by David Elder

Created on: April 01, 2009

A Writer's Companion

I sit cross legged, leaning back against the screen, and wondering if I've slept or if I'm sleeping now. In the distance, if distance is the appropriate word, shades of gray fade gradually into deepening obscurity. Exploration has yielded no reprieve from this expanse. Is there no escape from this existence, no release from my tortured memories? If I had known then what I know now I would have walked away from the terminal and never looked back.

It began with a simple desire to explore my capabilities as a writer, but quickly grew into an obsession as, day by day, I spent more and more hours bent over the keyboard. I was searching for that perfect phrase, that novel idea, or that heart wrenching story that would touch the soul of the audience and prove to them what I'd suspected all along; that I had greatness in me.

I think back to when my wife and I married, and long to recapture those moments of passion or even the mundane familiarity that was robbed from us by this infernal machine. I vaguely remember how it was with her at the end, how she pleaded with me to stop, and how I foolishly ignored her requests. I was only dimly aware of her departure that day when her disgust with me became too much for her to bear. If her leaving mattered to me at the time, it had been only a minor consideration. Ironically, it was my desire to provide for her that drove me to my present fate.

As the months passed I became more connected to my work, and at times I was able to assume the persona of one or the other of my characters by closing my eyes while my fingers fluttered over the keyboard with apparent mindless abandon. I found that by opening my eyes only slightly and concentrating on what they would look like, I was able to see those characters and sometimes hear the dialogue that I was creating. After my wife left me, the only time I would rise from the computer was to answer the door for pizza or Chinese food delivery, or to relieve myself when absolutely necessary.

I ignored the knocks that came intermittently at the door from the creditors who refused the online payment of the bills, and before long, only those services I truly needed to continue my work were paid for. The small and dwindling inheritance from the untimely death of my uncle had enabled me to continue my writing, acting in my mind as divine intervention and the ultimate justification of what I see now as my private mania. I disregarded hygiene as a pointless endeavor, and was eventually

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