| Secondhand Rants | Rock on, Sisyphus |
Are you listening to me, PS3? I don’t yet grasp the vagaries of Cell processing, nor can I shake my belief that gigaflops are things you can pet, but it’s imperative I have your babies. Download the movie if you can, gentle reader, because it’s a spectacle worth witnessing twice.
When your conviction is spent, utterly reduced to a husky and pitiful gasp, an excellent substitute is distraction. Look intensely out of a speeding train and motion becomes the easiest pill to swallow. Troubles? Forgotten, at least for now. Consternation? Passed it three miles ago.
Muse had sunk into an uneasy sleep. Her anxiety was new, even somewhat exciting, although it ultimately confused me and sent me into a mental tailspin. Our train car was empty except for us, which meant I could speak my mind freely. And that I did. We did. There was shouting, crying, empathizing, theorizing about what would happen, what we could do, what should’ve been done. But in the end, I had to concede her troubles were well beyond my understanding.
The ride into the City requires four hours, with the final hour boasting the most diverse scenery. I caught sight of the Plains, lush home to the Misplaced Modifiers and their nomadic lifestyle, and I immediately knew our stop loomed near. Past the Plains, over Crumbling Lake, through the Daymourn Mountains–which is a bleak stretch, as you can probably imagine–and there it waited, Antiquity City, in all its worn splendor.
There is an instant when your train crosses a threshold and you resign yourself to its inexorable pull, not that you really have a choice. It was at this moment I woke Muse and gave her a reassuring nod. We sat in silence, watching in awe as we whirred by five of the City’s nine boroughs. And then the train slowed to a halt. A shout from the conductor. Rustle of belongings. Clang of the doors. The train whistle shrieked. We had arrived.
The ignorant believe Writer’s Block is simply another locale, a mere destination for tourists and their laminated checklists to languish. The wise would like to believe the same thing, and in fact some manage to delude themselves into temporary relief. They are usually the ones who’ve never been.
“I must remember to visit the cozy restaurant my sister recommended,” one woman will remind herself half-heartedly. “Or maybe catch a show, that’d be fun. Dunno why people are so grumpy about going. I’ll take some pictures, send a few postcards. You know, leave a piece of myself there.”
But Writer’s Block isn’t a place that accepts pieces of yourself. It takes and takes with ravening abandon. I only wish I were being figurative.
While I leaned sleepily on her shoulder, Muse stared nervously out the window, watching the raw speed of the train devour the countryside. She sat up with a jolt. My reverie was over.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said with finality.
Now it was my turn to be startled.
“What?” I exclaimed. “Why are you saying this?”
One glance and I knew she was serious.
“Look, it’s sweet of you to come, but–” she paused with a sigh. “I should’ve made the trip alone.”
“But you’re always drained after you return,” I protested, “so I thought I’d give you some support this time.”
Muse gave a tired smile and shook her head sadly. She closed her eyes and told me about the Auditor.
He is an old, bitter man with sunken eyes and a shattered nose, she said, and he has sharp teeth and a long tongue. By an unfortunate twist of fate, he is also a public official, the sole supplier of letters, which he will only dispense in exchange for some of your being. That’s why everyone must visit him, unless they wish to become mute. In the past, Muse endured losing a part of herself–“the very marrow of my soul,” she explained–because she had the uncanny ability to heal quickly.
“Except this time…this time it’s going to be different. I just know it,” she gravely whispered, on the verge of tears.
“It’s going to be okay. We’ll make it,” I said hollowly.
It was unsettling to see Muse in this state. She was supposed to have all the answers, poise to spare. I leaned over and looked out the window in a vain search for conviction. There was none to be found.