Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1998 10:42:28 -0600 From: Robyn Herrington Subject:      [WRITERS] SUB: Halloween: In the Blood In the Blood Richard rolled the bauble around in his hand as he stared at the blank screen until he saw spots before his eyes. He'd always said that writing was in the blood, so why was it always so goddamned hard to get started then? The paperweight was just another object in a growing collection of items he'd bought for 'inspiration'. He looked around the room at all the useless items scattered from wall to wall. His small office was an antique dealerís wet dream. Some of the things, the swords in particular, he quite liked, but most of them had been purchased in hopes they held a story. Richard had read somewhere about a famous writer - Bradbury, he thought it was - who used to keep his office crammed with junk. When he didn't have a story idea, he'd just look around, pick something and start to write about it. As Richard scanned his own cramped office, he realized that nothing in it had ever inspired him. He'd never written about a single object. He should get rid of it all, but he knew he wouldn't. Just like he knew he'd sit here and stare at this paperweight all night, trying to milk a story out of it, and end up getting nothing done. Richard had spotted the bauble in an antique store downtown, and it had just called out to him. On the surface it was rather plain-looking - just a round paperweight with a dark-colored splash in the center. As he held it up to the light, though, the splash transformed. In the illumination of his desk lamp, it turned a rich, dark crimson, like a splash of blood that had been encased in a sphere of glass at the moment of impact. Richard stared long and hard into the bloody red of the bauble. Then, he sat it down and for the first time in weeks, he started to write. * * * Richard hit print and looked up to the clock as the inkjet began to hum and spit out the pages. He shook his head in disbelief. It was 5 a.m., and he had to be at work in a couple of hours. He had completely lost track of time, but on the other hand, he also had 30 pages of the most disturbing, haunting material he'd ever produced. Richard couldn't remember the last time he'd spent an entire night writing. He thought the fact that, for once, he had actually produced something worthwhile far outweighed the fact that he only had a couple of hours left to sleep. He'd catch up on the sleep tonight. Right now, he wanted to revel in his accomplishment. * * * Richard had slept fitfully for those few hours, his excitement not letting him doze off, and then he had been miserable all day at work. Despite that, the first place he went when he got home was the small office door to the right of the living room. He'd been bleary-eyed and exhausted all day, but now, as he sat in front of the computer, he was fully awake. He picked up the paperweight and stared at the bloody splash for a few minutes. As he rolled the sphere in his hands, it looked almost as though the blood were sloshing around inside the glass. He dismissed the effect as the shape of the glass, and continued to stare into its depths. Then he was writing again. * * * Richard looked to the clock on the eastern wall of the office - 6 a.m. Damn. He'd done it again. But on the bright side, he again had a stack of some of the best fiction he'd ever written. The tale that was unfolding on his computer screen was the kind that would keep Stephen King or Clive Barker up with nightmares. He looked to the trinket sitting in a place of honor by his computer, and he could almost swear it was glowing. Well, by God, he hoped it kept glowing until he finished this story. * * * The cycle repeated itself the next day. Richard barely kept his eyes open at work, but as soon as he sat down at the desk, he felt energized and started writing furiously. This time it was 8 a.m. when he finished - barely enough time for a shower and the commute. He decided to call in sick. After talking to the boss, he thought briefly of catching up on his rest, but he was a roll with this. He might as well keep at it while the words were flowing. He knew they could dry up all too quickly. Richard sat down in front of the computer. He looked again into the paperweight, and he could almost swear the splash of blood was swirling, pumping. He shook his head to clear it of the vision. It was just the exhaustion playing tricks on him. Maybe he should catch a couple of hours of sleep. No. He could pump out at least a few more pages. He began to type. * * * A knock sounded at the door, but fingers continued tapping on the keys of his computer. A key clicked in the lock, and the door to the apartment swung open. A slight, older woman, accompanied by two policemen entered. Still the fingers kept striking the keys. "He's never been late on the rent before without telling me there was going to be a problem beforehand, but itís a month overdue," she was telling the cops. "I havent even seen him leave the apartment in that time." One of the policemen, the older one, nodded and asked her to wait outside, assuring her they would find out what was going on. When the woman left, the younger officer looked to his superior. "He hasn't paid his rent in a month, hasn't been to work in a month, and hasn't picked up his mail in a month," he said. "I know what it sounds like to me." The older one nodded grimly, but then they heard the faint tapping of computer keys. He motioned to his younger counterpart, who heard it at the same time. They cautiously made their way to the door of the office, where they found him. The stench of unwashed flesh and decay assaulted them before they saw him sitting at the computer, his body already decomposing. Large clumps of hair had fallen from his head, leaving bloody sores, and he looked like he'd been dead for the better part of the month he'd been missing. Still the fingers tapped at the keyboard, although it appeared their owner was far beyond caring what they typed. The younger officer gagged and stepped back into the living room, while the older one grimaced and covered his mouth with sleeve. After a few moments, the younger one staggered back in. "What in the hell..." "Drugs," answered the older officer. "I've seen it before. Guys so strung out, they don't even know that they're dead yet. It's natural." The younger policeman doubted that - doubted it very much. This guy had been dead far longer than any drug he knew of would stay in the system. When his older companion motioned him toward the desk, he noted the hint of fear in the man's eyes, and knew he didn't believe the explanation either. He was just trying to rationalize. They approached the desk cautiously, investigating all the details of the room. The keyboard the thing was typing on was stained brown with dried blood from its fingers, and broken glass littered the area around his chair. At his side there was a stack of papers about waist high, all of them filled with thin lettering. After a moment of hesitation, the younger officer approached distastefully. He snagged a handful of the papers and retreated a few steps to look at them. He shuffled the papers and repeated the process, taking several more. After looking through them all, he looked up in confusion and shrugged. "Well?" the older officer prompted him. "I don't understand, sir," he answered. "They all say the same thing over and over." The older policeman snatched the papers out of his companion's hand impatiently and read them. "Your blood for my blood; your life for my life." ================================================================ Robyn Herrington, Editor rmherrin@ucalgary.ca New Currents in Teaching and Learning InfoServe www.ucalgary.ca/~rmherrin University of Calgary Phone: 220-2561 Leadership lifts a person's vision to higher sites, raises a person's performace to higher standards and builds a personality beyond its normal limitations -- Peter Drucker =================================================================