The September Selected Writer is Erin T. McMillon
You can email Erin at: emcmills2004@yahoo.com
WRITER’S BLOCK
by Erin T. McMillon
I pushed down on the “I” key so hard I thought it was going to come out of the bottom of my cheap laptop.
“Irina?” Andrew yelled from the bottom of the stairs. His voice echoed off the cheap drywall that lined the hallway and smacked the equally frugal plywood door that separated my writing from the rest of the house.
We’d spoken about my home office many times over dinner before I actually lugged the old wooden desk up from the basement and into the very last room at the end of the narrow hallway. But it was the best he could do to make me happy. These days, living in the Chambersburg section of the city was good for two things: cheap rent and narrow hallways.
“I have the hardest time focusing,” I told him one night while swirling my half-eaten chicken breast around my plate.
All I ever wanted to do was write. But after years of pushing out what I considered to be crap ads and articles for piece of shit bosses in the industry who thought their way of writing was gospel, I quit. It wasn’t the normal kind of “I’m handing in my letter of resignation” kind of quitting. It was the kind of quitting where I walked into the office, packed up the few personal items I had on my desk, took a deep breath, and yelled “FUCK YOU! I’M OUT!!!” I’ve never been that type to use profanity, but I couldn’t bear to sit at the desk and use my words to make someone else rich for one more day.
I’d already spoken to my husband about quitting, but he still had a hard time finding the humor in the way I did.
“I thought you were going to give your two weeks’ notice?” he said over the rim of his extra-large wine glass.
“I changed my mind,” I replied into my plate, swirling the London broil in circles.
So there I was in my new office upstairs in my own home. Now was my time. I was going to write the next great American novel. But I was on page one, paragraph one, for two months.
The sky grew dark as Milton approached the edge of the field.
I hit the backspace button until my computer screamed in a series of annoying pings.
Milton clutched his belly and pressed hard as the fear gripped him like a man’s hand on a firm breast.
I laughed at my analogy as I deleted the line.
Milton was a fucking fucker who fucked funky felines.
I laughed harder this time as the ridiculous sentence disappeared from my screen.
*****
Days turned into months before I began to worry. I used to love to write, but as time passed, I found myself staring out of the window trying to draw in the inspiration that used to flow so freely within me.
“I’m starting to regret quitting, Drew.”
“Nothing worth having will come easy, Babe.” He sat the empty bottle of Shamong White on the table and picked up his plate. “You can do this,” he said, and I knew he was incapable of believing anything different.
Renewed by his faith in me, I shot up the stairs convinced my creativity made a comeback!
“But you didn’t even finish your—”
I closed the door tightly behind me. I never wanted to be rude to Drew, but when I got in the zone that’s just how things were.
But my left hand froze, hovering over “ASDF.”
No sooner than that, it managed to eke out …
Milton left the bar and pulled his jacket around his small frame to keep out the cold wind.
I pushed myself away from the glowing screen. The cursor blinked incessantly, begging me to write.
I ran my fingers through my short, textured hair and looked around the room. The walls were still rental white. There was no clock or any pictures. Just a plain white room with my wooden desk and old office chair pushed flush against the wall next to the window.
“Get it together,” I said out loud in a hoarse tone. I cleared my throat and pulled myself back up to the wooden desk.
“Irina?” I heard Drew calling, but pretended not to hear him. I hated if he called me when I was writing. But I hated when he came knocking on the door even worse, timidly requesting my presence at dinner, so I really couldn’t be mad at him.
His voice grew louder and stern. “Irina.”
He looked down the desolate city block and knew he should have been afraid, but he pressed on.
Finally a full two sentences! I was gaining steam.
“Irina.”
He stumbled off of the curb and nearly fell into the small throughway that led to the alley. Catching himself, he began to think of better days. There were plenty of them. The images flooded his mind. Memories of
“Irina.”
“What the fuck do you want, Drew!” I screamed into the empty room as I violently pulled the door open. The hallway was dark, narrow and empty. “Drew!”
He didn’t answer.
I closed the door and sat back down on my perch.
They danced together all night and made love under the rising sun. He was everything to her and her to him. Milton wiped the sweat off his brow only to realize it was raining. He hadn’t heard the raindrops begin to fall or the unmistakable smell of summer rain, but he was now soaked and wet. He heard Carl Thomas singing of the current forecast’s moniker and thought back to their days in college. They would sit together for hours, days at times and live in each other. The sun would set and rise again as they stared into each other’s eyes. Milton wanted to tell her
“Irina.”
“For fuck’s sake, Drew!”
The hallway seemed narrower than it had the last time, but just as empty as before.
*****
I pushed my broccoli around the plate, reluctant to look Drew in his face.
I still loved him very much, but he seemed so distant. Maybe it was the harsh tone I took with him. I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t about to ask. I tried to pretend like the elephant hadn’t pulled up a chair and made itself a plate.
I looked up at my husband, seeing his eyes through the bottom of his cognac glass.
“Are you cheating on me, Irina?” He asked the question like he was asking me if I wanted anything from the store. He set his glass down and began filling it again.
Suddenly he slammed his fist on the table. “Irina!” Cognac and broccoli flew in all directions from the impact.
I was shocked. “I would never cheat on you, Drew. I love you.”
