After running his errand, Hampton returned to his campus dormitory running at full tilt. He was soaked to the skin. His final sprint had not beaten a sudden cloud burst. He quickly changed into dry clothes and draped his wet garments on his roommate’s chair to dry. Aaron was gone for the long holiday weekend. Their dorm room was sparsely furnished, bleakly accentuated by corpse-colored, barren walls. Neither of them had made an effort to change the room’s drabness. Hampton’s class schedule next week was not burdensome, so for the next few days he wouldn’t need to spend a lot of time preparing for classes. This is what Hampton had desired for some time. Absolute quiet time. There would be no distractions. He could begin work on the Great American Novel. He had been formulating a detailed outline for months. The book was in him and screaming to get out. This was not like the attempts of others in similar quests. No sir. This was to be guided by Divine Literary Inspiration. This tome would be his mission in life. There would be no hackneyed phraseology in the book. His words would be crisp and subtle, yet meaningful. He envisioned Churchillian prose, Shakepearean dialog, and Hemingway conciseness. He sat down to write at his study table shrouded in the subdued glow of a small lamp. The rain, now driven by a brisk wind,  slammed noisily on the window panes. Hampton peered around at his Spartan lodgings. He was confident the creative electricity in his inspired syntax would spark off the pages and figuratively illuminate his drab environment, while enlightening the world. He picked up his pen. The world was waiting as he leaned toward a crisp sheet of blank paper.  He wrote the first words of what he felt would be his ticket to the Pulitzer Prize….

“It was a stark and dormy night.”

Copyright © 2009 by Frank Koerner