The Death Of An Unpublished Writer

By Sudipta Das

Animesh couldn’t figure out for the longest time how some dried up cloths hanging in an apartment balcony at the other end of the street could bring him to such uncontrollable tears, especially when he couldn’t bring himself to remember the last time he sobbed in such a way in public. He was used to crying in poorly lit rooms, it almost worked as one of the triggers for him and the reasons were always very impersonal, a movie, a book or something he saw on social media. Though, the crowd was nonexistent at the café he was sitting, the only person other than him was the fifty five year old owner, who sat at the counter most of the time, always busied himself with his chores and occasionally with a book, his eyes didn’t escape Animesh’s unsettlement. He miserably failed at suppressing his emotions again and again making his woe painfully glaring even though it was impossible for him to trace the basis of all and had to let himself go. The kind of refuge the mind seeks in order to quietly cry, he had already found that in the café, as he had been coming for some time now.

‘Tranquil’ must be the word the coffee shop owner had used when he listed this café on the internet. This is the kind of café where everything was supposed to be absurdly overpriced for it was immense, had all the possibilities of becoming a charming destination for affluent coffee lovers and also it resided in the middle of nothing and everything. But it was reasonable and inexpensive, seemed to be renovated half-heartedly yet placed very conveniently at a brisk walking distance of ten minutes from the city main road in an opulent neighborhood. The most decent food there was banana cake and it came at more decent price. Unlike other café’s now-a-days, the whole café was a smoking zone as there were no air conditioners, only few French windows which were opened all the time. Apart from the location and the fact he could smoke anywhere in the cafe, he didn’t really fancy anything else there, the yellow paint of the wall, the cheap metal folding chairs painted in light purple blue, the plastic table top, the entrance with a nasty squeak and even when he had a dispute over the tables being within sniffing distance resulted a coffee spillage on him from the adjacent table on a busy Sunday when he had first started to visit the place, yet at odd hours, the café was usually empty and noiseless. A bus ride of half an hour in almost empty road at weekday afternoons and fifteen minutes of sauntering through posh, picturesque neighborhood was the least he could do to get rid of his boredom.

He especially liked the walk and the empty balconies of every house fascinated him. He had never seen a single soul hovered on those balconies, but usually, it had cloths, a lot of them. He could make out a lot about the people who lived in those big houses by looking at their cloths. Sometimes, he took notes about them and gazed at strangers a lot those days.

That day, when he walked in, there was a total silence in the café as always except the sporadic sound of the coffee vending machine, and occasional howling of dogs on a quiet afternoon. The routine was fairly simple, he came in around lunch time, never made the owner get up from his seat for his order, instead, went up to the counter for his daily espresso and occasional banana cake, sat at a table near one of the windows and smoked until his coffee was ready. He also kept his notebooks open which were filled by scribbles and doodles and notes about peoples and things he saw on a daily basis. These notebooks came out of the closet often in those days for he had a lot of time. And he had lots of time for the reason he was sacked from his job, since he had punched one of his teammates on the face in a team meeting. A broken nose, an almost uprooted tooth and a gulp of spilled out blood could not evoke even a pinch of remorse, rather it was weights off his shoulders and he took immense pleasure in hiding behind his bad temper.

The owner and the customer never had tried to engage themselves in a conversation with each other in spite of the fact they were the only people existed in that café at this hour for the last few months. And also the customer had another secret reason. He wanted to write a screenplay, a noir mystery. He had always wanted to be a writer except his job was holding him back. And now he was free.

But it was not as easy as he had thought. He had been coming here since he lost his job and sitting for hours, sometimes with a book, trying to come up with ideas for his screenplay, though most of the ideas he could put together were either a sequel of a book or a movie he had read or seen earlier, or an alternate ending to one of his favorite novels or occasional an idea where everything was so simple and transparent. On a given day, either he liked everything he wrote or nothing at all.

After months of searching and trying in vain, that day, he decided to not to look for any idea as it had trapped him in a way. He was not feeling as free. Rather he looked at occasional bicycles through the swaying leaves of an unknown tree by the window, observed those people who had to come to this neighborhood only by means of their business and stayed most of their days and nights outside the premises of those gorgeous looking houses, eventually what was outside of those houses became the inside of their house. Most of his life was spent in the inside, the directness and uninhibited atrocities of outside world always baffled him. He envied people who just use their own house to only sleep and nothing else; yet they always want to go home, most of them anyways. The urge to go home is so apparent and seems so natural yet so deceptive that one could easily hide in plain sight behind this idea, he thought to himself and with that, one vague notion was beginning to take shape in his mind and when he could get a grasp of it, it was another idea for his screenplay.

The writer went with the motion knowing very well this could well be another failed attempt and yet almost raved in that notebook of his as things came to him. Though, as he finished, he sat with a reasonable doubt for its authenticity was not out of the question yet. He doubted himself more than his idea and yearned for something more substantial, a sign from the universe perhaps.

