// 6//

NOTE: this chapter is really long, so i will do everyone a favor by putting most of it under the cut

x

Getting hit by a taxi feels like having the wind knocked out of you, but the main thing that sucks about it is the part when your head collides with the asphalt. I could hear a faint scream in the back of my mind just as everything went black. It was almost as though someone was forcing me to go to sleep and I really had no say in the matter whatsoever.

In my dreams I thought back to Naomi and how pretty she looked in that summer dress when we went on our first date. Her long brown hair swaying in the breeze as we walked through central park eating ice cream cones and learning about each other with such eagerness.

I so badly wanted to curl up in that memory, to live there forever and never wake up again, but just as I had convinced myself to stay, central park faded away and I was transported to my home in Connecticut. My parents sat on the couch reading while I lay on my stomach in front of the TV, doodling on a spare piece of paper with a set of cheap crayons that had been given to me as a birthday present. The house was thick with the smell of a pot roast that was cooking in the oven.

Even though I recognized these moments as memories, there was a heightened reality about all of them. The colors popped with vibrancy and everything seemed to have a surreal look to it. Just as I was getting settled in my childhood home, the scenery changed once more.

This time, however, I couldn’t put my finger on where exactly I was. Evidently, I had been dropped in a field full of tall grass. I was having a hard time recalling ever being in a field that looked as secluded as this one, especially since I grew up in Connecticut and then moved to New York City, famous for its lack of abandoned fields.

I got to my feet and looked around for any clues of where I could be, hoping that the scenery would change for a fourth time. There was a warm and gentle breeze pulsing through the tall grass, almost as if it were breathing. After ten minutes of waiting for my surroundings to change, I gave up and began walking to what I thought would be north. I was thankful to be dressed in a jeans and a t-shirt, especially once the sun crept out from behind the clouds and thought it would be nice to warm everything up.

The tall grass began to thin out considerably as I walked along, and eventually I came up to what looked like a pathway. Following the path, it wasn’t long until I noticed more signs that I was headed in the right direction. I noticed a small fence made of fallen logs just along the edge of the woods to my left.

Soon enough, the path brought me to an intersection. As I looked both ways to try to come to a decision as to which way I ought to go, I had a considerably difficult time trying to decide which path looked better or worse. From the left, I heard the sound of hooves followed by what I thought might be a cart trailing behind it.

A short distance away, my suspicions were confirmed as a horse-drawn carriage pulled up to the intersection. A woman held the reins in one hand as she shaded her vision to get a good look at me.

“Ya need a lift into town?” She asked warmly, the wisps of her dull, brown hair fluttered in the breeze. I was hesitant to accept the woman’s kindness, but when I considered the fact that I had no idea where I was, let alone which direction I ought to walk in to get to town, I found myself nodding and hoisting myself into the seat next to her.

The back of the carriage was crammed with wooden crates filled to the brim with peaches and what I could only assume were apricots or some other brightly colored fruit. The woman waited until I was situated next to her before she set the carriage in motion.

“What’s your name, boy?” She asked, looking over at me curiously.

I cleared my throat, “My name’s Henry.”

“That’s a nice name. I like a man with a good namesake.” She smiled widely and I could see the remnants of her youth playing out in the lines of her grin. “I’m Aude.”

As the horse pulled the carriage along the dirt path, Aude told me about the fruit stand she ran in the market in the center of town. She explained that whenever she had to step out and get more fruit for the stand, her eldest daughter, Eloise, would take over.

Aude was a humble woman with three daughters and a yard full of chickens to tend to on a daily basis. Eloise, Madeleine, and Sophia could be quite troublesome at times, but Eloise usually managed to keep them all in check. Aude mentioned that I looked about her age, too, and gave me a slight nudge with her elbow.

I asked polite questions as it seemed appropriate to the conversation until the carriage began rolling over cobblestoned streets. From that point forward, I was no longer paying any attention to Aude as she talked happily about her vegetable garden and the family’s sleepy cat named Ralph that was always too lazy to catch any field mice that had made homes in the woodwork of the house.

Instead, my eyes were drawn to the people walking alongside us on the street, carrying baskets of bread and vegetables under their arms and chatting pleasantly with one another. A group of young women clad in thick, beaded jewelry sat under an awning as they crafted bracelets from deep purple thread. My senses were overwhelmed by the thick, warm smell of cooked meat and spices wafting through the air before finding a place to call home in my nostrils. It wasn’t until I smelled food that I realized I was actually quite hungry and my stomach began to rumble rather loudly.

Aude took notice shortly after, “Reach back there and grab yourself a peach, boy.” I did as I was instructed, choosing one so large it barely fit in the palms of my hands. I bit into it, juice spilling onto my cheeks and dripping from my chin, the flesh of the fruit so tender and sweet.

“I wasn’t lyin’ when I said I had the best peaches ‘round these parts,” She laughed, guiding the carriage over next to a man standing behind a counter packed with poultry. He waved to Aude as she hopped down from the carriage and began hoisting crates of peaches over to the adjacent booth.

A young girl appeared behind the counter, her hair in two long pigtails tied with purple ribbon at the bottom. She eyed me curiously as I sat in the carriage, finishing off the delectable peach and then discarding the pit on the ground. I slid down from the front of the carriage and went to help Aude unload the cart. The crates were fairly heavy, and I wasn’t exactly used to lifting things that weighed more than my cat, Doris. As I lifted one of the crates carefully and walked over to the counter, I nearly dropped it on my way, but caught myself just as I was able to set it down safely. The girl behind the counter looked as though she was holding back a laugh before she grabbed a peach from the top and bit into it before disappearing down below the counter.

I returned to the back of the cart to grab another crate of peaches and I saw a tall girl with bright ginger hair walking toward me, her arms full with a crate that looked like it was almost heavier than her. I moved to the side so that she wouldn’t run into me and she shot me a look that I took to be less than heartwarming. Shit. I probably should have offered to help her carry the crate of peaches, shouldn’t I? I mean, I may not be the strongest guy around, certainly not compared to the large man selling poultry a few feet away, but the polite thing to do would have been to at least offer my services!

Embarrassed, I continued unloading the cart in silence as Aude chatted away with the poultry man. It wasn’t long before all of the crates were stacked on the counter and created a wall of delicious, ripe, and juicy fruit. Aude finished off her conversation with the man in the booth next to hers and came over, a satisfied grin on her face.

