writer type

Writer Type
(a short story)

     Let me write this down before I forget. I have a friend named E. This friend of mine is a writer or at least he thinks he is. There is a reason why E's writing should be privileged over other writers and this is because everything he writes in his notebook becomes the equivalent of literature gold. The way this works is that when writing in the notebook, creative and neural pathways in E's brain are so stimulated that he can write a draft for a novel in a day.

      Don't inquire about the logistics of this or how his notebook never runs out of pages but what I do know is that this notebook would be coveted by artists and writers all over the world. Anything they envision in their mind would be automatically enhanced and given form through the notebook. This position that E finds himself in cannot be attributed solely to himself however, it is the notebook and not the writer that causes this dissension in the time-space-logic sphere.

      All writers want to leave something tangible on the facade of this planet, a strain of beauty, an outcry of controversy. So of all people this chance has fallen to E, whom some would argue possesses more insecurity and pretense than actual talent.The notebook provides E with an easy existence, he has molded a life for himself - that of a highly successful author who is well respected in critical circles as well. His first novel, The Transsiberian was described by the Seattle Times as "a profound inquiry into the nature of human emotion which blurs the line between prose and poetry". David Foster Wallace called E the "Jack Kerouac of a feeling deficient, ADHD generation" shortly before his death in 2008.

      All this works out very well for E because all he really does is scribble in his little notebook for a few frenzied hours and the following day after some editing he has a book so important that literature courses all over the world scramble to include it in their syllabus. Now you must be thinking that my friend here leads a pretty swell life - a financially secure and distinguished existence. However like all things that sound too good to be true, E's notebook also comes with a catch.

      The more he writes in it, the more he forgets his past. Only the other day he was telling me that an unknown woman screamed at him, claiming to be his wife of 7 years. You can imagine the shock my friend must have been in, even more so when he found evidence of this apparent marriage in the family photos he has at home. This forgetting had never been much of a problem before because it only used to erase memories that he felt he would be better off without - he forgot about the girl in college he never really fell out of love with, he forgot how estranged he was from his father, he forgot the numerous promises he made to himself about self-worth and artistic integrity. But now the notebook was erasing gigantic portions of his memory and the worst part was that he couldn't stop writing.

      So my friend flees in a panic from a wife he doesn't love and a daughter he does not recognize to this old motel a few miles outside the city. What an existence it must be, to have a seemingly perfect future yet not have any semblance of a past. Can you even make any meaningful progress on this long linear line they call time when your line is slowly fading away from back to front? Do you cease inhabiting this world and slowly transform into a wraith? We are but products of history and when history gets washed away the minutes in our lives may tick on but we stop travelling forward. I shudder at the position he finds himself in, the past and the future cannot exist independent of one another. I worry greatly for my dear friend and it saddens me to say that when I called him yesterday he showed even more signs of deterioration. I am surprised that he still remembers me and he leaves me with something to muse over before he hangs up: "The writer types all turn half-crazy in the end."

      I plan on visiting my old friend soon but I have problems of my own. I do not know why I've been clutching the same book close to my chest for the past hour. It is titled The Transsiberian and I'm holding it as if it is supposed to mean something very important to me. The walls around me are grey and unfamiliar but I am not bothered because I am too busy scribbling away on this notebook. It is important I write all of this down before I forget.

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