#25 The Man In The Woods (2/2)
Last time around we met a TV and Film script writer suffering from writer’s block. He had given up on writing to attend his friend Jonathan’s party, where he met a cast of characters, including the online retail business owner, Ashley Bisbridge, who had just accosted our protagonist with a flirty proposition.
Here’s how we left things off:
Ashley Bisbridge approaches. She’s got long blonde hair, very straight, the straightest hair I’ve ever seen. It shimmers in the beams of the living room lamplight. So very brightly.
‘How’s the writing business going?’
‘I wouldn’t know, I haven’t done any.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘How’s online retail?’
‘Probably not dissimilar to you. At a point, the business runs itself. I’ve hired two people. All I have to do is make sure we hit targets and tell them to work harder if we aren’t on track.’
‘How is that similar to me?’
‘I don’t do anything either.’
I nod.
‘I sold 375 mugs last week. All personalised, with different letters for people’s names. Can you imagine buying such tat for yourself?’
‘Not at all,’ I reply with a smile, thinking about the mug sitting on my desk next to my laptop, with coffee rings in it and the ovalesque C etched into the side.
‘I can’t bear this heat,’ she says, pulling at her jeans about her legs. ‘It’s so sticky.’
‘It is. I’ve got this bladeless fan in my house, though. Works a dream.’
‘Wow, I’ll have to come stay at yours.’
I smile, trying not to wince. I’m not sure if she’s flirting or joking. Jonathan calls my name. Thank god I’ve got an out.
‘I’ll see you.’
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#25 The Man In The Woods (2/2)
‘Come with me,’ Jonathan says.
‘Where to?’
‘You’ll see.’
He drags me out into the garden, and there I meet Paul from the city and Mumsy Lauren.
‘I found him,’ Jonathan announces.
Paul from the city and Mumsy Lauren offer a feigned cheer. No one should be truly excited to see me.
Jonathan leads us around the side of his house before pulling a joint from his pocket and lighting it.
‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty seven!’ he shouts in my face, and then bursts out laughing. He’s not even high yet.
He passes it to Paul from the city who blows smoke rings, as though that’s cool. Only Paul from the city would do that. Mumsy Lauren next. She inhales as though she smokes daily.
‘Imagine if my little ones saw me now,’ she says, tilting her head back, staring into the night-sky and swiping a hand across her hair.
I told you she talks about nothing else.
‘Imagine…’ I reply, sarcastically.
At this, her head tilts forward and she looks at me seriously. ‘Yeah…’ she says, nodding, clearly actually imagining if her kids saw her.
The joint comes around to me and I take it in. It tastes like old dry-roasted mushrooms. I don’t feel much and pass it back to Jonathan. It returns once more, without anyone speaking. Bugs buzz around my face. The air is humid and I feel my clothes sticking to me. I think about going back inside. I’m not all that high and I feel too old for this.
Some time passes and we say nothing. Then Paul from the city starts talking about when he was stuck at work in his office - in the city (did I mention he works there?)1 - working late into the night (of course he was). He left work at 12:30 am. There was a fox staring at him as he walked before it ran away at the sound of an approaching car. He rode an Uber across town. When they were stuck at a lights, a woman at the crossing said to him through his open window: ‘What are you doing with your life?’
That was all she said: What are you doing with your life?
Paul said she was a very beautiful woman and he was taken aback by her words.
Speechless.
The lights went green and his car sped away up the road. When he came back to the present moment, he opened the door and jumped out. He has no idea what urged him to do it. He ran away down the road, back to where the woman spoke to him. She was nowhere to be seen. He looked down each of the roads, struggling to make out if there were figures or just shadows from street lamps and overflowing bins. She was really gone. The Uber driver came back, shouting at him about how he could have damaged his car.
Paul from the city tells us how he started to cry.
We three stare at him in silence. The joint comes around again. It’s stronger now. No sooner does it touch my lips when the burning starts and I pull it away again. It goes straight to my head. I stumble back a step. Jonathan laughs and then Mumsy Lauren laughs and then Paul lifts his head up and stares at me.
‘That was the hit,’ Mumsy Lauren says, and she bursts into noiseless, heavy-breath laughter.
‘Imagine if my little ones..!’ Her sentence trails off and she slaps herself on the leg, laughing more intensely than I’ve seen anyone laugh in years.
I start to laugh too, but find my feet carrying me away from them. They know.
I head back inside.
There’s music playing.
Fleetwood Mac?
No, I’m not sure what it is. Maybe I can just hear Fleetwood Mac in my head, because that’s what I want to hear. Can you blame me?
I don’t want to stay anymore. The noise is too loud, it’s making my skin wobble.
I look for my coat.
‘Where are you going?’
I look up to see the most blinding light facing me. It’s painfully bright. I instinctively raise my arm to cover my eyes. And when I lower it I realise it is only Ashley Bisbridge’s hair.
I think it burned my retinas.
‘Home,’ I grunt.
‘I’ll walk with you,’ she says.
‘I’m getting a car.’
‘You have a driver?’
‘No… Who in God’s name has a driver?’ I ask.
‘I do. Well, I don’t anymore. But I did.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘For driving. But I got rid of him. Save the planet and all that…’
‘Congratulations.’
‘Thank you. We don’t want to go setting the planet up in flames, do we?’
‘Goodbye.’
‘Can I ride with you?’
‘No, I’m sorry. There’s not enough room.’
‘Oh, how come?’
‘It’s a one-seater.’
‘A one-seater?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re not driving, are you? After that drink I saw you have.’