“Haulin’ fruit is a lot harder than it looks, huh?” She asked, clapping me on the back. I grimaced as I felt my limbs already becoming sore from the manual labor.

The girl with the ginger hair walked out from behind the wall of fruit, followed by the younger girl with the blonde pigtails, and then by an even younger girl with dark brown ringlets spilling from the crown of her head. Aude introduced them as Eloise, Madeleine, and Sophia. The two youngest of the three girls waved and smiled as Eloise crossed her arms over her chest and gave a rather curt nod that showed that she at least acknowledged my presence.

“Eloise, dear, why don’t you show him around a bit? If I remember correctly, Henry’s not from around these parts, so it’d be awful kind of you to stick with him for a while.” She smiled and nudged her eldest daughter closer to me, ignoring the look of annoyance painted on her face.

Begrudgingly, Eloise lead me through the center of town past vendors selling cakes and bread and street performers juggling obscure household items.

“So if you’re not from around here, where exactly are you from?” She asked, running her fingers over a set of scarves lying on a table we passed by.

Of course I knew where I was from, but I still wasn’t sure where I was. The last thing I remember was hitting my head on the concrete as I was trying to cross the street, but that all felt so long ago. Wherever I was must’ve been deep in my conscience, tucked away behind all of my memories and thoughts. I thought for a moment before answering her question.

“I’m not exactly sure. Where exactly is ‘here’, anyway?” I asked, glancing around at the tall buildings that were incredibly top heavy and looked as though they were about to topple over at any second.

We approached what I could only assume was the town square, based on the large and majestic fountain spouting water twenty feet high in the air. Eloise and I sat on the edge of the fountain and I watched as she removed her worn leather boots to dip her toes in the cool water.

“Well right now you’re in the town of Vellum, which is about a two day trip by horse to the city of Doctrine. Basically, Vellum is more of a farm town than anything else – here, we grow produce and we trade goods, like peaches, for services, like plumbing. It’s not that exciting or anything, but it’s home, you know?” I could tell that the edge in her voice was thinning. “Over in Doctrine they do things a little different. Everyone there has to dress a certain way and greet one another in a particular manner, otherwise the King throws a hissy fit.”

“The King?”

“Oh, yeah, I should probably give you the run down on the way things work around these parts. Basically, King Malin has the final say over anything and everything that goes on. If there is a land issue, he decides how to split things up. Same thing goes for domestic disputes, too. He acts like he’s fighting for the underdog, but he’s really a total dick.”

I was almost alarmed at her crude choice of words, but then again I didn’t know what to expect from anyone anymore. “Why’s he so bad?”

Eloise shook her head, her bright ginger hair falling from behind her ears to obscure her fair. She reached a hand up to tuck the escaped hair back to its rightful place before speaking, “He just is. You’ll see what I mean.”

Suddenly, the blaring sound of trumpets filled the air and it seemed as though every person in Vellum’s town square dropped whatever it was they were doing and gathered around the fountain. Eloise pulled her feet from the water and hastily slid on her boots before dragging me onto my feet next to her. She and I backed up into the crowd until we were standing against the side of one of the buildings surrounding the town square. I looked around, confused and trying to make sense of the sudden call to attention before I noticed that Eloise was busy tying her hair into a ponytail and checking her pockets for something. It wasn’t long before she pulled out what looked like a quill with a sharp bright blue feather extruding from the end of it.

In all of my years of existence, I hadn’t even seen a proper quill right before my very own eyes, so it should come as no shock that I was surprised to see Eloise carrying one around in her pocket, never mind the fact that the feather at the end was bright blue. She touched the tip of the quill to her tongue and knelt down to the ground, marking a series of patterns on the brick beneath our feet. Coincidentally enough, the ink of her pen was just as bright as the feather, which danced around as she continued to scribble.

I looked around the town square and was taken aback by the number of people who now clutching brightly colored quills in one hand and a scrap of paper in the other. Some of the quills danced faster than others, but nearly everyone in the town square had their heads bent in concentration. If there was something I was supposed to be doing, I didn’t have the slightest clue as to what it was. In fact, I kind of just stood there with my jaw slack as I tried to understand why everyone was gathered around the large fountain, writing with such fervor that it was making me grow incredibly anxious.

Then, after a solid five minutes of silence throughout the town square, the trumpets sounded again and all of the townspeople gathered in the square immediately stopped writing. I looked down at Eloise for some hint of an explanation, but she had laid down the quill next to the words she had written on the brick near her foot. She did not look up at me or even make a sound, so I turned my attention to a young boy a few yards away. He was sitting on his knees and I could see his own scrawling on the brick, similar to the ones Eloise had been doing only moments before. I watched him carefully as he set down his small green quill, running his fingers over the words tenderly before the brick absorbed the ink like a sponge.

Amazed, I turned around to see ink vanishing everywhere that it had been written, and when I turned back to look at Eloise’s vanishing ink, there was a small bright blue ink pot sitting before her. A few yards away, a bright orange stuffed bear appeared on the ground in front of the young boy. He was overcome with joy and hugged it tight.

Could this really be happening? Did these people just write about what they wanted and then they got it? Just like that?

I was baffled by this, completely and utterly awestruck by what I could only consider to be magic or sorcery or something that you would only read on an Internet fan fiction website. I couldn’t even form words as Eloise stood up, clasping the ink pot in her left hand and the bright blue quill in her right. She deposited the inkpot in her pocket before she took notice of the alarmed expression on my face.

“Why do you have that look on your face?” She asked, twirling the quill around her fingers.

“You just… I don’t… How did you do that?!” I burst out, gesturing to the inkpot sitting comfortably in her pocket.

Eloise looked confused for a moment before she finally understood why I was so shocked. She laughed loudly, nearly doubling over in the process. I steadied her, still not entirely sure why she found my ignorance so hilarious.

“You seriously don’t have a clue what’s going on, do you?” She laughed, her face tinged with pink. “Oh man, that’s rich!”

“I don’t know! I’m not from here! All of a sudden everyone sort of just stopped what they were doing and got really serious about writing with quills!” I said defensively, my cheeks burning with embarrassment.