But there were none yet. Eventually, he digressed into drawing a lying dog in shadow casted by this café. The dog was lying at the edge of shadow and whenever shadow broadened a little because of setting sun, the creature was repositioning itself just out of shadow again, taking same pose as though it was modeling for the writer. That made him chuckle a bit even though the doodle was not that satisfying, (and he knew it too as he was looking for ways to improve his drawing). He was not as proficient he was supposed to be after doodling and sketching his whole life.

The writer never had this big of a window anywhere he lived or even stayed for a while. He looked out those windows involuntarily more than the times he meant to look. It’s easy to forget the existence of something when it’s not in one’s face at every moment and he forgot about the window. And next time he discovered himself, his eyes were full of tears for the reason unknown to him. He suspected those dried up cloths that seemed so close to him all of a sudden. He didn’t know and didn’t want to know the exact reason for his tears had no intention to stop. He also noticed the owner was watching him from a distance and felt a little embarrassed because of that. In wanting to divert his mind hopelessly, he again went back to his screenplay.

Just to make it more believable, he put left hand in his leaned forward forehead as the elbow was rested on the table and other hand pretended to write. His heart was beating faster than usual and he felt nausea, yet couldn’t bring himself to make a trip to washroom despite his agonizing attempt. In that moment, all the faces he knew in real life were popping up in his mind to fit the characters of his screenplay. Funnily enough, all of his villains were his friends with ulterior motives and protagonist detective was vaguely based on his last manager. He found that a little bit amusing and helped him calm down a bit. In seizing this opportunity, he tried to poise himself by ruminating on the screenplay, but all went in vain when he heard somebody slammed open the main entrance of the café.

The writer had a quick glance at café owner to discover him as startled as he himself was, squeaky of the door and echo of empty café made it more so, and in walked a heterosexual couple or the writer thought they were a couple until he heard them talking. They were already in the middle of a conversation.

“We took money from him, a lot of it…!”, the guy seemed flustered and furious as he almost screamed at her, and the girl manifested hints of guilt and nerve as they sat down at a table not so far from the writer. “Are you going insane?...Why didn’t you go? Are you out of your mind right now?! You will get both of us killed…” last part of his outraged reproach turned into some sort of hissing, quivering rant. As overwhelmed as the writer was, he had to turn all his attention on them in a hurry with a squint. He had to! There might be a story there. He wanted to stare at them but thought better of it; rather he looked for a way to camouflage himself with minimal activity. There were too many pending queries squirming in his mind and he could think of obtaining those answers only by not revealing himself.

Though, the guy calmed down abruptly and warily looked at rest of the café as if he just discovered about his own whereabouts and the girl kept silent, kept her purse on the table, fidgeting a little, started drinking presumably water from a tiny bottle that she had brought in her purse, trying to calm herself down. The owner watched them too, but couldn’t have possibly heard all of it from the counter. In spite of that, he was very much aware of the situation at hand, and didn’t come to take order until he saw fit. The writer also pretended to mind his own business, until he saw them talking to the owner about their drinks. The guy was a bit paunchy, a little bit worn out, and the best part about his appearance was a uniform he wore and without that, nobody would’ve noticed him. The writer then had a good look at the girl and kept looking for a while until a fleeting eye contact from her made him aware of his doing. She had that mysterious awe in her face, the kind of face where, at every glance, something new could be discovered. The writer was almost anxious to look at her again. A purple floral, low cut, knee length gown beseemed her flawless skin along with terracotta earrings with a set of matching bangles and she also had a tattoo of some cryptic language on her right leg.

For a while, they sipped their coffee, didn’t even look anywhere but their phone, and just sat there, without even flinching. They didn’t make a single unnecessary move. It was all very economical. When the writer caught them talking, the girl was interested only in listening. Subsequently, when the guy in uniform started to fidget and whisper, but she still didn’t move her lips for once. In his mind, she was on the verge of becoming a potential character for his crime-thriller.

He wanted to gulp every little details that table had to offer. He never felt this way, so active in his mind as though he unlocked a new part of his brain. A new sensation that made him so refreshingly new in a way, for a while, he forgot about them or the owner or the café, everything faded away and a strange narcissistic feeling set in to drive his own instinct. In a way, he was oblivious to himself yet so painfully self-conscious that he couldn’t hold his contradiction within himself and craved another espresso, had one right away, and drank a lot of water in the process. Then feeling all jittery, he had to go to washroom for couple of times. When he came back from washroom the last time, the girl was getting up to leave without the guy in uniform. Right then, the writer experienced a strange compulsion, a compulsion to himself, to his screenplay, to his whole life. To turn his back now is to commit a horrid crime, he thought. The writer couldn’t live with that perception for very long.

