Writer's Block

    The thing is, you can't force it. You can't force it. Or maybe you can. Maybe this is forcing it, so we'll find out right now. Also, you can't overdo it. Well, you can, but you don't want to. It's bad to force it, bad to over do it, and if you do force it then you have to be careful because it's all balanced, like a chrome plate on a steel spike, spinning and staying upright. Or maybe it's a wood stick rubbing another wood stick, and they're creating warmth through friction, but not enough warmth to blacken the wood or make smoke or fire, and if you rub them too fast you overdo it and the whole thing lights up and the carpet melts and the stuff on the table burns and your neighbors are calling the fire department and eventually everyone realizes the whole building is lost. Hell, maybe that's not a bad thing. The point is, forcing it is dangerous.

    We're all fragile, too delicate for this world, and none of us are meant to make it very far. The block, the numb hand and blurry eyes, is there, just below the surface, that is until it's just above the surface and you're digging your fingers into your scalp because they won't work and she's on the couch thinking you've gone mad or rabid and wondering if you need a doctor. The block is life. We live with the block and there are moments when the block is far enough submerged to be nearly gone altogether, and that's when we really feel alive, when we really vibrate, really hum, and the world seems like it's glowing with purpose and meaning and love. Those moments are few and gin helps, but really we are bored and frustrated ninety-nine percent of the time, sitting on the block and staring down between our thighs at it and looking up and there it is in front of us as well. Maybe it looks like a group of women screaming at a joke or maybe it looks like a snowbank late in the winter, dirty with road sand, but whatever the form the block is there, uncaring and not waiting for anything. It doesn't wait to be grappled with, though it will be grappled with, and it doesn't wait to burst into flame if you force it, though indeed it may burst and burn when you force it, but rather it just sits there above or below the surface and messes with us, fragile as we are.

    Maybe the best thing is to just cut the strings and let yourself fall, to beat the block to pieces with your head, smashing and rattling your brain. Yes. This is the way to do it. Force it. Damn the torpedoes. The block is life, and the good parts are lived in between the eclipses, when the block moves aside for a moment and you finally get it together for a brief moment and it all fits together like teeth on the top and bottom jaw, clenching together, and she's sitting on the couch wondering why you're frothing, vibrating, and she's thinking that maybe you need a doctor, but the fire is burning and shining down and it's so worth it for those few seconds. It happened because it was forced and it's all teetering on the chrome spike but nothing would have happened if it hadn't been forced. Nothing to do but over do it. Bash the block and figure it out, hold on with one hand and work with the other, and that fire will etch its marks in something or other, and that's really the only option. You may not get very far, because we're not meant to, but you might, and maybe you'll get so far you can look back and not even see the column of smoke and then you'll know you made it.

Those Final Moments

    One night, when it was late and her parents had long ago made her turn out the light, Sally was startled by the unmistakable sound of a monster beneath her bed. She hadn't yet fallen asleep, but lay instead in that strange place that comes just before. Sally loved that time of night, the last few moments of the waking hours. The thoughts that came to her in that time were unlike any other. They were lighter, freer, more blissfully transcendent. She knew them only by the impression they left upon her emotions, unfelt until she woke the following morning, for Sally always slept like a good girl straight through the night. The nearness of sleep in those final moments made the thoughts impossible to retain, and as she slipped across the threshold, her memory of them would slide into her dreams and gently fade away. The next morning, she would lie on her back with the covers pulled to her chin, gazing at the imperfections in the paint on her bedroom ceiling, and she would feel the happy glow of the previous night's closing thoughts. She thought they were like the actors at the end of a play, a play that lasted all day, and as the curtain closed they would stand in a line and take one final bow before they were hidden from sight.

    It was in this comfortable place, her young mind relaxed, that Sally inhabited when she was jolted back into the dark room by the most dreadful of noises. A long, low rumble, like stones grinding together, rose up to her ears and its vibrations crawled up through the mattress springs to tickle her skeleton. Sally knew the sound well. It was the growling of a hungry stomach, and its volume and depth gave sure proof of its monstrous origin. Though the room was pitch black, Sally opened her eyes and searched frantically for the walls, the corners, anything to orient herself in the void. Her gaze locked onto the crack beneath her door, a thin line of the faintest gray, more of a light black, the only thing visible in the whole room. She tilted her head and wiggled her toes to make sure she was all covered up. She was, and so she felt safe for the moment.

