The Writer and a Monster

Once upon a time (at around 3am, to be more precise) there was a writer, sitting in a dark room, trying to write his story. This was a talented writer, or at least that's what people told him. (Then again, you know how people can be.) Well, anyway, this particular writer actually had a pretty neat idea. It was a steampunk-ish kinda story about a robot building another out of loneliness and accidentally invents a woman, who in turn, reinvents him. Well, I dunno, to me it sounded kinda cool.

The only problem was that this author, well, had a block. Each and every story he ever wrote came from a deep special place, which was closed to him right now. So he just sat there, feeling sleepy and sad.

There was nothing for him to do, so he put a fountain pen up his sleeve (for good luck) and just started writing. He loved that fountain pen - how it would dry up if you didn't use it regularly, and then you’d simply get nothing out of it. You had to keep writing to be a writer, just as you had to keep using the pen to keep the ink flowing.

His gaze fell on the keyboard and then his hands followed. First he just banged on the keyboard like a mad chimp. When he had his fill, he settled and started writing things, words, whatever was first to come to mind. Car, house, tree, lake, you…and then something took over him, as he twitched, rolled his eyes back showing only the whites and started hammering like mad. A voice from the inside started calling out:

“Down through the dark forest I walk by the desolate path inside you carrying your every memento, anger and pain!”

“Every scrap of hurt you force down my neck slashes, wounds and kills ME!”

“NO MORE!”

“I see you I see you I see you I see you I see you I see you I see you I see you I see you I see you I see you I see you I see you I see you I see you”

“I can touch you”

“I am here”

At the last sentence, he flinched back. To his shock, around him was nothing but darkness. His room, his laptop, even the bed underneath him, all gone, with nothing but the words "I am here" looking like they were carved into the air itself, dangling in front of his eyes for him to see.

Slowly he started feeling something grabbing him around his neck and suddenly clenching. In panic, he tried to scream, but couldn't. It picked him up into the air as if he weighed nothing and turned him around. He suddenly came face to face with a monster. It had a protruded face, large spikes coming out of the top of his head, bent backwards, large bloodred eyes. The monster looked at him and grinned a razor sharp smile, when suddenly he flinched.

Both looked down to see a fountain pen sticking out of the monster's body, right through the heart. He released his grip on the writer, sadly looked down and started to change. Slowly the spikes disappeared, slowly the claws grew shorter, slowly the eyes turned brown. At the end, the writer was looking at himself.

"I'm tired of this game”, the monster said. Slowly he grasped the fountain pen, pulled it out and dropped it on the ground. A stream of ink splashed from the pen, the drops hitting the floor and then slowly moving on their own. "I'm leaving now, down into the dark, where I belong. If you want to give up, there's the door”, the monster pointed to his left, where a door slowly creaked open. "Or you can follow me down. There might be a door there destined just for you, where all the things from your heart will come true. Or just more darkness and monsters bigger than me."

The writer took back his fountain pen, clenched it firmly in his hand and took a step toward the door. Only to close it. “I am not one to give up. Never was. Whatever happens, you got my back?" said the writer.

"I do, for as long as I am here. Just don't ask me to be the monster anymore. If I fight, it will be with these hands and in my own way."

The writer looked at him and smiled. "I wouldn't want it any other way," said he and slowly, but surely followed his monster down into the darkness. As they descended, the fountain pen in his hand began to overflow with ink again, leaving black droplets behind them. Droplets that moved on their own. And every step onwards into that thick darkness became words, words that when read back, always lead back out and into the light.

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Written by Goran Tomašić ©2014-2025