She finally stopped laughing and began to explain what I had just witnessed. Apparently, once a month, the people of Vellum and Doctrine are allowed to make one request. In order to make this request, three requirements must be met. The first requirement being that the request is written in ink. She flashed me the quill and then explained that the second requirement was that the request is something that the person needs or doesn’t already have in their possession. For instance, a man who is wealthy cannot ask for gold or currency, but a man who doesn’t have a penny to his name can request either of those items. The final requirement in order to request something is that the person making the request is to remain silent from the moment they begin writing until the moment they receive what they ask for.

She explained that it is important to get the proper quill; otherwise a request might go unnoticed or unprocessed. Eloise handed me her quill to hold in my hand and I noticed it was remarkably flexible and resilient, and not at all heavy in the palm of my hand. I ran the feather between my thumb and forefingers, feeling the soft and silky texture before I returned the quill back to its rightful owner.

“How exactly does one go about getting a proper quill?” I asked as she lead me away from the town square and back toward the market.

“Oh, it’s a long and arduous process.” She looked over at me, her bright green eyes glinting mischievously in the afternoon sunshine. “You have to be a skilled writer, proficient in your craft before you can even begin the process itself.”

“Well, how does one become skilled and proficient in their craft? Is there some sort of program I have to go through?”

She laughed and shook her head, “Wow, you just really don’t know anything, do you?” I rolled my eyes, tired of her mocking me. I couldn’t help it if I was oblivious to the things that were apparently common knowledge in Vellum! “Okay, okay, I’m sorry for poking fun at your expense. Listen; tomorrow I’ll help you get started on procuring a quill, all right? We have to get back to the stand anyway.”

The sun shrank down below the horizon, casting a bright orange and magenta over the once blue sky. The vendors in the town market were finishing up their last sales as they hastily loaded carts and hand trucks with crates full of whatever it was they were selling. The girls and I packed the carriage back up with peaches and I was glad that there were significantly less this time around. Once all of the crates were secured, Eloise and I crammed into the back of the carriage while Madeleine and Sophia sat up front with Aude as she steered the horse back the way we had rode into town earlier.

Read More

// 5//

It was as if the conference room had been sent into battle with one another – pens pressed hard against paper, scratching away with such ferocity that you might think it was a matter of life and death. I looked around the room with such bewilderment that I could almost hear the sound of my own coffin being crafted from the table at which I had surely sealed my own fate. Why did I think that a writing seminar would not include any writing? I silently kicked myself as I stared down at the first writing prompt on the page:

Rain.

How the hell could one word be considered to be a writing prompt? Was I really supposed to write about rain? Was that it? Did he want us to write a story about rain, or just write about rain in as much detail as possible?

I glanced around the room for some sort of clue as to what I ought to do, but I was completely stumped. I shakily pressed the pen to the page, closed my eyes tight, and wrote the first few things to come to mind.

Cold, wet, and clean – it is a chance to be reborn and sewn into the Earth in order to make something pure and new and whole.

I opened my eyes and was completely amazed by my ability to write something that wasn’t totally idiotic or nonsensical. Just as I was about to continue on that train of thought, Robert ordered us all to put our pens down. I peered over at Ellen’s page to see that it was littered with what seemed like a veritable sea of words or haikus, all scrawled in her signature bright blue ink. Shit. I knew I should have written more! Just as I was cursing my writer’s block (which, according to Robert Forte, did not exist), we were instructed to trade papers with the person to our right. I was reluctant to relinquish my measly bit of writing to the young man sitting next to me, but I loosened my grip and let the paper slip through my fingers.

To my left, Ellen slid her colorful paper in front of me, a soft smile playing on her mouth. I returned a facial expression that hinted at my lack of success with the writing prompt, hoping that she wouldn’t think I was a total loser.

Ellen had written a set of four haikus for the first writing prompt, all of them written in lowercase and written in small curvy strokes.

your fingers stay still
            rain collects inside of them
            slipping out the sides

drink me; refreshing
            filling you up from the start
            cold and wet and clean

sunshowers in spring
            bring many flowers and things
            feel the gentle breeze

heaven weeping still
            to drown out the pain and hurt
            then build it back up

To say that I was impressed with Ellen’s work would be an understatement. As I tried to pry my eyes off of the four haikus, Robert began to speak.

“In front of you is another writer’s work. For the purpose of this exercise, you are to assume that the words on the page before you are the writer’s greatest work. Perhaps even their ‘raison d’être.’ When you read these words, really read them. Absorb them into your consciousness and weave them into every fiber of your being. Chew on them and spit them back out until you are able to fully understand the reason why they have been placed on that page. Once you have gotten to that level of comprehension and received your paper back, you may then continue on to the next writing prompt. Don’t rush it. Take your time. Suck the marrow out of each word and place the remnants on a shelf in the back of your mind. Writing is more than just a process, people!”

I dissected all fifty-four bright blue words in what seemed like only a few minutes. Even though I had a difficult time coming up with my own words, thinking critically about others’ writing came surprisingly easy to me. Her use of formatting was appropriate for the topic, as was her use of lowercase. Her choice of words, though somewhat elementary, offered a sort of sweetness and innocence to the haikus that might otherwise feel misplaced in a long piece of writing. Just as I had finished sucking out the marrow of the last haiku, the young man that I had handed my writing prompt over to had slid it back my way. There were a few circles and arrows drawn around words like ‘reborn’ and ‘pure’, but there weren’t any discernable notes on the page. I remained impressed with his ability to find any marrow whatsoever in the drivel that I had managed to spew onto the page just a few moments ago.

Returning to Ellen’s set of haikus, about to hand her paper back, I got the sudden urge to write her a little note. In tiny, almost illegible handwriting parallel to her curvy blue ink, I commended her for her ability to make a larger poem out of four well-constructed haikus. I reread my note about twenty-three times before I finally pushed the paper over to my left.

For the remaining two and a half hours of the writing seminar, we continued to do more writing exercises similar to the first one, but also managing to build onto the writing done by other people as well. By the time everyone had filled up three whole pages with writing prompt responses, Robert was showing the slightest grin underneath his mustache. He collected all of the papers and selected a few at random to read out loud for the group. He did not hold back his criticism, but every bit of advice that he doled out did not fall on deaf ears. We were running out of time in the conference room, so Robert wrapped things up by commending us on our ability to collaborate with other writers and strengthen ourselves as authors. He thanked us all for coming and began to place the remaining blank writing prompts in his leather briefcase.

As soon as the room had emptied, I approached Robert just as he had finished filing away the papers into his briefcase.

