The Writer's Justice

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‘You’re the… the writer! Ac-Across the block!’ she stammered shoving off things from a chair and gestured.

‘I’m sorry… um… can you open a window? I need some air’ Raoul spoke indirectly while he took his seat.

The girl in shadows crossed her toes and stood silently before him.

‘I don’t really have a window.’ Then she mumbled ‘Can’t afford a place with it’

As they sat quietly for the power to come back, his apparent muse watched him keenly during his inspection of her house. The rags she wore, the sour bread on the table, nothing was amounting to his vision of her. When the lights finally came back, Raoul was fetching a glass of water and his heart sped. He didn’t want to turn around and see her fully… see that she wasn’t that entire illusion he imagined. There were other unexplained things happening; things he couldn’t comprehend. Eventually, he did have to turn and to his utter disappointment she wasn’t the picture of ease and passion.

            The first thing he saw was her. Her hair was burgundy not blond; her lips had weird freckles near them; and she sprinted in overalls. His dream muse shattered.

Oh my god he thought. She quickly fixed her glasses and wiped off paint from her fingers. That’s when he realized he actually said them aloud. A few bright colors caught his attention and he glanced away to a window.

‘I thought you said you didn’t have a window?’ Raoul exclaimed as looked at his own loft out of it.

‘Oh it’s not real!’ the young girl went to the amazingly real looking window and tapped.

‘See? Glass. I painted over it. This is the view that inspires me to work’ she rattled showing murals on her walls and designs on her furniture. But Raoul couldn’t take his eyes off her.

‘This, inspires you?’ he asked nodding towards the glass painting.

‘Yes, weirdly it does. The architecture of this building, the angels carved into them… everything about it makes me feel like a creator.’ Raoul smiled.

‘It looks very real to me’    

A few months later, he gets her a window out of which she sees exactly what she had imagined and for him? Well… he realized that after seeing her, the muse was too perfect to bring any reality in his writing. He gave it up to see Heather in all her imperfection doing what she loved.

     Raoul looks out the window to see his actual muse. Overalls weren’t the only kind of clothes she possesses he realizes. And her freckles were washable paint after all. They sometimes meet for a weekend dinner at the café round the corner. And while they eat, she pushes back a strand of her hair awkwardly. They laugh over wine, and debate about artists. Life goes back to cliché and everyday Raoul dines in heaven thinking of her. But if it weren’t for that writer’s block, he never could’ve done justice to his own writing…or to his heart. The past was something he couldn't comprehend, but like many other things in life, he didn't need to for if its meant to be it happens. Even if its in the most delusional way! 

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The Writer's Muse

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Scattered around his chair was a blanket of worded paper sheets. His eyes were sill wide as he scooped them off the floor and stacked them into a neat pile. Then he sighed. What he couldn’t do for weeks, he did within a day. And that was not normal…Especially when one doesn’t remember doing it.

‘I’m definitely dining in hell’ he thought as he methodically ate his reheated frozen dinner. Somewhere he was satisfied with his work, but when he reconsidered if it really was his, Raoul could feel a strange fear creeping. And that’s how he slept through the night, his worries manifesting as the wildest of dreams he’d ever had.

Next day, his muse was there again. She had braided her hair; some strands hung from the imprisonment and she trudged around in a long plaid blue shirt. But like always her face was something he couldn’t call concrete and that made it all the more reason to wait till she showed her straight face.

‘So carefree and…real’ he mouthed as he began his writing for the day. Cups of coffee willed him to stay awake to find out the mystery behind yesterday. But he dozed off again, waking to a similar sight.    

When the morning arrived Raoul draped a cloth over his typewriter, fixed his tie and locked his door. He was finally going to meet his source of inspiration. ‘Tonight I shall dine in heaven’ he thought as he pictured the hearty meal they’d have together and the talks they’d share as artists over glasses of wine.

Dreaming forth, he rang the bell and waited.

‘Come in!’ she called as if she knew exactly who was at her doorstep. Raoul smiled wide counting the possibility that she’d been watching him too. He turned the knob and a draft of cold musty air hit him unexpectedly. The inside was barely lit, a candle or two at every compartment of the tiny room. He could make out a figure against the orange glow, slowly approaching but his mind was wandering restlessly. She was what made him come here but now the frustration was not that he still couldn’t see her.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ she asked meekly her blue eyes judging his expensive clothing.

Raoul couldn’t reply. His eyes darted everywhere. It registered the easel and the smell of paint. What it couldn’t register was the fact that no matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find the window where it was meant to be. 

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The Writer's Block

‘Tonight, I shall dine in hell’ he said with conviction as he drew apart the curtains. Another long summer day… long enough to derive some useful work of expression. However the past few weeks were spent in tossing and moaning in bed all afternoon, caffeine and music at nights and a bunch of complaining neighbors the very next morning. Raoul didn’t seem to get past the first chapter he’d written; often wondering if that too should be deleted. Today he decided to approach his thought processing a little differently.

            For an hour he tidied up his ‘shrine’; a cozy corner desk facing his French windows. He decided to clean a bit around it just in case during a trail of awesome words, his eyes would fall on clutter. Midway arranging the snacks he’d need for inspiration, he glanced out the window and saw her. Across his loft, the morbid households were allocated, but suddenly they didn’t seem so anymore. Her open white curtains brought the glow to the tall wall of congested windows. He’d probably never seen her, and no amount of tracing back brought that ‘something’ that she carried. Raoul slid into his ebony chair while she sat on a wooden stool, legs dangling and hand positioned at her neck. She was examining the canvas in front of her, brush in the other hand. She looked like a prefect picture of ease and passion and yet her lips twitched with dissatisfaction. The more he looked at her, the more words he found to describe her every move, even when she did nothing more than brush back her hair. ‘She is it’ he mouthed slowly running his cold fingers across the keys of the typewriter.

‘She is my muse’. With a smile struggling to spread all over his face, he pulled his chair up close and started typing away to glory. He wrote nothing of her, but every word was connected with the thoughts she invoked. He occasionally applauded himself, and when his thoughts were losing momentum, one look her careless grace put him back on track. He didn’t know why he found himself waking up at twilight, lightheaded and fingers sore.

‘As if one can fall asleep of thinking too much’ he muttered to himself and he fixed his glasses. Her curtains were closed now with soft yellow light peeping and her easel was kept half against the window. But, behind it he could see her twirl around in a flowing dress, ladle in hand. He presumed that she was cooking her dinner. Raoul sighed happily and flipped on the switches to the unexpected sight on the floor. He couldn’t believe it. 

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