Compelled By Words

“And Sarah knew this was her death.”

“Damn cliched shit! “

Smith pounded the typewriter with a side of his fist. Forty keys met at the ribbon and stayed there. He untangled the mess and set his mind and fingers to work again, only to find that his typewriter no longer had an l, A, K, or O.

“Fuck!”

He raised the machine above his head and slammed it to the ground. The plastic frame splintered and the carriage and the ribbon rolled down the hall in two directions.

The mangled result, elevated his anger to a state of demonic rage.

Smith raised the machine a second time and slammed it to the ground. It cut a deep gash in his polished hardwood floor, the floor that had been the one visually bearable feature in this converted chicken coop he called home.

He screamed, raced to the woodpile, and grabbed an ax. In the end, what had once been the antique typewriter he’d purchased for inspiration, looked like the remains of roadkill three days after the scavengers had finished with it.

“Shit! “he screamed. “I can’t fucking write this shit! Frenzied, but exhausted, he lumbered to the kitchen, to the refrigerator, and the half-empty bottle of vodka sitting alone on top of it.

He filled his mouth, allowing the liquid to linger, as he savored the burning in his cheeks where his teeth had chewed a hole in the soft inner flesh, then swallowed and chased it with a glass of lukewarm tap water.

He repeated the ritual three more times, then sated and nearly tranquil, tramped his way to the bedroom, dropped his body on the bed, and stared mindlessly at the ceiling.

After a while, he reached over to the night table and switched on the voice recorder. He always kept a recorder near his bed in case he received inspiration in his sleep. He never did.

“February 3rd: I’ve been trying to write a story about the horrors of a woman’s life and death, but I can’t get the fucking thing to sound real, can’t get the words, can’t feel the experience. I can’t fucking write! “

Smith paused to feel his head spin, then switched the mic back on.

“I’m a writer. I may have been rejected by every major publisher in this semi-literate, reality-TV watching, pigeon-shit-eating country, but I know I’m a writer and a damn good one. Maybe I’m lazy in the imagery department. Perhaps I’m too repetitious with my pronouns, but it’s all in there.

“Too bad no one’s invented a machine that can suck it out of me. Hook it up to my head with a giant vacuum cleaner motor, feed it to a computer, then bring me my Pulitzer Prize.

“I’m a misfit. I can’t hold a job; got no friends; never been in love; never even been able to keep a woman’s interest for more than a few weeks; hate television; can’t understand music.

I’m like an X-rated movie with no redeeming social value — except for my writing skill, the one thing that legitimatizes my existence — and even in that, no one recognizes my potential.”

He thumbed off the microphone and let his arm fall where it would and lay there while alcoholic waves rolled his mind between the shore of confidence and the sea of futility. He relinquished control and rode the waves until the surf brought him close enough to shore, then jumped from the bed, tore the recorder from the table, and raced to the bathroom, stopping only for another dip and water chaser.

Smith filled the tub, plugged the recorder into the outlet above the toilet, and removed his straight razor from the medicine cabinet.

He turned on the machine, undressed, and cautiously lowered himself into the tub. The water was hot; he had to lower himself gradually, but once submerged, it felt soothing and perfect.

“February 3rd continued: The life of Edgar Allan Poe was a nightmare. It’s no wonder that his horror writings were detailed and graphic. Kerouac lived on the road, and his work directly reflected that experience.

I believe it is possible to put into words only that with which one is completely familiar. I think that my difficulty in capturing the death experience on paper is directly linked to my inability to comprehend the essence of that experience.

I have therefore decided to fill my current literary endeavor with authenticity. One can only know death by dying.

There are approximately forty minutes of recording time left in this machine. I do not know how many minutes of consciousness I will have after I open my veins, but I will continue to create, as the words come to me, for as long as I have the ability.

I assume that it is standard police procedure, once they've completed the investigation, to transfer to one’s relatives, effects of this nature. Please make certain that this recording reaches my sister, Hope.

Hope, please transpose the words in this recorder onto the manuscript entitled, ‘A Good Reason to Live.‘ You’ll find it and several poems on my desk. Please don’t mourn for me. I’m doing what I genuinely want to do, what I have to do. Enough said; time to get to work.

Sarah, razor in hand, lowered her arms into the warm water. She had read somewhere that the pain was substantially lessened when wrists are slashed under water.

She had been misinformed.

Her left wrist was easy, but the right, having been forewarned, required perseverance to force its cooperation. After a sudden effort, the right wrist too spewed its contents.

She watched distantly as the crimson swirls weaved like little snakes through the curls of her pubic hair, as they formed patterns beneath the surface before merging with the water and floating to the top.

In a matter of seconds, the tub was a pale red. For a moment, she felt dirty in the colored water, but its peaceful warmth and her encroaching dizziness soon relieved the discomfort. She lay back and enjoyed the moment.”

Smith paused to experience his own moment. He felt blissful and serene, watching the bloody water ebb and flow with his breathing. He listened to the gentle plops of the leaky faucet.

He smelled the stench of old urine and laughed at how often his aim had been off. He noticed the ceiling was spotted with a black fungus in the pattern resembling a dog, a German Shepherd, that the chips in the ceiling looked like butterflies and remembered someone once told him that butterflies were named after their yellow excreta resembling butter.

He didn’t care if it was true. He didn’t care if darning needles could fly through the eyes of camels. As he experienced the throbbing in his wrists, the buzzing in his ears, and the pulsating contractions in his head, he knew he should record all of this, but he had no words.