    “Mommy?” she called softly. There was no answer. No sound was heard from the rest of the house. “Daddy?” she tried again. The only answer was from the monster, another growl from its cavernous stomach. This growl was louder and rumblier, but worst of all it was accompanied by a terrible wet sound that Sally knew right away was the smacking of rubbery lips. She imagined the beast's long purple tongue sliding over glistening fangs, and the beginning of a deep terror that welled up from deep inside her soul, so deep down that it was the animal part and not the human part. It came from that primal darkness that lies within every person, that forgotten place where the fear of being eaten still resides after thousands of civilized years at the top of the food chain.

    Sally was chilled to the bone, but knew that panicking was too be avoided at all costs. She knew this because she could feel herself starting to panic, and everyone's first instinct in a dangerous situation is always the wrong decision. Clenching the sheets, she forced herself to draw deep breaths. The dark air filled her tiny lungs and after several long moments she could feel her grip on the sheets loosening. She closed her eyes, telling herself she couldn't see anything anyway, even if the monster was standing right over her.

    For a minute, Sally had convinced herself that it was working, and the calm would stay with her and she would make it through the night. She would stay safe under the covers, with only the white crescent of her forehead showing. But even as her confidence began to solidify, a new sound rose from beneath the bed. It was a humid exhalation of breath from the monster's rattling throat. The sound was quieter than the rumbles, but menacing in its softness. The monster's sigh interrupted Sally's regular breaths, and the panic rose anew in her chest. She tasted bile, and the blackness of the room, the darkness behind her eyelids erupted with the unexplainable bursts of red and purple that explode across people's vision in times of excitement. She took in air in short, hurried gasps, and her thin body twisted beneath the covers in silent agony. She longed to scream, but her parents were sleeping and she could certainly not risk waking her baby brother.

    Sally was a strong, smart girl, but she could not contain her fear. The unseen menace that breathed hot air beneath her bed, hungering for her flesh, filled her mind's eye and she lost control. With the sweep of her arm, she threw back the covers. She was going to make a dash for her parents' room. She wanted nothing more than to crawl in between their big, safe bodies, and sleep soundly until morning, when she planned to ask her mother for a nightlight to put in her room. This was her plan, and she steeled herself, willing the debilitating fear aside long enough to swing her feet over the edge of the bed and stand up.

    It didn't work, of course. Sally knew, deep in her animal soul, that she was doomed. The way a rabbit runs in the last second before the hawk catches it in its talons, Sally knew that she had been caught, and her desperate attempt to escape could never work. Her foot hit the cold floor, and the monster got her. 

Sunday Afternoons

    The fence stretched around the junkyard, red and translucent and full of little holes. If I put my face up to it I could see inside at all the huge heaps of metal and plastic, the assorted detritus of an industrial civilization. Hills and mountains of discarded components, parts, pieces and shards reaching up as high as possible, as through craning their necks to see over the fence and peer at the outside world, the dingy field of dry grass, the weeds and the shrimpy trees beyond.

    There was a kid a few years past who went into the junkyard and came out in a bag. His name was Dim, which was fitting though that was actually his real name, Vietnamese or something. Dim snuck into the junkyard on a Sunday afternoon because there were no workers there at that time, of course, and no one could go in at night because of the motion sensing flood lights. Turns out no one could go in in the daytime, either.

    What the owner had done was get some black market chimpanzees, about five or six of them I think, and he trained them to act like junkyard dogs, protective and territorial and violent. They all had collars with buzzers built in, and the motion sensors on the lightposts still worked during the day. When these sensors were tripped, the collars buzzed and the chimps loped around like rabid hairy children. One chimp found Dim and it let out the most bloodcurdling hoot and all the other chimps came tearing around the trash piles or clambering straight over the tops of them. The chimps all wore fingerless gloves on their hands and their feet. The owner put them on because you can't run around in a junkyard like that with no protection. The metal and glass would cut you to pieces, and I guess the owner wanted to protect his investment, or maybe he just had a soft spot for chimpanzees.

