Gonzo
03-10-2009, 10:50 AM
Richard slipped his heavy engagement ring back onto his finger, and scrolled up through the text document, satisfied with a solid day’s writing. Several hours has passed in a blissful daze of subconscious flow, and now he was searching for an excuse to extend the narrative, to prolong this feeling like one who desperately tries to cling to a fading dream after being awoken by the sharp morning sung, as the images seep through cupped hands like water. The grim alternative was reality, and one that offered little to please Richard’s senses. He reflected on the irony of the fact that he felt so much more alive when tapping away at his comforting matte keyboard then he did when ensconced on the sofa, mumbling meaningless nothings to Laura, his fiancée.
His novel had been progressing well, and over the past few months had provided Richard with sweet relief from his own mundane existence. He had created characters with skill and wit, and had enjoyed charting their progress through his pages. Not bad for a first attempt, he thought to himself. The novel was set in the city, a vibrant place full of excitement and opportunity, his design accentuated by his own feelings of nostalgia that affects so many of us who now find ourselves in what seems to be a dull, lifeless place. For him, this was the suburb where he now lived, populated by self-satisfied middle class drones who appeared to take pleasure in the fact that they had achieved safe, secure middle-aged mediocrity, watching their lives slide past them in a stream of Saturday afternoon barbecues consisting of boasts about their latest pointless purchases, faithfully attended Church sermons on Sunday mornings where the minister delivered anecdotes that nobody was willing to admit they could not relate to, convincing themselves that it was enough simply to turn up. Those around him seemed proud to wake up in their stencil cut bedrooms, pull on the same Marks and Spencer suit and trundle off to a cubicle (or coffin, as Richard liked to think) for a day of fussing about numbers that held no relevance to reality, before returning home to an increasingly overweight wife with which a silent dinner would be eaten before the evening’s inevitable and grudging copulation.
Richard was broken from his bitter reverie on the state of suburban existence by a faint call from downstairs. ‘Just a minute,’ he called, now realizing that little could put off the evening’s dim lifelessness that awaited him. He cast desperately around, searching for some metaphor, a simile even (such was his desperation) that he could tap into his laptop and so convince himself that he did not yet need to descend to the living room, so engrossed in his work was he. Try as he might, the words proved elusive, and those ones already comfortably residing on the page seemed to mock him.
His novel had been progressing well, and over the past few months had provided Richard with sweet relief from his own mundane existence. He had created characters with skill and wit, and had enjoyed charting their progress through his pages. Not bad for a first attempt, he thought to himself. The novel was set in the city, a vibrant place full of excitement and opportunity, his design accentuated by his own feelings of nostalgia that affects so many of us who now find ourselves in what seems to be a dull, lifeless place. For him, this was the suburb where he now lived, populated by self-satisfied middle class drones who appeared to take pleasure in the fact that they had achieved safe, secure middle-aged mediocrity, watching their lives slide past them in a stream of Saturday afternoon barbecues consisting of boasts about their latest pointless purchases, faithfully attended Church sermons on Sunday mornings where the minister delivered anecdotes that nobody was willing to admit they could not relate to, convincing themselves that it was enough simply to turn up. Those around him seemed proud to wake up in their stencil cut bedrooms, pull on the same Marks and Spencer suit and trundle off to a cubicle (or coffin, as Richard liked to think) for a day of fussing about numbers that held no relevance to reality, before returning home to an increasingly overweight wife with which a silent dinner would be eaten before the evening’s inevitable and grudging copulation.
Richard was broken from his bitter reverie on the state of suburban existence by a faint call from downstairs. ‘Just a minute,’ he called, now realizing that little could put off the evening’s dim lifelessness that awaited him. He cast desperately around, searching for some metaphor, a simile even (such was his desperation) that he could tap into his laptop and so convince himself that he did not yet need to descend to the living room, so engrossed in his work was he. Try as he might, the words proved elusive, and those ones already comfortably residing on the page seemed to mock him.