“Mr. Forte, do you have a minute?” I asked tentatively.

We stood eye to eye, almost the same height. His steely blue gaze softened as he stepped forward, motioning for me to walk with him out of the conference room. “We have to leave the room anyway,” and I could see the faintest hint of a twinkle from those blue eyes.

Walking through the hallway, I found it almost amazingly easy to ask Robert questions about writing. I explained that I was having a difficult time in my own writing and I had been struggling for quite some time to complete this children’s book for my publishers. He was very understanding, nodding as I haphazardly detailed some of the events in my private life with such disdain you would think that I were confessing to a priest.

It was strange, the amount of my life that I admitted to him without actually being forced to do so. It was like he had me under a very powerful spell and I was forced to answer every question he threw at me with the such truth and honesty, it felt as though I were stuffed in a confessional with a million secrets pouring out of my mouth. Of course, I was just a twenty-five year old writer with girl problems and writing impotence. My deepest secret wasn’t anything worth remembering or even thinking about for a second time.

The front doors of the New York Public Library were within sight just as I was wrapping up my life story for Robert. Stepping outside, the cold night air nipping at our exposed skin, he stopped and turned to me.

“You keep saying you’re having a hard time writing because all this stuff has happened to you, but did you ever stop to think that maybe you are the only thing truly standing between you and finishing that children’s book?” His words hung in the air, thick and warm and full of weight.

Robert checked his watch and then clapped me on the back with his other hand, “Listen, Henry, I have to go catch a train back to my hotel room. Try not to let the words control you. After all, you’re the one writing them.” And for the first time, I was certain that a broad smile was just behind that thick mustache. “Have a goodnight, son.”

I watched Robert Forte trot down the steps of the New York Public library as I turned over his words in my mind. It had never occurred to me that I was fully in control of the words that I put on the page. Why was I having such a good time wrangling the words long enough to be able to capture them and put them down on paper?

The chilly air was beginning to freeze my nose and cause it to become stuffy just as a cloud of cigarette smoke rose in the air near the bottom of the steps of the library. I walked down the steps and, sure enough, there she was, leaning against one of the lion statues that guarded the entrance of the New York Public Library. Ellen looked up at me, the glow of her cigarette leaving a trail of smoke that wrapped around her face for a moment before she inhaled deeply and blew let the smoke fall out of her mouth like fog rolling in from the sea.

It was almost at that instant that I knew Ellen Pemberton was going to play a major part in my life, but I wasn’t exactly sure how she fit into my extremely busy schedule of not sleeping and not writing.

“D’you wanna go get a cup of coffee?” I asked, balling my hands up in my coat pockets to try and stave off any rejection.

She took another drag of the cigarette before she said a word, blowing tiny smoke rings that flew away into the cold air. “Sure.”

I smiled as she took one last thoughtful drag of her cigarette and then put it out on the lion behind her whose name was “Patience”. We made our way down the block in search of an open coffee shop, commenting on how drastically the weather had changed in the last few days.

Just as I caught sight of what looked like an open café across the street and stepped off the curb, my body crumpled into a pile and my skull became acquainted with the pavement.

// 4//

“Hello?” she asked sleepily, as though I had pulled her away from a pleasant dream.

“Ellen? Hi, this is Henry from the subway and also Professor Whitmore’s class.” Did she even remember who I was? Had I totally missed my chance because I forgot to call her sooner? My mind cycled through the typical list of awful scenarios involving embarrassment and shame until she spoke again.

“Oh, yeah, hey. What’s up?”

I hesitated, my phone frozen against my ear as Jeremy rubbed his hands together for warmth with an expectant look on his face. Now that I was standing there with her on the other end of the phone, my plan to invite her to Robert Forte’s writing seminar seemed a little half-baked. I mean, after all, she did kind of call his bluff during class on Monday. It had never occurred to me that inviting her to his writing seminar might be a bad idea or, at the very least, a step in the wrong direction for our budding friendship. Wait… Does she even consider us friends?

I realized that I had been silently arguing with myself for quite some time before Jeremy snapped his fingers in front of my face and motioned me to speak.

“Uh, I’m… Going to that writing seminar that guy is holding tonight, and… Uh,” I cleared my throat, trying my hardest to arrange the words in such a manner that they would stop tumbling out of my mouth and making me sound like a blubbering idiot. “I wanted to see if you’d like to join me.”

The line was quiet for what seemed like an eternity and I was almost positive she had hung up by the time she replied.

“Sure.”

“Oh, great! It starts at 8 and it’s at the library on fif-”

“I’ll see you there, Henry.” And then the line was dead.

Jeremy walked the few short blocks to the New York Public Library with me, animatedly educating me on some of the many benefits that come with organizing your iTunes. Even though I was trying to pay attention to his particular method of organizing, I couldn’t stop thinking about Ellen. We approached the entrance to the Library just as Jeremy got to the end of explaining his process.

“All right, listen. I have to go up town to see a man about a set of vinyls before the shop closes up, but it was nice catching up with you! I’m serious, man, don’t be a stranger. Okay?” He patted me on the back before turning to leave.

“Hey Jere!” I called out.

He spun around as he walked backward up the block.

“Thanks, man.” I smiled, waving him off before walking up the set of steps leading up to the massive building.

The New York Public Library had always been one of my favorite haunts, probably because of its history and general ornate atmosphere that was on every inch of the place. Before I had moved to New York, I dreamt of spending hours tucked away in the public library, poring over leather bound books that were older than anyone I had ever met. Now, at the age of twenty-five, I was living that dream. Of course, I didn’t spend a great amount of time there, but I made it a point to walk through the stacks of books at least once a week.

On this particular night, the library was open later than usual for the writing seminar being held in a conference room on the second floor of the building. As I made my way down the hall, I noticed a few people standing outside of a room a bit further down from me. I slid my phone from my coat pocket to make sure I was on time and noted that the meeting was scheduled to begin in twenty minutes. Deciding I had some time to kill, I broke away from the group waiting outside of the room and set out down the corridor.

One of the great things about the New York Public Library was how interesting everything was. Even the minutest piece of wall was fascinating to me, and as I walked down the hall way I ran my fingers over the wall absentmindedly. By the time I had made it to the stairwell, my phone started to vibrate in my pocket.

Ellen had sent me a text message.