    The chimps in their double pairs of fingerless gloves came hollering and screaming over the heaps of junk and chased Dim and he made it about ten feet from the fence before they ripped him to shreds. Sometime after that the cops got called and the owner was put in prison and all the chimps were euthanized, and Mama Dim got her son back in a watertight bag to be buried with great ceremony and much crying and moaning I'm sure, though of course I wasn't there because I didn't know him.

    I was looking for some of those copper-coated valve clamps they use on hydroturbines, not because I was building a power plant but because they look like vertebrae and I was making a twice-life-size marionette skeleton and I wanted to do it on the cheap. That's why I almost hopped the fence that Sunday afternoon, for surely in those mountains of junk there are buckets full of metal engine parts and similar things that look remarkably like parts of the human skeleton and musculature. I didn't go in, even though the chimps are all euthanized and the guy who trained them is rotting in some overcrowded cell somewhere. I heard the junkyard stayed in the family, and who knows what type of crazy the new manager is, and what his preferred defense organism is, flesh-eating bacteria or flesh-eating tigers or something even worse.

    It's obvious to me that a giant marionette made of found objects is not worth the risk of being torn apart by black market animals. Some people would face that challenge without a second thought, but I have always been the cautious sort. There are other junkyards in this town. However, I suppose I could just shoot out the bulbs in the motion sensing lights with my pellet gun from outside the fence, and then come back at night. Dim, that brave soul, would not have given up if he had been given a second chance instead of being torn apart. He was a pillar of honor, a beacon of courage. I must go get my pellet gun! We should all be as brave as Dim.

The Form Beneath

    At the corner of the courthouse, in front of a thick stone pillar and beneath a complex array of swirls and twists, there sat a man. The solid forms of leaves and ferns ringed the top of the edifice like a Roman crown, and beneath this canopy the man waited. He perched on a simple throne, with a low back and simple yet elegant armrests which his strong hands clasped tightly. His face was stern and focused, screwed securely onto a neck that was thrust slightly forward, his body leaning in toward the sidewalk with silent purpose. The robe that hung about his rigid body was long, pooling at his feet and spilling over the ledge upon which the whole white statue sat.

    I saw this man each time I walked downtown. I saw him five days a week on my way to work, and five times more on my way home. He sat there as I walked past to the post office, the mall, the video store. Unlike the portraits in the museums or the lobby of the old library, his face did not watch me as I passed. His eyes looked straight ahead in a sharp line, his unfailing gaze passing several feet over my head. I do not know who the statue was meant to commemorate, whose face was replicated in the smooth granite. His identity lost on me, the man took the form of a severe father, the lunch-time crowd at his feet a passel of unnoticed children. Though the sun never seemed to warm his stone face, I took comfort in his self-assured posture. Whatever grave thoughts moved behind those stone eyes, the man's immovable strength commanded unfailing respect.

    One day, the sky gray and forbidding, I walked down the street toward the courthouse. I was lost in my own thoughts, and by chance looked up to find the man gone. In his place sat the Angel of Death. I stopped suddenly, the person behind me dodging awkwardly and cursing under his breath. I hardly noticed, for my vision was encompassed by the black figure that loomed over me. After a few airless gulps, I caught my breath and steadied myself. As the details of the apparition before me began to collect in my mind, I realized the figure of Death was an illusion.

    The statue was wrapped in a protective shroud, the tough black cloth completely covering the man. String had been tied around the neck and shoulders, presumably to hold the wrapping in place. It had the effect of defining the shape of the form beneath, creating the image of a large specter wearing a hooded black robe. I shook the surprise off and continued walking, forgetting about the incident for the rest of the day.

    That evening, however, as returned down the same street, I was again stopped in my tracks by the chilling sight. I found myself wondering what ghostly visage was hidden within that dark hood. The dim light of the streetlamps threw strange shadows across the front of the tall stone building, the sculpted ferns transforming into the writhing tentacles of some inhuman horror, the carefully carved leaves turning into the grasping fingers of skeletal ghouls. Beneath the swirling mass of shadows sat the statue in his new garb. The image from my first encounter returned. Before me sat the Angel of Death, watching over the oblivious masses of humanity that hurried from engagement to engagement with downcast eyes. Here was a king. The courthouse that loomed over us was not just the place of man's law now, but was a symbol of the eternal judgment of Death.

