Monday, September 18, 2006

Writer’s mental block

A repetitive, in an almost perpetual consistency of thumping could be heard in the next room of a very thin and poorly insulated wall. This does annoy Robert, who, by deciding to be a low profile writer, stays in a low budget apartment. This noise could sound like a man who seems to be banging his head to the wall, but that would hurt, a lot. In fact, that would hurt a great deal lot that even a drunk man would either pass out from being drunk or knock himself out in pain. Repetitive thumping noises of a certain length should not be possible for any human being, which could then mean one thing, it is not a man thumping his head against the wall.
The noise was in fact his neighbor thumping a Judge’s mallet on a table, or actually more of a cheesy wooden artifact he regrettably bought overpriced in his recent trip to the next town. Now, the whole vacation doesn’t matter much as it has nothing to do with Robert, who, incidentally, also got a cheesy wooden statue from his neighbor. No, his neighbor was trying to pretend to be a judge, for, after all these years of being a lawyer, his dream of being a judge passed of as a mere dream now that he was forcefully retired due to old age, which wouldn’t be much of a problem if he didn’t usually forget everything, including going to court during the cases, or even the cases he was supposed to defend, or prosecute. Yes, the judge would have a very bad tendency of forgetfulness that only a man who wants to go to jail, or get a good laugh, would like to hire him.
This is not about the judge. No, this is about Robert, our special main character who is suffering a mental block. Since Robert is suffering a mental block, he tends to be so boring that his retired lawyer neighbor would seem to be more interesting. Even his cheesy statue would be more interesting, had it not been abstract, we could actually describe it, all that could be said about the statue is that it is abstract, brown, and disturbing. It seems to be more of a petrified cow dung shaped like a dog’s dung, however, it would be best to ask a dung expert to analyze this further. If you do find a dung expert though, as an advice from this author, DO NOT SHAKE HIS HANDS.
The lawyer gave another disturbing petrified dog dung looking statue to Robert’s other neighbor, who is now dead. Incidentally, he died at the start of the story, apparently, his life was so boring that the thought of someone writing a story about him excited him so much he died of a heart attack in the process. Nothing much could be said about him now, except that he’s dead on the floor, and not holding the statue.
Had it not been for the administrator figuring out who are still alive in this God-forsaken apartment could they have found out about the dead neighbor. The administrator/landlord actually knocks on everyone’s door at
8 PMevery night. he waits for an acknowledgement before proceeding. This is his only way to find out if he should call the medics. But this does not necessarily the best way to save lives. An old cat lady was shocked to death by a knock in the door, considering that in her previous apartment she had no one knocking in the door for almost 20 years, she never did keep friends or relatives more of staying alone. She did find it surprising to get a knock on the door all this time, and expected it might be death, and decided she should go on before he does the job for her.
Getting back to the writer, who is still holding his head and thinking of what to write, quite truthfully, he is rather dull, and there’s not much to speak of about him except that he hasn’t even written a word. In some strange way keeping to himself has not brought him any new books or articles. Keeping of the outside deprived him of something to write about, a new experience on everyday lives, about the neighbors, the landlord, or even the statue. Robert actually has a very bad imagination and keeping himself trapped in the room doesn’t help.
Eventually the story is running out of anything interesting to describe. The sun is setting again, just like it has yesterday or the days before. The neighbors go on with their usual lives, be it peculiar and strange, in some way, someone else is living the exact same life somewhere, and is starting it off as the sun rises on his side.

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