Where are you? It read. I paused at the bottom of the stairwell while I tapped out a quick response. If she was asking where I was, did that mean she was already there? If she was, how did I fail to see her? I mean her hair isn’t a color that’s very hard to miss. I resolved that it would be best to go back to the conference room until the seminar began, so I turned on my heel and ran my fingers along the wall all the way back.

Before I reached the growing crowd waiting just outside of the conference room, I checked my phone to see how much time I had killed by walking around and was delighted to see a whole ten minutes had gone by unnoticed. When I looked up from my phone, I kept my eyes peeled for a bit of bright red hair in the sea of bookish-looking people in front of me. It wasn’t hard to spot Ellen leaning casually against the wall. She was sporting a mustard yellow coat and a dark grey skirt with tights, one hand clutching the small notebook that I had come to associate so closely with that bright blue pen and crooked smile.

“Hey, when did you get here?” I asked, trying to mask all traces of nervousness that might otherwise be detectable in my tone.

She looked over at me, her green eyes glinting with a sense of what I took to be mischief, “I got here about ten minutes ago. You?”

“Same. If I’d seen you, I would have stayed by the room instead of walking around,” I laughed, rubbing the back of my neck.

“Nah, it’s fine. We’re about to go in anyway.”

As the doors opened and we all began filing into the conference room, I noticed that it wasn’t a very big room at all. There were only a few long tables organized into rows, each table seating up to five people at a time, a podium at the front of the room, accompanied by Robert Forte himself.

Ellen and I were careful not to sit too close to the front of the room, remembering our previous encounter with Robert. I didn’t really know what to expect out of his writing seminar, but I was certain that it would be helpful for me at some point or another. As the murmuring in the room slowly subsided, Robert shuffled through a small stack of papers that were lying before him on the podium.

“Thank you all for showing up this evening,” He began, a slight twinkle in his eye. “Before we begin, I wanted to say make a few things clear. First things first, this is a writing seminar. You care enough about your craft to seek out a night dedicated to improving that craft, so it is important that you do at least a little bit of writing over the next two hours.

“Secondly, I know some of you might be here to cure your writer’s block, but I am going to make a statement right now that some of you may not agree with: writer’s block is not a valid excuse for poor writing. I am a firm believer that writer’s block is something that lazy writers create in order to build excuses as to why they can’t put a pen to paper and produce words. If you find yourself experiencing difficulty in the field of writing and you happen to come a long a sort of ‘block,’” Robert paused, all twenty-five people in the conference room hanging on his every word. “Simply just jump over it, dig under it, step aside it, but never turn away from it. Your duty as an author is to use your creativity and your wit to combat these little happenings that crop up in the world of literature. A good author accepts a challenge and makes due with what he or she has.”

Next to me, I could hear Ellen scribbling away in her moleskine notebook at an almost alarming speed as Robert began passing out a stack of short writing prompts and a handful of pens around the room.

“Now before you all start to groan and complain and everyone pulls out their laptops, I want you to know that, despite recent technological advances, some of the best writing is done by touching pen to paper. In all of my years as an author, I found that my work was able to grow and to flourish when I stepped away from my computer and sat down with a notebook and held a pen in my hand.

“Think of your pen as your weapon on a battlefield – it is both your offense and your defense, and it is capable of getting you out of a tight spot when you need it the most. Some writers choose pencils because they allow for many mistakes to be corrected with ease, whereas the writer who chooses the pen must select his or her words with the utmost care and forethought. Thoughts and ideas must be translated to sentences and paragraphs that flow just as vividly and coherently on the page as they do in the writer’s stream of consciousness, and while it may seem easy on the outside, it is no small task. It could even be said that the author who writes with a pen carries a heavier load up the hill, but also leaves a mark much broader than the author who writes in pencil.”

The room was quiet as the last of the pens and papers were passed around the room and we waited for further instruction. Robert folded his hands and leaned forward on the podium saying in an even tone:

“Write.”

// 3//

Robert Forte returned to the front of the room and began to list off his credentials. He was the author of four New York Times’ best-selling novels, he had written for The Wall Street Journal for fifteen years, and he lived in a house in upstate New York with his dog named Albus (presumably after Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter). Not only was this guy impressive, but also he really seemed to know his stuff. After the lecture, almost half of the class rushed to the front of the room to pick his brain and ask him to read some of the stuff they’d written. I hesitated at the door before I resolved myself to the fact that I was never going to be able to get to speak to him with all of those people crowded around him.

The halls of Columbia University were hardly ever quiet. The only time you could walk down the hallway in solitude was during finals week when nearly every student could be found in the library, preparing for the avalanche of term papers and final exams that would determine their future careers. As I made my way through the throng of people and down the front steps of the building, I noticed the crisp afternoon air that I had always associated so closely with the end of autumn and the beginning of winter. I inhaled deeply through my nose and exhaled through my mouth, smiling at the fact that I could finally see my breath suspended for a moment in the air before me. I took a moment to savor the invigoratingly chilly weather and as I did so, my eyes fell on a girl with red hair and a pink blouse smoking a cigarette only a few feet away.

“Henry, right?” She smiled as she brought the cigarette to her lips and took a drag.

I nodded, shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans so that I couldn’t fumble with anything, “So that was pretty bold of you in class today.”

Ellen exhaled a thin stream of smoke out of the side of her mouth, “Yeah, I guess.” She tucked the cigarette in the corner of her lips and began rummaging through her bag. “I was just fed up with that guy’s pompous bullshit.” She pulled out the same moleskine notebook from before and continued fishing around for her bright blue pen.

I nodded in agreement as she spoke, watching the cigarette as it shook with her every movement. “Well, at least he ended up having a few good things to say.” We moved over to a set of benches nearby, sitting down as Ellen balanced her notebook on one knee and began to scrawl something on a piece of paper.

“I mean, you just have to take everything he says with a grain of salt, you know? You can’t just blindly accept all of the advice that is handed to you. I hate that nobody asks ‘why’ anymore.” Her cigarette was almost completely burnt to ash when she looked up from her notebook, inhaled deeply, and then dropped the butt on the ground to extinguish its faint orange glow. It was quiet between us as Ellen returned to doing whatever it was she was doing in her notebook, so I just sat there feeling too cold for this thin shirt.

“Okay, Henry Stylo. I have somewhere I need to be, but I’d like for you to call me.” Ellen tore out the page in her notebook and folded it in half, placing it gently in the palm of my hand, “Would you do that?”

