Writers Block

It was a dark and stormy night, aspens sighed and creaked in the tempestuous gusts, the Airedale in the window of the quaint Cape Cod emitted three short spaced barks as the weather beaten visage of the parson passed slowly and solemnly below on the pebbled slabs of concrete sidewalk made uneven by the gnarled roots of the failing ancient elm. It’s magnificent canopy once home to hawks and Cardinals was now reduced to few and sparse remnants and stumps with squirrels and raccoons sheltering in the hollow stumps which were all that remained yet still produced a meager handful of bright green foliage each Spring and turned golden before dropping in the subsequent Fall. Upstairs the young writer waited, fingers poised above the classic ivory keys polished smooth by fingers long before his own fingers were ever formed and felt the electric aura of the unread, unpublished, unsung icons of the olden glory days. Johnson and Walczak and Anderson! As he sipped his Earl Grey tea the muffled sound of a knock and creak of slightly rusted hinges on the screen door which had holes large enough for Mrs. Murphey’s cat to hop through and kept nothing from entering and so her kitchen was merry with the antics of a multitude of flies in the Summer and moths in the early warm evenings.

They began to speak, her in rich melodious tones lilting with the shadow of her mother’s native Carlingford on the wild coast of eastern Ireland, she often spoke longingly of the times before the bloody brits ruined everything. He began to type, slowly at first, with short deliberate strokes the smell of light machine oil began to replace the recent aroma of the tea as the pins began to warm in their pivots and the quick slap of steel die letters began their rhythmic slap on the cool bright white bonded page before him and his cheap thoughts began to soil paper with his most twisted filth. Below the bed creaked as it sagged under the weight of first the parson and then his still shy lover as she began to dim each of seven lamps in the small tidy room and at each lamp removed first her grey woolen sweater and then her brightly dyed scarf and so on until she stood before him clad in her last remnant of modesty and heard the mechanical whir through the ceiling above her head. The staccato sound resumed, she removed the garment and extinguished the last remaining illumination from the small votive rose scented candle by the bed and gave herself into his arms. The keys began to feel soft and warm beneath his fingers as they caressed and stroked the seemingly endless stream of fucks and sucks and cocks onto the once virgin sheets as the bedsprings below began to protest in earnest and the flimsy wooden headboard began to slap against the wall echoing through the hollow studs and sharp cries and gentle moans with bits of monosyllabic conversation no longer hushed and indistinct as the pages began to fly he no longer stacked them now soiled with the excrement of his mind but let them tumble to the floor. His hero’s blade dripped crimson, the naked corpse before the hard sparkling black diamond of his remaining eye and observed with satisfaction the final quivers and twitches of her body the lovers below gave a final simultaneous exclamation and began to gasp and suckle against each other’s pale aged flesh once firm with promise of youth but now wrinkled like an old couch blanket with the rippled mottled color and texture of soft warm cottage cheese.

Good morning David! Good morning Mrs. Murphy. I hope I didn’t keep you awake last night, I had the parson over last night and we had the radio on a bit loudly I’m afraid. No Mrs. Murphy, its fine. I was concerned I might keep you awake with my typewriter. Oh no dear boy I hardly notice and I don’t mind the sound anyway. You know one hardly ever hears that sound anymore, it’s really quite nostalgic you see as my first husband often wrote in the evenings but of course that was a long time ago. Mrs. Murphy? Yes, David. I want you! Well of course you do, why don’t you come inside and we’ll have tea first…