🪦 Writing Spirit
First Draft Created: 2024-07-22 19:20
Last Updated: 1 month, 2 weeks ago
It was that time appropriately named "the dead of night".
Evidently, the best time for our gang of collaborators to meet up at a cemetery.
I hadn't planned to meet them tonight, but meetings had become unpredictable since the new guy had taken over, and were now never in the same place twice.
Things had become unexpected.
Uncomfortable.
Intriguing.
Inspiring.
Dangerous.
Refusal was not an option.
A sudden call from our fearless leader and I would always be up and ready, and armed with the tools of our trade.
For when inspiration struck the leader of our crew, only a fool would not follow.
"Is this appropriate?" I asked myself, gathering my courage and securing up my possessions before I hauled myself up over the high, wickedly-pointed fence of St Peter Andrew John the Christian's Cemetery - careful to not let my already-tattered backpack hook over one of the the largest spikes at the top - and then dropping with a thud to the hard ground.
I landed in the twisting shadow of a gnarled tree which shone naked and silver in the moonlight, my impact causing a flurry of cawing crows to materialise, angered at the disturbance of their rest, before wheeling back down, slowly starting to sink back into its boughs.
But there was no stopping or even slowing the flow of artistic genius. Our new leader, Solomon, in his infinite wisdom, was one of those who moved or was moved by impulse, and when inspiration struck, he struck back, hard, so here we were.
Yes, we were all here. The crew were all gathered around a tombstone, just a short, furtive scurry away from the gate, ready for me as the last arrival. Waiting.
"Ready?" our leader said tersely.
At his signal, pens, notepads, laptops were drawn from bags like stealthy weapons in the night, as all intruders dropped down into the grass - fortunately bone dry - to begin the act, our dastardly and sacreligious deed.
Writing ensued, right there around the gravesite, the chaos of pens slashing in the dark, plunging and tearing into paper, and with it, the steady creep of an unsettling feeling, a prickling at the back of my neck, and even the wind seemed to mock me with whispers that we were not so alone as we'd hoped.
Moments dragged on, as we weathered the dim lamp lighting, the caw caw of irritated crows returned to their roost, the scraping of sharp grass and the gnawing cold at our backs, hands and necks, seeping through the cracks of our jackets, threatening to freeze us to the core as we stabbed and carved with our pens, drawing ink from within to sate the writer's eternal thirst for expression, as relentless as the chill from the mist, which threatened to creep into our bones and freeze our blood like ice, and our stubbornly pumping hearts in their tracks.
Our bodys' suffering locked in conflict with our minds' inspiration and our compulsion. The tick tick of the timers for our writing games echoed hollowly through the tombed field, an incessant reminder of the finiteness of life that we all felt even more acutely in this place of death.
My hands and fingers were slowly and less slowly turning blue with the cold, willing me to succumb. I forced my joints to bend against the stiffness, to write, to release my chained up thoughts to finally be freed from the crypt of my mind...
But the human being is still a creature like any other, and the pull of the body, longing instinctively to preserve survival, would win over the mind when it could endure no more torment.
Artura, twitching beside me, was the first to break. Leaping to her feet in a swift motion, she threw down her notebook, her hands instinctively clasping each other for warmth even while a calligraphy pen still nestled between them. Suddenly, she advanced. In two strides she had crossed the distance between her and Solomon, brandishing the wickedly-tipped pen in his direction. The sharp metal curve gleamed in the moonlight, ready to drink deep and spill more than ink tonight.
We had barely time to leap to our own feet, and to draw our own pens from our paper, so unprepared were we for the threat of confrontation. But even writers may venture to unleash their fury in person, when even pen and paper become futile.
Our own cheap, plastic pens were powerless against the mighty weapon in her hand, still pointed at Solomon, inches from his face and partially exposed neck, where his scarf hung far too low to offer any security. His hands raised slightly in protest, or perhaps to be ready to shield against attack, but gone was any chance of mercy from her.
"Why are we here?" she shrieked. "Why write in a cemetery for Christ's sake?"
I feared with the cold that we would soon become despirited in a far more literal sense. Should our respite from this torment take on a more permanent form, I did not want my life to end in a final resting place.
"It's... it's about inspiration!" our tenacious leader protested, hands kept carefully where she could see them, "It's about going where the spirit leads!"
I hope the spirit lead us out of here soon, I thought.
Despite the icy death surrounding us, I felt a definite chill behind me now.
My prayer might turn out to be a prediction, and perhaps more literally than I'd foreseen.
"Ben," Solomon was saying, his voice and eyes softening in the dim lantern lighting, though hands still cautiousy raised. "I felt... it was time. He would have wanted..."
I barely even registerd Solomon's words now. The sense of the cold, watching presence had become unbearable, as I felt its approach. Enough to make me fear... it... more than I did Artura, wielder of the excalipen.
The paralysing fear was setting in, threatening to supersede the already-paralysing cold, threatening to overwhelm me, but I fought it.
Whirling around, fists at the ready, fighting stance automatically assumed, I braced to face what I'd felt, what I'd known was something behind me.
I was met by the patient, expectant gaze of the former groundskeeper, whose icy breath had reached me even from several meters away. He had not been seen for a while, not since his funeral, and was now hovering several feet above the floor, the moonlight shining through the translucent fog of what was not quite a despirited man, but a demanned spirit.
"I'm sorry," I said, guiltily, "we shouldn't have come so late without arranging first. But we're trying not to disturb anyone. If you'll let us hash this out it won't take much longer. It's... It's Ben's grave, you see, and he always said we could come here for a meetup, so... we finally did. He's sleeping now." I glanced back towards the tombstone, that of our former longtime writer-in-arms.
He nodded. "It's OK. You know, usually it's teenagers on a dare, and goths whose deceased friends let them take really metal photos on their graves, but actually, you'd be amazed at how often people use this place as a night venue."
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