In his entire life, he hadn’t done something like this. His former job demanded him to be self-centred and he was exactly that. This time he didn’t think twice to rush out the café right after the girl had left, caught her up in a minute or two and kept a safe distance all along. She walked towards the main road. This is the first time he saw her walking, but in the middle of everything, the writer couldn’t help but notice the way her hips swayed along with whole body of hers; he again forgot about everything around him and just focused on her hips, after a while, without realizing he got so close to her that he was bound to come his senses. He was in some kind of trance, whichever thought hit him first, his mind let it get entangled with his consciousness; there was absolutely no filter. And in no time, the girl was on the bus and so was he, with a thumping heart and a strange fixation. This must be the greatest moment of his life and he wished all his friends could witness him at this very moment. He even felt the urge of walking up to her and start a conversation just to experience what her voice sounded like, and willing to sabotage everything in the process.

On the other side of the bus, she was seated and seemed very agitated, with an apprehension of an inevitable disaster. He didn’t know where she was going and couldn’t care less. All he cared about was him not losing her in this crowded bus. About twenty minutes later, she got down at a place he had never been before.

There were a lot of people on the street, mostly trying to get home from their job as soon as they could. She had walked another ten minutes on the main road before she met with a guy for a brief period of time. She smiled at him, talked with him for a while, the writer noticed from distance. As the askew afternoon light glittered on her face, she seemed at peace with herself somehow. That implied smile on her face made the writer somewhat uncomfortable. He was beginning to go through all the incidents in his mind that led to this voyage, quite a few times, weighing her up incessantly, to get something out of it. Where could he have gone wrong? This? This was the end? This was where she was supposed to be at noon but couldn’t show up for she was scared to death! This can’t be. His infuriated smirk made him look even more helpless. People are hilariously boring, he thought. No wonder, he hated his job and the people around it; he could still remember how the conceited banality was shamelessly rewarded, people even strove for that kind of absurdity and just to prove one’s own inventiveness, the person had to go through sheer amount of snobbish scrutiny as if it was just a matter of time to prove the person wrong and put them in their place, almost making it not worth it. But in time, a phone call came to her, which uplifted the writer’s spirit again and as the call went on, she grew more and more uneasy and by the end, the girl was dejected once again and the writer was illuminated with hope.

This time, she walked for sometime at a brisk pace seemingly had a destination in her mind. Her speed was remarkably increased as the writer had a hard time keeping up with her, especially in this heavy crowd, until he took a turn following her, and then the world came to a halt. There is something remarkably different about the street he just walked in. It had everything a city could have urged and demanded, yet somehow it looked disconcerted and disconnected and somehow a bit slower from the city. The light was scarce as he walked further into the street and as far as he could see, a pile of darkness blurred his vision. There were houses at the both sides of the street, looked very different from usual architectures, had a shabby quality in them, almost dilapidated at times. The writer went further in and felt the need of hyper focusing as the difference among everything became more and more subtle, indistinguishable from time to time. He intensely looked at every corner and found no trace of her.

The people were less and less as he walked on, and their shadows were even bigger, making them some kind of massive, monstrous being, perfect for an alliance with impending darkness. He couldn’t see a thing clearly, there were no street lights for some reason, a few scattered gleams made it even harder to steer his eyesight far ahead on the road. With every step he took, a new layer of darkness was accreted ensuring an inevitable gloom or a blinding glare further ahead. Either way, he couldn’t even think of stopping for once.

It was bound to happen. The writer was well aware of that yet he himself brought this onto himself. He found himself in a darkness where faith could be only useful companion and everything else appeared cynical. His only way was to march forward with a hope of imagining himself in a tunnel and finding light at the end of it, or going backward where he came from. For some reason, he could neither convince himself to go back nor found a trace of any flicker where he was walking. Even any signs of an earthly being, who could be a co-passenger of this clueless journey, were conveniently absent. He was awfully quiet in pitch dark to pick up any possible sound, but to his disappointment, he could hear absolutely nothing, as though this stark void had one more dimension to itself. An irresistible urge of finding himself in that darkness took over and with that, a certain kind of fear crept in his body as the writer couldn’t register the sensation of his feet touching what was beneath him. He suddenly remembered, in his childhood, he played blind man’s buff but that was nothing like it, not one bit. There was always some fleeting glimpse of light peeped through his blindfold just to keep a connection with the worldly enemies. But in this stifling darkness, he found himself grappling with a demon he had never encountered before. One thing was for sure, He was not looking for her anymore or maybe she was the only thing he hoped to find, it was hard to tell. Yet the writer was compelled to go forward even if something told him to be cautious, but he was not really sure of what. He had all forgotten about his screenplay by then.

Yet he kept on making gestures of walking with his feet, his hands and the whole body just responded to that mere routine. There was not a sensation of falling, nor did he stagger, it was more of a spacewalk; he was moving at a reasonable speed, swaying a little. At this point, He tried to test his memory, wanted to remember something which he held very near and dear to his heart all these years, but his memories were flooded with insignificant tangibles and intangibles he had forgotten over the years.

By Sudipta Das