My fingers closed around the square of paper, the edges rough and imperfect. I nodded and tried to look like I wasn’t totally clueless as to why a very cute girl just blatantly slipped me her phone number. “I’ll… yeah,” I said, hoping it hadn’t sounded as awkward to her as it did to me. “I’ll catch you later.” She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder as she stood, giving me a small nod before she wove herself into the stream of students exiting the English building.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I was in no way, shape, or form complaining about the attention I had received from Ellen Pemberton. In fact, I was overjoyed. The last time a girl had bothered to tell me the time of day was on the twelfth of May when my ex-girlfriend decided we should see other people. I asked her what time it was, and she promptly told me to move out of her studio apartment on the lower east side. Needless to say, I was completely heartbroken. Devastated, even. It was so out of the blue for Naomi to dump me like that, and I was completely unprepared for it. I didn’t see it coming or anything! So long story short, I packed my bags, grabbed Doris, and crashed on my friend Jeremy’s couch for three weeks until I could find an apartment of my own.

Jeremy was a good guy and he would probably be my best friend if I weren’t so damn antisocial. He would always ring me up to see if I wanted to grab a drink, but I was usually too busy writing papers and watching reruns of Friends on the tiny television in my bedroom/living room. The few times that I had hung out with Jeremy were mostly post-Naomi. In an attempt to get me over my ex-girlfriend of seven years, Jeremy bought me a bottle of whiskey and hauled me to every bar within a ten-mile radius of his apartment building. Like I mentioned before, I’m not a very social guy, so even though he was nice enough to buy me booze and try to get me to meet new women, it was a lot of work for Jeremy. After the third consecutive night of playing the “let’s-prove-how-awkward-Henry-is-to-lots-of-drunk-women” game, Jeremy admitted defeat and I was able to drink and mourn my break-up like a real man should. This may or may not have been achieved by stumbling upon a Sex and the City marathon on TBS one late drunken night (I found out I was more of a Charlotte than a Samantha).

By the time I had reached my apartment and skirted past Mr. Frigoli’s door undetected, I was more than ready to kick up my feet and take a nap with Doris, but the I couldn’t quite get comfortable on the sofa bed long enough to drift off into dreamland. I tried every position I could possibly contort my body into, but it was useless. Doris looked up at me in annoyance as I slid her off of my lap and over to the empty couch cushion. I stood up and began to pace around the room for a lack of anything better to do with myself.

First I couldn’t write, and now I couldn’t sleep. Granted, it was two in the afternoon and my cheap venetian blinds were terrible at keeping the sun out of my apartment. I ran my hands through my hair as I stood before my desk, observing the closed laptop that lay in front of me. I sighed and rubbed my tired eyes as I turned away from the dreaded creation. How was I supposed to get over this God-awful writer’s block? Just last week I was writing up a storm, plowing through a twenty page research paper in only a matter of hours, and now I couldn’t type one full sentence without getting stuck.

A few days came and went, none of them quite as eventful as Monday when Ellen was introduced in my life. By Thursday night I had resolved to venture out to Robert Forte’s writing seminar. Part of me was dreading attending the seminar alone, and the other part of me was too lethargic to give a rat’s ass whether or not I was about to slip into an anxiety attack on the subway. I sat between a pair of old women chatting noisily over me about poker and water aerobics at the senior citizen center. Just as the thought of wrinkly, waterlogged old women came to the forefront of my mind, Jeremy sat down in the seat across from me.

“Jere!” I exclaimed with relief.

He smiled wide, surprised to run into me on the subway. “Whoa! Henry! Long time no see, man! How ya been?”

I shrugged, “I’ve been all right… Super busy with the children’s book and stuff.” I knew he could see right through my paper-thin lies, but I almost didn’t want to reveal just how antisocial I had been during the last six months since he had seen me.

“You look tired, man. You been sleeping much?” Jeremy inquired with a rather wary look on his face. He could probably tell by the bags under my eyes and my general outward appearance that I wasn’t actually doing very well at all. In fact, I was almost as much of a mess as I was the day Naomi kicked me out of her apartment and Jeremy tried to convince me that everything was going to be fine.

I could have lied and said I was fine or made up an excuse for completely dropping off the face of the earth for half a year, but instead I just told Jeremy the truth. It was actually kind of liberating, to sit across from him on the subway and talk about what I’ve been getting myself into. I told him about my terrible luck with girls and how I got trashed for a week straight and called Naomi at four in the morning multiple times. Once he stopped laughing, I went on to talk about my inability to write anything at all, let a lone something that would be worth reading. Then he listened as I brought up Ellen and Robert Forte.

“Wait, so this chick just gave you her number?” He asked incredulously. “Dude, the last time a girl gave you her digits, she only gave you five of them.”

I nodded sheepishly, “Believe me, I’m just as dumbfounded as you are.”

“So have you called her yet?” Jeremy asked.

“Uh… No?” It actually hadn’t occurred to me that Ellen actually did want me to call her, even though she had clearly said that she would like for me to do just that.

“Do you still have her number?” It became evident that Jeremy was going to push me to call Ellen, but what would I even say? Sorry I forgot to call you, Ellen. I got sidetracked because I was too busy wallowing in my own self-pity?

I thought about my conversation with Ellen and how awkward it had felt. I mean, yeah, she gave me her number, but she didn’t seem all that interested in me. She was paying more attention to the tobacco in her cigarette than the conversation we were having together.

Four subway stops later and Jeremy had somehow convinced me to call Ellen’s phone number. We stood just above the steps leading down to the platform while I clutched my cell phone in my gloved hands, shivering with both anticipation and the cold air that snuck its way into my coat. On the third ring, Ellen’s familiar voice came through the speaker.

// 2//

Upon entering the lecture hall, I noticed that there were significantly more bodies than there were during previous lectures. As I wondered why so many people decided to show up to class today, I wandered around until I eventually found a seat that was tucked away up in the corner of the room. I pulled my phone out to check the time when I heard a commotion at the end of the row. The girl with the stunning red hair was climbing over several peoples’ legs as she made her way to the empty seat next to me. She smiled as she settled into her seat, pulling the desk portion of the chair onto her lap. She neatly placed her moleskine notebook and a bright blue pen on the desk in front of her and turned to a clean page before speaking.

“You’re that guy from the subway, right?” She asked without looking up from her notebook.

