AncilChapter 1: The Girl In The Turtleneck Sweater
My name is Ronald Baker and I am chronically UNINSPIRED. No matter how many times I try to finish a book, I always find myself staring blankly at my computer screen unable to add to the fictional world within. There are probably a million words to describe my condition but I like to refer to it simply as writer’s block. Like a virus, it invades my entire body spreading its toxicity throughout, and no matter how many times I try to cure my insufferable literary disease, I always regress into the pits of burrr? For much of my life, I had been working on one book called Beyond the Cape and every night I would sit at my desk hoping that I could make a meaningful addition but to no avail. I needed inspiration. I needed adventure. I needed a story and I needed words.
I began to find those words on a banal, summer Tuesday morning when the piercing sound of my phone jolted me awake at 6:30 am. My eyes were a bit dazzled by the sudden change in light and my tongue was stained with a bitter taste that my chronic swallows of spit couldn’t erase. Nevertheless, I got up and sauntered down the steps of my Washington D.C. home to the ringing telephone.
It was my old high school friend Samantha Hurlan, a cheeky, 5-foot-nothing, firecracker of a woman. Hot-tempered but honest, she was the closest thing I ever had to a best friend. Our friendship wasn’t really that old though considering that I had only graduated from High School a little more than a year ago but we just lost contact after graduation in the midst of all of life’s new pressures and her going away to University.
Her unexpected call was basically to invite me to tag along with her and her boyfriend, Jonathan to a writer’s workshop by Don Hummers. Don Hummers was a best-selling author of the amazing fantasy series, The Devil On My Shoulder and I was definitely looking forward to the opportunity but I wasn’t really quite sure what Samantha’s reason for going was. I knew Samantha for a couple of years and I had absolutely no idea that she was interested in literature. As a matter of fact, she hated it and I don’t think that a year was enough time to develop a lifelong passion for an art that you once hated. Or maybe it was. In either case, she already knew what my answer would be.
“I’ll be there,” I said.
“Good. I’ll put you on the list. I’ll see you there. Bye,” she said, rushing her words as if in a hurry to hang up the phone and once again getting her way, as she so often did in the past. And here I thought I had moved on.
“Bye,” I said just in time for her to hear me before she hung up. I think.
As soon as I hung up the phone, my mom greeted me with her usual overly enthusiastic “Good morning!” followed by an onslaught of questions. Most times when she spoke, it just came off like some sort of foreign language. I think I heard her say something about a flying saucer, an Amazing Spider-Man threequel, and a lifetime supply of Stephen King books. Mornings definitely weren’t my best time of the day. I think I just heard what I wanted to hear. I nodded my head in agreement with the nothingness I heard as I made my way back upstairs to my room to continue sleeping. However, before I could fully make my way back up, I faintly heard her say something about breakfast so I paid attention.
“Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes,” she hailed with her signature enthusiasm.
“Okay Mom,” I answered. I was starving.
I spent only a few moments upstairs before going back down to eat. While eating, I couldn’t help but flicker through some stations on the television in an attempt to find the perfect muse. Keeping Up With The Kardashians – nope! America’s Got Talent – nope! The Walking Dead – I stopped.
I had probably seen the episode a million times before but it seemed new to me. I knew that there was a zombie sneaking up behind Daryl and Beth but I still jumped when the horrifying half-rotted-corpse figure showed up. It was terrifyingly awesome.
My mom just couldn’t let me sit in peace, though. I was trying to watch The Walking Dead and there was my mother, talking to me about going back to University. However, I refused to be coerced. I was oh too familiar with University and its treacherous ways because I was a student at Oxford University in Britain for five long months before I made the crucial life decision of dropping out. Beyond the fancy classrooms and endless roster of activities, university life was all a snooze. I felt like every breath I took within the long, winding hallways and impersonal oversized lecture rooms was wasted. I would have preferred to die and I think a part of me actually did.
