A Writer's Hero Journey...Part 5
Writer’s Block…
Something had gone terribly wrong in the Forum postings. I can sense Creative Voice battling his own demons as I focus on what had gone awry. He’d successfully cleared out the political forums before moving deeper into the abyss…
I can see him in the middle of a large classroom…blackboards are covered in obscure cryptic chalk markings…wooden desks and chairs are overturned and smoldering. Creative Voice is panting…sweat poring off his brow…a broken pencil is clutched in a clenched fist.
His green tights are ripped and the tazer appears to be losing steam…he’s fighting a battle of attrition that he can’t possibly win.
I try to identify the killing fields on which Creative Voice has staked his flag. I looked closer at the chalkboard hieroglyphics. Sentence diagram? With a growing sense of dread…it slowly dawns on me where he had chosen to force battle…The Grammar Forums…
“That goddamn fool...” I mutter.
I quickly look for Homer. He’s sitting above the fray on a hammock eating donuts. I’m glad…he likes hammocks. Creative Voice, through the skillful use of the ellipse…enough said…that’s what ellipses are for…
Bad News for Faye…
I explain the situation to Faye.
“Is Homer OK?” She asks worried.
“Yeah.” I tell her that he's sitting on a hammock eating donuts while chattering about things that didn’t violate our legal restrictions.
“Oh good,” says Faye, “He likes hammocks. Well Creative Voice is dumb for going in there! We should continue.”
I hesitate. “Well here’s the thing Faye… with him distracted…I kind of have writer’s block…”
Faye stares at me.
“What the fuck Thomas? I have to get to Burning Man!!” I understood…still…this was becoming a rather tired chestnut…
“Hold on, just let me think for a minute!” I bark back. I will bark when I’m stressed. Usually I will take a nap when I’m stressed, but sometimes I bark.
All this typing of barking sends me mentally searching for Truman. He’s jumping back and forth (doing the doggy-grin thing), tail flailing every which way while drool drips from his tongue. He’s excited…this wasn’t spider excitement…this was something different…
I’m in a mild panic. Writers block sucks and there’s no real way to determine how long it will last. The situation was exasperated by daggers of anger flying from Faye’s entire face. I’m busy combing my memory for a literary exit from this conundrum. We’re in a tight spot.
(It’s the most awesome expression of Radical self-reliance, ever!) Erika??
Upon hearing the mental, Burning Man-borne, exhortation from my roommate…a memory clicks. Self-reliance? Found within our nightly complaints before the TV…a seed of salvation sprouts for our current circumstances…
Good News for Faye…
“Wait!” I immediately start dumping my mental filing cabinets on the floor as I search for what I’m looking for… I quickly go through and discard the detris of four decades of cultural reference points…
Old ideas…a mood ring…half-baked theories…twice baked potatoes…The Six-Million Dollar Man…my grammas’ old bread recipe…glimpses of memories…an old dried up chia pet…some dialogue from a long-forgotten Brady Bunch episode…I was getting close…
“Here it is!!” I yell triumphantly as I stand up. Faye comes running over on her 6-inch heels.
“What? What have you figured out?” She asks excitedly.
“OK. You know how on TV…there’s never anything original on? Everything’s just a rehash of what went before? Absolutely no originality?”
“Yeah.”
I hold up the script that I had found amidst my mental rummaging, “If we build a raft and launch it from the other side of the island--before the headhunters attack…we should be saved.” I report happily.
“You are going to use an old Gilligan’s Island episode to get us out of here?” Faye asks doubtfully. “Didn’t their plans always fail?”
“Your right!” I’m busy searching for old script ideas from Hogan’s Heroes when it occurs to me…
“Say Faye, you ever watch the Wizard of Oz?” I inquire.
“Uh-huh.”
“OK…you remember that scene after the mean apple trees? When they run through that poppy field?” I probe.
Faye thinks about it. “Where they just kind of ran along…passed out…woke up and everything was good?”
“Yeah.’ I say with an arched eyebrow. “Creative Voice has my weed…”
Faye pulls out a blunt (I can’t even to begin to imagine from where). “Sounds good,” she says,” but I don’t want to hang out in a field…you want to go to Lake Tahoe?”
Faye’s Mental Man Trap…
We’re looking at the beautiful, azure, alpine lake. The lake was high this year due to a late winter snow melt-off and as a result, much of the beach had surrendered to the higher water table.
We sit next to each other on a large rock as the late afternoon sun dances across the water. Lapping waves serve as the backdrop to our conversation as we smoke the blunt.
I reflect on the mental connection I was sharing with Creative Voice, Truman, Homer, and Internal CD player. This is a cool little world I’ve invented.
I suddenly realize that next time I see Faye in the real world…I probably wouldn’t have these powers…
Faye has always intrigued me…
With Internal CD player out of commission (on a Section 8 no less), I borrowed from Tupac Shakur for my musical inspiration for this little side mission. I planned on ‘sneaking in just like a robbery’. I wasn’t going to steal anything…or even do anything weird in her closet…I just want to see how Faye has her mental furniture laid out…
My penetration will be gentle and discreet. I’ll look around, take a couple of quick snapshots of her intellectual floor plan, perhaps water her mental plants, and be gone…my touch was to be feather light…
When I enter, warning alarms begin sounding, flares shoot into the sky, and clarion bells begin ringing loudly as I’m captured in a steel vice that traps me in the foyer of Faye’s mind. I look around in panic…several other male interlopers are entrapped in caged devices about the room.
We’re all stripped naked, exposed to the elements, with our testicles looped about our ears. I can’t help but feeling as if my internal battery packs is dangerously exposed to all manner of predations’.
Two small cages sit, unused, along the far wall…
“Um…F(pfft)aye…” I begin…speaking around the ball-gag in my mouth…
“Yes, Thomas?” She asks calmly while puffing on the blunt and looking out across the lake.
“Wo(pfft)uld it (pfft) O (pfft) K …Co(pfft)me dow(pfft)n….
“Do you plan on behaving?”
“Uh(pfft)huh.”
Released from Faye’s Vulcan mind meld…I’m sitting on the rock next to her and taking the weed from her proffered hand.
“Sorry about that.” I tell her as I discreetly monitor the integrity of my internal battery pack. “That was pretty scary…”
“Boys can be stupid, Thomas,” She says.
I’m actual proof of that statement.
I have to ask, “So what’s with the little cages on the side?”
“I’ve had problems with midgets.” She admits.
“I can imagine.” I say as I begin to imagine it...
(End Part 5)