I nodded and then realized she probably couldn’t see what I was doing, “Yeah. You go here?”

The right side of her mouth curled up into a smile as she finished writing out the date in the same curly handwriting that was on the notes from the subway. “I’m guessing you do, too. I’m Ellen.” She extended her hand toward me, her mouth still curved in that crooked smirk.

“Henry Stylo.” I replied, offering a handshake in return. Her hands were soft and fragile, but she had a grip that could make a grown man weep. She must have noticed my surprise at how firm her handshake was and she began to giggle.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to squeeze too hard!” Ellen laughed.

Before I could think of a witty response, the dull roar of the lecture hall decreased to the occasional murmur as the professor appeared at the podium. Usually, Professor Whitmore would begin the lecture by pulling up the syllabus on the projector and reminding us that our final papers are due in two weeks before he would actually start the lesson, but today was different. He was silent for a moment as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and crossed to the front of the room, his steps slow and deliberate.

“Today,” He started, his voice resonating throughout the silent lecture hall. “I wanted to give you all a little treat. My good friend, Robert Forte is in town this week for a writing seminar that he is hosting, so I asked him to come in and speak to you all this morning. I believe that Robert can really help those of you who are experiencing trouble with your writing, so if you would all please give your attention to him for the length of today’s lecture, perhaps you might learn a thing or two from him.”

Professor Whitmore gestured to the front row of seats and a handsome older man stood up and approached him. He shook Professor Whitmore’s hand before the professor retired to the seat that was previously occupied by Robert Forte. The atmosphere of the room felt the tiniest bit more energized as Robert Forte stood before us all. He looked as though he was in his mid fifties, but he had this wise and cunning look about him that was so electrifying. His hair, peppered with grey, looked almost windswept and youthful next to his thick mustache and dark mahogany blazer. It was almost as if, by looking at him, you were challenging him to a bullfight. In fact, it seemed as if Robert Forte’s presence alone could stop a bullet in mid air.

“I could stand up here and tell you everything you need to know about the art of writing,” He paused for dramatic effect. “I could also hand you all of the writing tools that you could ever possibly need and tell you how to use each and every one of them to your advantage. While that may be the easiest way to lecture a group of three hundred students that all share a vested interest in writing, that is not the way I do things.”

Students scribbled in notebooks and typed furiously on their laptops as Robert began walking up the aisle. I began shuffling through my bag for my notebook and a pen, suddenly becoming aware that the majority of what I was going to learn from this man was bound to be something I should probably write down. Just as I grabbed my notebook and pulled it out on to my lap desk, I could feel hundreds of curious eyes fall on my figure just as Robert Forte cleared his throat. Shit.

I sheepishly raised my eyes to meet his as I focused my entire mind on wiping the embarrassment off of my already crimson face. His eyes were burrowing into my soul as if they could pinpoint my weak spot and use that as a means to break me down psychologically. We held each other’s gaze for a few moments more, my body sinking into the depths of my chair as intimidation fell over me like a blanket made of chain mail. It was hard to make out under the cover of his thick mustache, but I could almost see the hint of a smirk on Robert Forte’s face before he turned back toward the front of the lecture hall.

“I don’t doubt your capabilities as writers. I do, however, doubt your ability to take your writing and turn it into a work of art.” He looked around the room as he spoke, focusing on those who seemed to be clinging to his every word.

A hand shot up next to me and before Robert could call on Ellen, she began to speak. “So basically what you’re getting at is that you think no one in this room is capable of writing anything that you would consider ‘good.’” She wiggled her bright blue pen in between her thumb and forefinger as she waited for his response.

The tension in the room was so thick that if someone had tried to cut it with a knife, the knife would probably be the first to break in two. Robert swiveled around as if he were expecting Ellen’s comment, but the look on his face didn’t show whether he was angry at her or pleasantly surprised.

“Perhaps you might like to explain your logic behind that statement, Miss…?”

“Miss Pemberton,” She replied.

“Ah, yes, Miss Pemberton. Would you care to extrapolate?” He asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he examined Ellen a little more closely.

The same crooked smile that I had been privy to only moments before returned to Ellen Pemberton’s bright coral lips; she was playing with fire and she knew it. “Well, you said it yourself: you doubt our ability to transform the words we write into anything that you would consider to be art. But, if I’m being frank here, I don’t think you have the authority to pass such a grandiose judgment on anyone in this room. We’re supposed to view you as this almighty force that can guide us through the thick and tangled underbrush of the world of writing, hoping that you will show us the way and shape us into these brilliantly poetic and fluid writers. Let’s be honest - for all we know, you could be a washed up author that has been screwed over by publishers all around the world. What I’m getting at is we know nothing about your work, and we have no reason to listen to your advice on what makes an author’s work ‘art.’”

The way she articulated her thoughts in such a sharp manner was so completely out of left field that I almost didn’t know what to think. Here was this dainty girl dressed in a light pink off-the-shoulder blouse with a grey skirt that hugged her waist; she looked as though she would rather be reading poetry or scribbling in her moleskine notebook, not voicing her disdain for the guest speaker of an English course. I was almost shocked by her dismissal of authority, but as my eyes darted from Robert Forte to Ellen Pemberton, I sensed that Robert was impressed.

Nodding and stroking his chin thoughtfully, Robert chewed on Ellen’s words for a moment before speaking to the class. “Miss Pemberton makes a valid point here: why should you take my advice? After all, I am just a fifty-five year old man teaching a writing seminar this week. I applaud Miss Pemberton’s questioning of my authority. Some of you could stand to learn a few things from her.”

// 1//

As the sun began to shine through the cheap seven-dollar blinds that I had hastily installed six months ago, I grimaced to myself as the word document lay open on my desktop. Not only did the whiteness of the page burn into my eyes, but also the cursor flashed angrily, begging me to put words down. It was getting late (or, well, I guess seven in the morning is considered early for most) and the bags underneath my eyes were growing heavier by the nanosecond. Exhaling deeply, I admitted defeat and closed my laptop. I could barely remember the last time I actually wrote something successful, and it was beginning to weigh on me that I actually might not ever get over this rough patch of writer’s block.