    My fear had me rooted to the spot. I struggled against it, sweating and panting and finally breaking away. I hurried home, looking over my shoulder constantly. In the branches of every tree and in the darkness beside each building, I looked for him. The night passed slowly. Even when I was safe behind locked doors, my eyes rolled in my head as I searched for him.

    I stayed inside for three days. When I finally left the house and returned to work, I walked slowly. The apprehension that stirred in my gut kept me from striding freely, and so I approached the courthouse at a crawl. When I was within sight, I kept my gaze firmly on the sidewalk in front of me. My plan was to pass without looking at the phantom, but as I leveled with the corner of the building my face turned upward, as though pulled by an invisible string. As I looked upon the statue, my shoulders sagged with relief. The shroud was gone. The man, with his stern gaze and rigid white shoulders, sat before me once again. The demon was no more. I laughed as the anxiety left me, and continued on my way with clear thoughts.

    My comfort fled that night. When I passed the statue on my way home, I noticed the change. The man's expression was altered ever so slightly. The countenance, though always grim, was no longer as stalwart as I remembered. Since I had first noticed the statue years before, the assuredness that graced his noble features marked him as a courageous man. That strength of spirit was gone, that frowning boldness now vanished from his face. The horror of the past few days began to swell within me again as I saw in the man's eyes a new identity. The spirit of Death had not fled with the removal of the cloak. I could see now what lurked behind those white eyes. He looked out at the world with a fresh gravity, the serious look that is seen on the face of the hammer-man in an abbatoir or the man who throws the switch at an execution. It was not evil. It was just the discerning look of someone who is doing with calm efficiency something that must be done.

    The specter still lived within that statue. I saw it as I stood on the pavement, looking up and realizing that the eyes that had for so long looked straight out over the heads of the crowd were now looking down and meeting my gaze. A leaden weight settled on my shoulders, and a penetrating cold seeped up from the ground into my body. I felt as light as a shred of newspaper, as weak as an abandoned infant. I could see the skull behind the granite cheeks, the hollow sockets behind his eyes. I could see him for what he was: an emperor stoically guarding his land, sitting immovable on this side of the earth's crust while just beneath there hid a teeming mass of weeping souls, their hands reaching desperately up from the shadows. This was the land he governed. That night, I turned and walked away. Though I left the statue behind, the Angel of Death followed me home.

Waving

    They were there, lonely and desperate and full of hope, waving at us as we hurtled past. They could have been anyone, and were surely someone, but who exactly is irrelevant. What those people were doing out in the wilderness, at the bottom of a valley so deep they were in constant shadow, is irrelevant. The mountains were their neighbors, and the snow on the heights was cold even in the brilliant sunshine, the distant sunshine. The slopes were so steep they were impossible to climb, the grass slick and growing downhill like the feathers of a bird.

    To our left, to the south, a wild cascade of frigid water pranced down the mountainside, a child of some hidden spring, beloved by her mother. It giggled and slapped the stones, flicking spray out over the tracks. I saw it hit the valley floor with tremendous force, and it appeared suddenly violent. I knew that this momentum was born of rage, not love, and I saw the stream for what it was, a bastard child of the snowcaps, born not of the earth but of the distant, uncaring sky.

    The people standing by the tracks, their strange little cabins behind them, could feel the mist drifting down from the battered rocks. It chilled their faces as they stood in shadow at intervals along the tracks, waving their tiny hands. I could see their faces getting sucked off their bodies by the wind of the passing train, and they swept upwards through the windows and settled comfortably in their seats, like passengers returning to their car after stretching their legs for a moment outside. The faces were the picture of longing, sad and pinched in around the eyes.

    It took only a moment for each person to whip past in the gloom, and when the last figure had disappeared behind us, I looked and the empty seats were empty, the sad faces back in the wet air by the side of the tracks, looking after us and hoping. They hoped the sun would peer over the peaks and touch them, hoped the mist would stop drifting down, hoped they might be warm and dry. Mostly they hoped the train would stop.

    Beyond the cabins, following the curve of the valley, we hurtled on. A family of deer, startled by the noise, leapt from the tracks and through the brush. I turned in my seat and followed them with my eyes, and I saw them running and afraid. They climbed the slopes, their pointed feet flying over the slick grass. They headed straight upward, running towards the peaks and the sunshine.