‘No, I’m not driving.’
‘So, how can it be a one-seater? What even is a one-seater?’
‘A two-seater… A two-seater!’ I open and shut the door as I finish speaking.
She follows me out.
‘I hope to see you again soon.’
‘I hope to see me again, too,’ I reply. ‘It’s been a while, ha, ha, ha. I’m going this way. Goodbye.’
I start walking into the darkness, not really being able to see, nor really knowing where I am going.
‘What about your car?’ Ashley shouts after me.
I don’t reply. I start to run into the darkness. I don’t know where.
Anywhere but there.
As I run, lots of things come at me, like the headlights of speeding cars driving down the road, crashing into me, splitting me in two, and yet I keep running.
We don’t want to go setting the planet up in flames…
We don’t want to go setting the planet up in flames…
We don’t want to go setting the planet up in flames…
Those are the words that rotate across my mind, flashing like the messages of electronic motorway signs.
It’s so hot out. There’s no sun. It’s pitch black. But I’m sweating and sweating.
Then it comes to me. This is what I will write. I will write about a man who goes crazy, runs off into the woods on the hottest day of the year and burns the whole thing to the ground. Yes, that is it! Why would he do such a thing? Exactly. Why does anyone do anything? That is why this must be written.
I run. I sprint as fast as I can. It’s hard to run in a straight line, though. And what if the creatures come out of the bushes and start to run too?
Are they running at me?
Or are they running with me?
I pass some houses, and then a street where there are yellow lines and streetlights and it all starts to make sense. I’m not far from home. I keep running.
My protagonist will be a smoker. He will toss a cigarette into the wood and it will spark a flame and the flame will grow and grow and grow until…
My front door!
I fall inside.
The cat, sitting on the other side of the door, sprints away at the sight of me, offering nothing but the patter of its small feet and a perfunctory meow.
I meow back.
I kick off my shoes, pour a glass of water, which I spill everywhere, and stumble up the stairs, karate kicking the bladeless fan to the floor as I go, before entering into my office.
There’s the C mug. I push the window open and throw the mug out, forgetting it’ll crash on the patio.
It crashes.
Laptop open.
There you are: Microsoft Word, my adversary.
Let’s be having you.
I tap away at my keyboard without thinking.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
I finish the water and slide the glass away from me, without stopping typing. I go and go and go, and the cat stares at me from the door and I don’t even look back. Or do I? How do I know it is there? The cat meows to get my attention but I just mutter meaningless sounds back at it. The cat comes forward and slaps my calves with its palms but I don’t even notice.
Hours pass and hours pile on top of those hours. And then my eyes start to close and I put 90% of my energy into keeping them open and 10% into writing, and then 95% eyes, 5% writing.
96% eyes, 4% writing.
97%, 3%.
And then…
Blackness.
The next morning I wake with a mouth as dry as the Sahara. The cat is watching me from the end of my bed.
I go to get a drink and find the glass from last night beside my sink. It brings it all back. I turn it over, smell it, fill it up and drink it. I finish the whole thing. The water spills out and down my shirt but I don’t care.
I sit on the sofa and think about last night. I think about Paul from the city, Jonathan and his joint and Mumsy Lauren. What an odd group…
I think about Ashley Bisbridge and her painfully bright hair. It’s more of a test for your eyes than going to the opticians. I think about her embarrassing flirting efforts.
I think about woodland fires and my script. I wonder what it reads like. I’ve never written high before. I’ve not even been high. Apart from that other time with Jonathan.
I flick the telly on.
A dark-haired newsreader is mid sentence: ‘...Hottest temperatures since records began in West Sussex and parts of London. But while some made it to the beaches despite warnings, it wasn’t all pleasant for everyone. There was even a woodland fire in one London suburb…’
The screen flicks away from the dark-haired newsreader and onto a screen filled with black, whirring smoke. The camera, positioned in a helicopter, zooms out to show the woodland around the back of Jonathan’s house.
I stare at the television, one hand on my head, wondering what it all means. Suddenly, a wave of paranoia strikes me. My script! My script! What a coincidence!
I run upstairs, the cat watching with one eye. In my office, I see the window open from when I threw the mug out. I open my laptop and scroll through my writing folders.
It’s not there.
Where is it?
I open Microsoft Word. Recent files. Nothing since last month! How is that possible?
AutoRecovery must be my friend.
Nothing!
I slam shut the laptop and push my chair away from it, like it’s my laptop that’s on fire.
I stand from my desk, start heading back downstairs. But for whatever reason, my legs feel so weak. My body so heavy.
I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t do it anymore. I fall to my knees. Then onto my hands. I crawl towards the door.
In the hallway I see my cat. We’re both on all fours. I drop face first into the carpet. All I see is the cat walking towards me and licking my nose. I fall asleep. I fall into such a sleep as I’ve never known before.
And all I hear is those words:
We don’t want to go setting the planet up in flames…
Why does working in ‘the city’ translate as a career to anyone? "What do you do?” “I’m a doctor, a writer, a teacher, a movie star. What about you?” “I work in the city.” I imagine the city is just full of people like Paul, strutting around smiling at one another saying: “Another day in the city? What a life!” And then they go home and talk about when they were in the city that day.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this story, I really enjoyed writing it. I was struggling to think what to write about (Barton Fink much?) and then this came out of nowhere, with not much incentive or inspiration, it just arrived. Funny how that happens.
Please think of someone who likes to read and send this their way - one referral from each of you would be stratospheric :)