Through the cheap seven-dollar blinds, I could make out tinges of orange and pink and violet of the sky just beyond the New York City skyline. Well, it wasn’t much of a view from my apartment window as it was a chance to be a voyeur of the people living just across the street, but at least I had a decent landlord and a cat to keep me company. I twisted the blinds in a futile attempt to block out the rising sun before rising from my desk to shuffle off to the kitchen for a pot of coffee. It was the fourth consecutive night that I had stayed up all night trying to cure my writer’s block, but this was the first morning in which I actually had somewhere to be in a matter of hours. As I fussed about with the coffee maker, my cat, Doris, leapt onto the counter next to me. She nuzzled her cheek against the back of my hand and looked up at me with that kind of soft look that only cats can give. I rubbed behind her ears and poured some of my creamer into a dish by the sink (which was actually kind of clean for once). She mewed in appreciation before bowing her head to lap at the creamer.

Mornings are a rare thing for me, and while I have found that I am more productive when I wake up early, I have also found that I hardly ever wake up early. See, I’m more of a sleeper than a doer; I spend most of my time dreaming or wishing I was dreaming. Once, I managed to sleep for eighteen hours straight! Granted, I was very ill at the time, but that doesn’t make it any less true. With that being said, I am my most happiest when I’ve had a good night’s rest. Today was just not one of those days. I leaned against the cramped kitchen counter as Doris finished off the creamer in her dish, my hands warmed by the mug of coffee in my hands. As I nursed my coffee and my brain began to liven up, I began compiling a list of things that I really ought to do in the near future:

1. Pay Rent
2. Write
3. Laundry
4. Meet Women
5. Sleep

As I went through the newly compiled list, I came to a couple of realizations. The first realization was that my rent was due two weeks ago. The second realization was that I needed to write in order to pay my rent. And the third realization was that the other three things on my list were completely trivial and nowhere near as important as the first two things.

I continued to sip on my coffee as I walked over to my couch (which was really a fold-out bed that I hadn’t used in the last few days due to insomnia and general laziness) and sat down. Even though it was seven in the morning and I was incredibly tired and by no means thinking like a normal human being would, I almost felt like I was going to drown.

Perhaps it was the combination of thinking of important lists and the lack of creamer in my steaming mug of liquid caffeine, but my mind seemed to be working at a mile a minute. I finished off the coffee in record time and felt the weight of the mug in my hands as it cooled off. If only I could find a way to get my inspiration back, then I wouldn’t have to worry about writing so much, I thought to myself. I was signed onto a contract to produce a children’s book by the beginning of December, and the month of November was almost up. With my publishers breathing down my neck, it should come as no surprise that I found myself having a very difficult time writing the damn thing. I mean, really, it’s just a children’s book. It shouldn’t be that difficult to write, right? Sometimes when I get really worked up and bogged down with the fact that I’m a horrible writer, I find it’s best to shut my eyes and take a few deep breaths. As I did this, Doris jumped up onto the couch next to me and curled up on my lap before we both fell asleep.

Just as I had begun to slip into a fanciful dream starring Natalie Portman and Kate Winslet I heard three forceful knocks on my door. My eyes snapped open and I shot up from the couch, sending Doris flying from my lap to find take cover in her usual hiding place in located behind the toilet. I ran my one hand through my hair as I peered through the peephole to see a balding man wearing a wife beater staring back at me. It was my landlord. Shit. I unlocked the door and Mr. Frigoli shouldered his way inside.

Mr. Frigoli was a very short, squat man with a hook nose and a permanent snarl on his face, but he was definitely one of the nicest and most understanding landlords I had ever had the pleasure of living underneath. This morning, however, Mr. Frigoli wasn’t up to his usual cheery, light-hearted banter – he shuffled back and forth in his slippers, mouthing words to himself before addressing my quizzical look.

“Henry, I know this month has been a real crap shoot for ya,” Which it definitely had been. “But I need ya t’ come up with the rent by the end o’ this week or I’m gonna hafta evict ya.”

“Can’t I get a little more time, Mr. Frigoli?” I was panicking, drowning in a sea of empty word documents and angry, blinking cursors. He shook his head solemnly.

“I’m afraid ya can’t, son.” He stopped pacing and pulled out a piece of paper from the back pocket of his shorts. “I like ya, kid, and I know ya need money. I saw this in tha paper this mornin’ and thought ya might find it useful.”

I unfolded the piece of paper and read the title of the advertisement: WRITING SEMINAR. It became clear that Mr. Frigoli was having doubts about my ability as a writer, and even though it was very thoughtful of him to clip out this ad for me, I found myself a little offended. Had my writer’s block gotten so bad that I my only hope to hammer out this children’s book would be to attend a writing seminar? No, definitely not. And even if it did get that bad, what could a writing seminar even do for me? Give me tips on how to be a good writer? I’d heard every trick in the book and I’d used all of them. I didn’t need someone to lecture me for three hours about the tips and tricks to becoming a better writer. What I needed was someone to take away this writer’s block so that I could write!

Once I had gotten rid of Mr. Frigoli, I realized I only had half an hour to get ready for class and get there on time. I quickly folded up the advertisement and tucked it in the pocket of my jeans, changed my shirt, gargled with some Listerine, and flew out the door with such speed that Doris didn’t even have enough time to bug me for food.

Being an English student, there is little concern when it comes to my appearance. Usually I just run my fingers through my wavy brown hair until it falls in a pleasant manner, and then I brush my teeth and walk out the door. I hardly ever think of whether my clothes clash or have wrinkles or stains on them. As I sat on the subway, I probably should have realized that something was off when the cute girl sitting in front of me kept smiling at me and giggling to herself. She was very pretty, with long, flowing red hair that had been twisted into an elaborately unkempt braid on her left shoulder. I smiled politely back at her, but I was still unsure why I deserved attention from such a good-looking girl. She was writing something on a page in her moleskine notebook before she tore it out and leaned forward to hand it to me. Our fingers touched as I accepted the tiny piece of paper and read what she had written on it:

Your shirt is inside out.

Of course my shirt would be inside out on the one day a cute girl notices me. I could feel my cheeks flush a bright, hot crimson. The girl giggled and handed me another piece of paper:

It’s fine
x

The subway came to a halt and as we both stood up to exit, I fumbled with the strap of my bag so that we wouldn’t be walking at the same pace. I watched as she wove her way through the sea of people mulling around the platform, her head held high with confidence and poise as she disappeared up the steps leading up to the surface. Glancing at my watch, I noticed that I was, for once, going to be early to my lecture.