Desperate, she runs into the garage, the room she retreats to where she writes. What will she say? What will come out? It doesn’t matter. Jane’s life depends on it. She throws papers off the dusty desk. Finds her laptop lying cold and dead. Or is it? She pushes the power button.
Life! She sits down as it boots up. Her heart races. Fingers itch. Now, a sound. Deafening. She stands up, looks around. What? No door? She moves to where the door had been. A solid wall of cement. Another shock of sound. Scraping.
Suddenly, a door drops down from the ceiling in front of her. She freezes in place. What’s happening?
The door knob. She reaches for it, opens it, and walks in. Four cement walls surround her.
Another shock of sound. Metallic. A heavy metal door shoots down from the ceiling. She grabs the door knob, turns it, and walks into … another cement room.
The door behind, gone, a wall in its place …no more doors to open. This is it.
I’ve waited too long.
Jane wakes up to the sound of her voice mumbling: Waited… too long.
A dream. A nightmare. A vision? Relief! So this is what’s been eating at me.
Everything else in Jane’s life has taken precedent. She hasn’t written a story in years. Nothing that comes from the guts of her, the “zone” of her. Oh she has written a column here, an advertorial there, but nothing raw, fierce, pleading for emergence. Instead, cooking, socializing, community stuff.
But, now. Now she feels desperate to create.
I know the ending: A writer, silent for years, desperate to express herself, dreams that she begins, but is stopped, shunted. It’s too late. She’s waited too long. But she wakes up. There’s still time. This time, nothing will stop her. I have the ending, the rest I can fill in…write the story backward.
Jane hasn’t felt such hope in years. Home. I am coming home … my gut, my heart.
She grabs her laptop and races into the living room. The front screen door has let in cool early morning air. A small child leans against it, chatting loudly into a toy cell phone.
She calls to the child. Please be quiet. Please please.
Nooooooooooo, the child screams back. You’re mean.
A tall lanky woman appears through the screen holding a child in her arms. Hi there, I’m your new neighbour, is there a problem?
Damn. Got to write it down before I forget it.
Come in. Sorry. A misunderstanding. I’m Jane Duvall, and you are?
Andrea Meece…this is Penelope, she says, giving her cherubic three year old a peck on the cheek. Melanie, she says, referring to the child improvising chatter on a pink plastic toy phone, is Penny’s little friend. You’re a writer, aren’t you?
You know my work?
No.
Oh.
Neighbour on the other side said so.
Ah.
A cat rubs against Jane’s leg.
Oh! I’m allergic to cats.
Sorry. She must have sneaked in, the young mom says, putting her child down and grabbing the cat. We should be going.
Yes. I need to … write something down.
The screen door slams behind them and Jane closes and locks the front door.
The door. She sees it vividly. The one in her dream. Her hand on the knob turns it, pushes the door open. She walks into a room. The door behind her disappears. She gasps. Another door appears in front of her.
Jane sits down and types what she sees, her heart wild. She will get it down this time without interruption. She will finally write again. Write freely, fearlessly, embracing the unknown.
A shock of sound. Loud. Metallic. She turns. No door. Gone. She stands up, her eyes search for an opening. There is none. Gone. Cement walls surround her.
A shock of sound. A door shoots down from the ceiling – misses her face by a hair. She opens it and walks in.
The door disappears as the Herse leads a trail of cars up the cemetery lane.
I can identify with the plight of the writer/character who may be synonymous. If there is a voice screaming to be heard, it will get out via the keyboard - before it's too late.
Your writing certainly has a suspenseful tone to it. And I get the impression that the writer character in your story reflects very much your own situation--how to find time to write with all the busyness of family life going on around you. It seems like the only time you have to write is in your dreams and perhaps when you are… Dead.
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