Untouchable
The cigarette which was clutched between his fingers had crash and burned. Its ashes left a trail of rhetoric questions. The lead of the pencil imprinted emotions, angst, confusion, introspection onto a white paper. The hands which held that pencil trembled and words got smudged at times. There was a cacophony of scratching of lead on paper and exhale of smoke. The haze created by the exhaled smoke watered his eyes and his index finger ached due to constant pressure.
He did not stop writing.
Many had asked him why he wrote.
His answer always varied and was mostly dependent on mood.
"I was bored" "Money. Girls'. Fame." "I was told I was good when I was in school. I wrote. I clicked. End of story." "Fluke"
On very rare occasions, he said, "I didn't know what else to do with the images in my head. I didn't know how to paint, so I wrote."
People called him insane and many called him genius.
"Same difference", he had laughed and also responded.
He himself never knew why he wrote. There was nothing inspiring or glamorous about it, from his perspective. He thought he wrote because he didn't know what else to do. He had surmised after much contemplation. It was that simple and it was that straightforward. At least that's what he thought.
"Your words are like your wayward lover; always around you, enticing you but never really allowing you to take complete control or make you an equal participant in the relationship", she had mused.
"I think what we have is a mother-toddler relationship; the mother always getting toddlers where she wants irrespective of how naughty they are", he had retorted and she had laughed. He thought he should write this line in one of his works. But then when he actually wrote them on paper, he felt like a pimp trying to push those words into a world of literary prostitution. Over the years, he had kept many of words to himself.
"Was it for a girl?" An interviewer had asked. He had looked at the interviewer thinking if he could ever meet a bigger schmuck than him.
"Do you think writing is like getting into an exercise regime to get into shape to impress a girl?" He had walked away from the interview and walked all of eleven and half kilometers back home burning eighteen cigarettes. Once he was back, he wrote non-stop for seven hours and talked to her for two.
"Maybe you should have said it was all for a girl", she had gently teased. He had just scoffed.
Inspiration was never from a person. It was always from an action, an image, a mirage, a memory, an emotion, a smile, a touch, a word, laughter, a suspended tear, an expression and even a sigh. The triggering factors were all around him, beckoning him to come to them.
A sensation passes through him encompassing him in its womb keeping him tucked safe from the outside predators. Once he is relieved of that sensation, he opens his eyes, takes a large gulp of smoke and picks up nearest clean sheet of paper and a pencil stub.
Seasons change, dawn turns to dusk, birds fly home, and he misses her phone calls at least seven times and ignores cravings of his body.
He continues to write.
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