatures and the world is a safer place, thanks to my fertile imagination. In my backyard fantasies, I let my imagination carry me. I play with wooden pegs, turning them into astronauts, painting on space helmets. Surrounded by washing drying on a Hills Hoist, I stir up a storm in a teacup… and I write. This habit of putting down words day and night is going to be a lifetime problem, I decide.
But, puberty changes things, and the years fly by. Friends once thought precious have gone, and family passed over. Values held dear to my heart as a younger man, feel wasted, like second-hand clothes, so I wash them away. Writing feeds me when I am lost in the dark.
“Hey, you. You’re a writer, aren’t you?” I look at the timetable, pretending not to hear. “Hey, you. I know your work. I read your story online about the death of your father.”
“Do I know you?” I ask, waiting for the tram.
“Brave. I wish I could be like that. Put stuff out there, my feelings, to the universe. Just say fuck it! Seriously I want that. I do…You know, if I had time to be a writer, like you…I’d be better than you. I’d be something else, I know.” He leaves. I don’t remember his face.
I breathe freely and miss my tram. I wait. In those minutes, nothing mattered. Time stopped. Gradually my mind turns white, like a blank sheet of paper. Then, holding my imagination tightly, I write… if only I was a real person, like him. But, I’m not. Oh, well…fuck it!
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