I could see his anger folding like an amateur poker player, so I tried again. “I love you, Drew.” I reached out to my husband across the table, placing my hand over the weakening grip of his fist.
“I love you too,” he said into the bottom of his glass.
*****
Milton longed for her. He could feel her in his veins. When he awoke to the white of dawn he could still feel her breath on his neck. He could feel her fingertips tracing the erect hair on his goose bumps. After meeting in high school they were inseparable. She never had many friends so when she lost herself in him and all of his bravado he was proud.
“I can be myself with you. I can be whoever I want to be as long as you’re with me,” she’d chant as he thrust himself inside her. She was so warm and fresh, not like the others. He’d been with many before her, but they all paled in comparison. They were all scarred and smelled of alcohol and cigarette smoke. But she was clean. It was ironic, but he longed for the days when she’d get completely dirty with him. It was poetic. Magical. And then he lost it. Milton fell to the filthy street and called for
“Irina!”
I opened the door and was confronted by the empty narrow hallway. “Drew!”
The empty hallway answered me with silence. I ran to the top of the stairs and called for him again.
I talked myself into believing he was asleep and got back to work. “I can’t lose this flow now,” I said to myself. “I’m just getting started.”
*****
I pushed my spinach around my plate. It was limp and slimy. Drew coated it with some kind of olive oil and butter sauce that tasted like mucus. The sound of clinking glassware and the grunts of burning esophageal tissue hung in the air.
The tears quickly ran from my cheeks and began to fill my shallow plate. He doesn’t love me anymore, I thought.
“I can’t do this anymore, Irina.”
“What?”
“I never thought we’d end up like this. It’s like I’m living with a ghost, Irina.”
I was shocked by his accusation. “What do you mean? You go to work, come home, we have dinner, talk, and then I go to write.”
“Irina, I haven’t seen you in four days.”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous!” I pushed my chair from underneath me and stood over him at the other end of the table. “We just had dinner last night.”
The worry covered his face and dripped onto his crisp, white shirt. “Are you okay? I think you may need to go talk to somebody.”
“Are you trying to say I’m crazy?”
“Look at yourself, Irina. You look like shit.”
His words crippled my soul. I moved around to his side of the table, touched his shoulder and made my way back up the stairs. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Drew. But I still love you.”
As I closed the door of my office, I swear I heard him sobbing into his cup.
*****
Milton managed to regain his composure and headed home. The walk felt longer than it usually did. In the years since she’d been gone, he’d tried to replace her, but found himself coming full circle with love. He met a few and made love to a few, but none like her. They were all once again marred by the alcohol, but they also now wore their age on their faces. They years of staying with abusive spouses, babies dolling out stretch marks like raffle tickets, and jobs that sucked their ethereal essence from them like a spiritual succubus clung to every word they spoke. Milton climbed the stairs to his third floor apartment, each step making a new knot in his bruised knees. Accepting his defeat and the thoughts of never seeing her again he stuck his key in the lock.
“Milton.”
Her voice was as syrupy sweet as the maple his mother pulled from the trees in the summer. He could no longer feel his hand or the keys he knew were in it. Paralyzed with blissful fear, he stood staring at the door. “It can’t be her,” he said out loud.
“Look at me, Milton,” she said.
He turned, slowly. Her skin was just as brown as it was the last time he saw her. Lines of life appeared around her eyes as her full cheeks rose, revealing the same lavishly white teeth her remembered. She pulled him into her small frame and held onto him like today was their last day on Earth.
“Irina,” he whispered into her neck.
“Holy shit! That’s my name.” I pushed myself so far away from the wooden desk the back of the chair hit the door. I watched as the cursor beckoned me to come back. My hands trembled, my legs felt weak. What was going on? I got to my feet and pulled at the door to peek out into the hall but the door wouldn’t open.
The voice was coming from inside the room. “Irina.”
“Please, let me out of here,” I said to no one.
“But Irina, I love you.”
I pulled the cheap plastic door knob harder this time. I felt my grip dampen into a sticky mess as the blood began to flow from my palm. “Please. Let me out of here,” I cried.
“It’s too late, Irina. It’s already done. I love you.”
I fell to the floor in a heap of sobs and sorrowful moans. “Please.”
The door clicked, falling slightly open. The slither of sunlight dancing on the carpet grew wider and more intense as it fell across my eyes. I shook myself into consciousness and crawled out of the widening gap.
“Drew,” I called. My voice was so hoarse, I barely recognized it. “Drew!”
I slowly made my way down the stairs and into the living room.
I approached my husband, slowly. I had to apologize for being so selfish. I had to apologize for isolating myself. I had to apologize for abandoning him.
But his blood soaked shirt told me it was too late. His brain spattered on the wall told me I missed my chance. The gun in his hand told me Milton was right.
The note he left told me, “I love you, Irina.”
Erin T. McMillon, MSM, entered into the publishing industry as an advertising copywriter. She has written for numerous magazines and online media outlets in the U.S. and abroad, including an award-winning music magazine. She is the author of The Becoming of Us, Vol. I and II. Her first collection of short horror/suspense stories, What’s Hiding in the Dark?: 10 Tales of Urban Lore, is due in the summer of 2014.
You can find Erin online at www.theladywrites82.com and Facebook.com/theladywrites82
