Purple Finch Press

Harmony Evans –

The cab dropped me off in the driveway on that first day, leaving me completely alone to attend to my manuscript. The lodging I had secured for my writing retreat was just out of town at the edge of the woods. A simple cottage, furnished and maintained by the owner’s housekeeper for the purpose of allowing renters like me to withdraw from the outside world. I needed to make progress on my latest project, so off into solitude I went.   

The cottage’s interior was stuffed full of objects and furniture. The bare wood floors echoed the click of my boots as I perused my surroundings. Old books were strewn about every surface, teacups and mugs lined the counters in the kitchen. The armchairs and sofa were fitted with well-worn fabrics that invited one to sink into their embrace and never rise again. The palette of browns, greens, and autumn-leaf hues left one wanting to take up permanent residence. The air carried a faint scent of burned wood, and small birds could be heard chirping outside. 

You couldn’t picture a quainter scene. I concluded the living area, kitchen, and bedroom were all fit for the tastes of an academic looking to retreat into their own mind and ponder life’s greatest quandaries, but what I was really interested in was the room tucked away down the hall. 

Behind an unassuming oak door, the main attraction of the cottage waited. Adequately sized, secluded, and sun-soaked, the study was the main reason I had chosen this particular location. A large writing desk and bookshelves packed to bursting were ready to aid me as I took on the task of divining the mystery of man, armed only with a pen and my brilliant mind. Not one to waste time, I immediately set about unloading my writing materials. The old wooden chair groaned as I sank onto its plush cushion. The desk stood before me, an expanse of smooth lacquered wood awaiting my endeavors. The room was quiet, aside from the soothing tick, tick of a grandfather clock tucked up against the wall. No irritating chatter, no pesky bugs screeching or wind chimes clanging or construction crews clattering. No distractions.  

It was meant to be an environment perfectly cultivated for my work. If only. Had that been the case, I would not be writing this wretched account in my defense. 

In the first days of my retreat, I achieved great progress. The study’s windows saw the rising of the sun on one side and its subsequent setting on the other, granting me optimal lighting throughout the day. A window in front of the desk brought a faint breeze whenever I wished, and the fireplace provided warmth towards evening’s end. The kitchen just down the hall allowed me to refill tea and coffee at a moment’s notice. You could not imagine a better location for a creative’s success. I wrote pages and pages of my manuscript without halt or hindrance.  

But by the fourth day, I began to take notice of some slight annoyances. For one, the cicadas began their habitual wailing in the evenings. No matter. I simply retired to my room to read after sunset. For another, the housekeeper had not stocked much firewood, and I soon ran low. It being late summer, the days were not cool enough to warrant the usage of the fireplace for most people. I, however, prefer the warmth of flames throughout the year, regardless of the weather. Luckily, in addition to the valuable fiction and philosophy, the study was equipped with an abundance of old books on trivial subjects. No one will miss a few silly romance novels. They served a better purpose as firewood than as reading material. I could not be expected to keep my mind sharp in unsatisfactory living conditions. I’m sure you understand. 

Though I was able to solve these small problems quite easily with my strategic thinking, other nuisances cropped up that took more creativity to handle. My methods may seem odd, but you must remember I possess a depth of mind uncommon among the masses. Of course my solutions will look different than those of the average man.  

On the fifth day of my retreat, I became aware of a more significant issue: The grandfather clock. That gadget must have predated any living person. The housekeeper had clearly been keeping it in good shape, for the swinging pendulum ticked every second of the day without fail. I had been so absorbed in my work I had paid it little mind before. Had even welcomed the soothing clicks that accompanied the forward momentum of my progress. But as I reached a slow point in my writing, the sound became obtrusive.  

That infernal ticking. Tick, tick, tick it went, refusing to let me forget how long the duration of a second was. As I poised my pen over paper, searching for the perfect phrase to complete my paragraph, the clicking and clocking rang throughout the room. Tick, tick, tick. The phrase eluded me. My mind was filled with nothing but that sound.  

On and on, the pendulum swung, even into the night as I settled down to sleep, vowing to find my phrase amidst the sun’s morning rays. After an hour of lying in bed, tossing about restlessly as the clock clicked away down the hall, I had had enough.   

Eyes and brain clouding with malice, cheeks and blood burning with frustration, I stalked into the kitchen and withdrew a hammer from one of the utility drawers by the sink. As I entered the study, the ticking only grew louder. Tick! as I stopped in front of the clock. Tick! as the hammer was raised. Tick! as the hammer came down, dealing a heavy blow to the glass encasing the perpetrator.  

My brilliance does not extend to mechanics. As such, I was unsure what specific apparatus within the clock was causing the noise. So, for good measure, I saw to the destruction of the entire device. Over and over, I brought the hammer down. The ticking ceased after three hits, but my rage was not sated until the floor was littered with glass and splinters of wood. I suppose I may have hit it twenty times or more. But once my arm had grown tired, I stopped.  

