DEADLINE
By marting
- 467 reads
The writer sat, staring at the defiant blue screen in front of
him.
Mesmerised by the blinking white cursor he remained motionless, lost in
himself. Once again he read the short block of text in front of him,
all the time cursing himself for getting into this situation.
He had promised the publishers, GUARANTEED that there would be
something for them tomorrow. And now here he was, no further on than he
had been two weeks ago when they had extended their deadline 'for the
last time'
' A historically accurate novel' he had told them, 'tracing the complex
lives of three generations of the same family on the Greek island of
Corfu. From the Second World War to the present day. A tale full of
twists and counter-plots, intrigue and mystery.'
That's what he had told the publishers. This was what he had in front
of him.
The sun-kissed Mediterranean Island of Corfu has, for generations been
a magnet for both historians and holidaymakers. Those who come to the
island are immersed in it's beauty and charm and transported back to a
simpler time, a gentler time, when modern stress and pressure are a
mere memory.
To bask on a secluded shore in an almost forgotten cove is to
Crap! There was no other word for it. And now he had really dropped
himself in it. The writer smiled to himself as the last two thoughts
linked arms and trotted off into the distance of his oh-so-empty
imagination.
As ideas stubbornly continued to elude him he resorted to his
usual
time-filler of exploring some of the lesser-used functions on his
machine.
His computer was by no stretch of the imagination a state of the
art
set-up, but it had become available at a knockdown price just about the
time that his trusted Olivetti portable had struck its last
full-stop.
A basic 486 fitted with WordPerfect. It did the job.
Along the top of the keyboard lay the original paper Function
Strip.
The sharp definition of the print was now well worn and, in places,
almost indecipherable. Three coloured dots had been stuck on the CTRL,
SHIFT and ALT keys, and these matched three of the same colour down the
side of the function strip. It made it easier to find the combination
of keystrokes needed to create the short cuts.
His eyes drifted across the paper strip looking for some new procedure
to explore. PRINT, SAVE, INDENT, BOLD, UNDERLINE?..
Yeah, yeah, been there, done that...
Then, as if on cue, a word did catch his eye. Not so much the fact
that
he didn't remember seeing it before, but because it seemed clearer,
brighter, cleaner than all the others.
One word, that was all.
One word.
But what a word.
UNBLOCK
The writer slowly pushed his chair back from the desk and stuffed his
hands deep into the pockets of his dressing gown. He hadn't bothered
getting dressed; there didn't seem any point these days. He stared at
the word, looked away for a moment and then looked again, fully
expecting it to have disappeared as it surely must do. But no, the
image persisted.
He thought back to the previous night. His intake hadn't been much more
than usual, a couple of cans of lager and about half a bottle of some
cheap red from the corner shop.
He stood up and went into the bathroom. In front of the mirror over the
washbasin he did all the things he had seen people in films doing. He
stretched his bottom eyelids down and looked at the whites of his
eyes.
He stuck his tongue out and then pulled it back in quickly when he saw
the colour of it.
Back at his desk, the writer gazed at the word. He interlaced his
fingers, turned his hands inside out and cracked all of his knuckles.
Then he pulled the chair in towards the desk, reached out and pressed
the key.
Immediately the screen cleared to a deep, unbroken blue. Nothing else.
For fully ten seconds the writer watched,
waited.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Then it began.
The cursor burst into life and sped across the screen at a pace far
faster than any typist. The words seemed to be falling over themselves
to be born as first a sentence, then another and soon a paragraph
appeared before the stunned, silent gaze of the writer.
The bombardment had entered its eighth day. In the small church of St
Spiridon in the heart of the old quarter of Corfu Town, fearful
penitents prayed for a respite whilst, out in the harbour the German
gunships continued their relentless attack.Close to the altar and just
by the sacred relics of the patron saint one man sat silently while all
around him the muttered invocations mingled with smoke form the votive
candles and spiralled heavenwards, more in hope than expectation.
The writer held his breath until the cursor stopped, and long
afterwards until, with an explosive gasp he gulped in lungfuls of fresh
air.
For a moment he remained motionless, lifeless almost, unable to
respond, to comprehend what he had witnessed.
He shook himself out of his stupor and re-read the paragraph. There was
no doubt about it; it was his style, his construction, and his choice
of words.
His fingers moved to the keys and then almost imperceptibly they began
to type. Slowly at first, then with increasing assurance and purpose as
the words tumbled gloriously, tempestuously onto the screen.
For fully four hours he typed, page after page, chapter upon chapter.
Without a pause or an upward glance until he had finished.
The cursor blinked.
The writer blinked.
The keystrip, tattered and stained, as it had always been lay
innocently across the top of the keyboard.
Deadline met.
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