Shitty First Drafts #2

Her ears are filled with the soft hum of the old computer tower, the susurration of traffic in the distance, and the rustle of the curtains as cold air whispers from the vent.  And then with his voice, soft, gentle, but with an iron core of command.

“Why?  Tell me why.”

“Because…”

“Write it.”

She sighs, feeling the edge of rebellion rise within her like a dull knife waiting the whetstone.  The keyboard clatters over the hum of the tower.  The obvious answer spills onto the screen.  She tightens her jaw, knowing she is pushing a boundary.

“Why?” he asks again, implacable.

She allows herself a soft hiss of frustration, too quiet for him to hear. She types another easy answer.  His response is the same, and the frustration begins to give way to another emotion as her body catches up to the realization that he isn’t going to let this go.  That this is going to dig, and it is going to hurt, and he… implacable… unmerciful… will not stop until he is finished.

Finally, she pauses and searches herself for an answer.  A real one.  Deeper than the obvious, flippant, easy…  But she doesn’t know.  She fumbles.  Grasps at emotions and writes the words that seem to fit best but even as they appear on the screen, she knows they aren’t… right… only approximations.

But her sincerity in effort is rewarded, he doesn’t ask ‘Why’ again, but rather sits back in his chair for a moment, his eyes fixed on the screen in front of her.

“You’ve written other stories; where have they come from?”

“I don’t know where the other stories come from.” It’s beginning to hurt.  A cold, tight pain in her belly, creeping into her chest.  Fragments of memory play through her mind… walking in the greenbelt, a story unfolding itself with each step until she was racing to get home to put it to print… Years earlier, in front of another old computer, a story spilling from her fingers, keys clattering at manic speed, and still the story tumbling out faster than she could type… Years before that, a child, with scraps of paper and a pencil, huddled against the trunk of a tree, scribbling out imaginary worlds, living the adventure even as the words on the paper were creating it.

He asks another question.  She types an answer.  He follows a new thread, nonfiction, she wrote it in college.

But those memories are snagged now, like fishhooks into her flesh, pulling, frightening.

I want to tell stories again…

She knows he needs the distinction, but she doesn’t give it.  She deflects, finds the annoyance again and it eases, for a moment, the fishhook pull.

“I can make it an order.”

He can.  He is Sir.  She gave him that authority a long time ago, and the pain in her stomach reaches into her chest.  Please don’t make me write…

He hasn’t made it an order, yet, so she wriggles, toeing this side of defiance.

“Why?”

This time she can’t find annoyance, this time the implacable tone is a stone wall, insurmountable, she presses herself to it, surrenders to it, lets loose her hold of her last barriers of her own.  Her head drops.  She lifts her hands from the keys and uses them to form the sign, “I don’t know…”

“Write it.  A real answer.”

She doesn’t have an answer.  She has only pain.  She offers that.

“Body scan,” Sir says.

She obeys, putting her attention into her physical self with effort.  Acknowledging each pain, moving upward, stomach, to chest.  As if her attention is air to a conflagration, the pain suddenly flares, rising, a fist clenching her throat, becoming sobs, tears…

“Why are you crying?” He asks it softly.  Curiosity, not judgment.  “Name your emotions.”

“I’m sad… and scared.”

“What are you scared of?”

Scared of failing… scared of trying… scared of reaching and finding nothing…  Scared of being seen… cored and broken.

“Have you written any stories since your dad died?”

The tears become heaving sobs and she curls into herself.  It isn’t connected, she thinks, this isn’t about my dad… but her body continues to shake even as her mind pulls away the lines that anchor it to the pains of flesh.

“It is an order.  Look over what you’ve written here.  Write a narrative of this.  Write it in third person and story tell.  Include your inner dialogue.”

Panic rises.  I can’t.  I can’t do this… I can’t write this…  Her detached mind notes the tremors that have seized her body.

“Stop it.” The softness is gone from his voice.  “I’m here with you, I will help you, you can do it, you will not spin out.”

Struggling to master her breathing, tears still streaking, she finishes the post and opens a new screen.  The blankness is a barrow wraith, sucking need and hatefulness.

“What can you hear?” he asks.

She glances at him.  “What?”

“Tell me the sounds in the room right now.”

She knows the trick, he uses it often.  Sometimes he maintains the pretense of simply wishing to know what he can’t hear for himself.  Tonight he doesn’t pretend he is doing anything other than grounding her in the physical world, deflecting her panic.  She chooses not to think about it and focuses on the task.  Listening.  Slowly focusing, identifying, naming.

“Now write it.”

The keyboard begins to clatter.