Catharsis spread through my veins, replacing the heat of my anger. The glittering of glass illuminated by moonlight shining through the window was glorious. The cottage was blissfully silent. I was free. 

Perhaps you may say I should have simply found a way to turn the clock off. But who’s to say this would have been possible? How long may this have taken? I did not have time to waste on diving into the machinery of an ancient time keeping device. I was simply taking the most swift and logical course of action, you see. A clock cannot tick if it is smashed to pieces.  

After this incident, I spent another few days writing with great success. Reinvigorated by my act of revenge, I churned out entire sections of my manuscript. Every morning, I would carefully step around shards of glass to resume my work, only getting up for lunch and to toss a few paperbacks into the fire in the evening. In these few days I was, regrettably, met with a handful of other issues, but they were all dealt with as soon as they arose.  

Once, a fly managed to make its way into the kitchen. Worried the buzzing may have reached the study, I scooped a cookbook off the table and smashed the thing over the head. Another time, I brewed a packet of tea that tasted like burnt grass. Unfazed, I simply tossed it out the window, cup and all. You may think this was wrong of me. But the housekeeper dutifully tidied the entire premises before every new patron and surely would have taken care of the offending item after my stay. I never do anything without thinking it through, I assure you. All in all, my routine and clever solutions served me well, and my manuscript flourished. 

Until that fateful day.  

Just over a week after I arrived at that solitary cottage, I received my first and only visitor. The sun was beginning its descent, and the fire had just been started, when a tapping began at the window in front of the desk. Hoping it was simply the branch of a tree swaying in the wind, I continued the scrawl of my pen. But after a full minute of sharp, irritating clinking, I had no choice but to assess the situation. 

Perched upon the windowsill stood a grackle, no more than two hands in length, neck long and thin and craning towards the glass. The bird’s oily black feathers sparkled with deep blue hues in the setting sun. Wide and piercing sickly-yellow eyes bore into my own. I sensed no understanding between us. It blinked once, twice, let out a chortling squawk, and began pecking the pane once again. Scorching irritation boiled inside me, squeezing my throat and churning my stomach. I could not stand another disruption.  

I smacked my hand against the glass, hoping to startle the thing away. But, after another screech of laughter, the tapping only increased in frequency and volume. Perturbed, I slid the window open, for exactly what reason I still do not know. The creature cocked its head and opened its beak wide. 

“Scree-ee-ee!”  

That distorted cackling was the final straw. I couldn’t bear it any longer. Seizing the beast by its frail boney throat, I dragged it screeching and flailing into the room. The flap of its wings scattered papers across the floor. I startled as sharp talons scraped my flesh, sending rivulets of hot blood down my forearm.  

I had no time to waste, you understand. The hammer still lay among the shattered glass, and had I attempted to reach it, the grackle may have fled out the window to screech and tap forever more. Hands trembling with rage, I gripped the thing by its feathered body, squeezed tight around its skinny neck, and twisted. Bird bones are quite fragile. It didn’t stand a chance.  

Bones crunched and cracked, flesh squished and wrung under my fingers, and soft inky feathers tickled my skin. The creature shuddered with one final, strangled wheeze, then fell limp in my hands. 

Satisfied, I tossed the lifeless body in the corner of the room, slid the window shut, and returned to my work. I had been making significant progress before the incident and wished to continue my train of thought at once, electing to clean the scattered papers afterwards.  

Is the killing of a pesky woodland creature wrong? I am of the mind that some acts of violence are necessary to further one’s goals, should the enactor be in possession of a greatness that must be gifted to the world at all costs. Suppose da Vinci had been interrupted by a pitiful little Italian sparrow when painting the Mona Lisa. Surely, he would have had the right to dispose of the thing to continue his masterpiece. A bird will be replaced in the natural progression of the Earth, but bouts of creativity can be very difficult to come by. You must understand. 

I scribbled my way through another page before a dreadful realization began to sink into my mind, my marrow. In our scuffle, I recalled the grackle scraping my arm. The same arm I was now writing with. The same arm resting upon a stack of completed manuscript pages. With mounting horror, I lifted the appendage, but the damage had been done.  

My precious words. Soaked through with my own blood.  

I had reached a breaking point. 

Damn that fiend! If only that beast now discarded in the room’s shadows hadn’t interfered! I slammed my feet against the ground and stood, knocking the chair to the floor. It landed among the shards of the grandfatherclock, crushing a few scattered pages in the process. Whirling around, my gaze fell upon a loose sheet of inked paper alight with the fire’s orange glow. The embers must have licked one of the scattered pages and set it ablaze! The fire quickly spread to other pages, and soon the floor was engulfed in flames. 

You could not imagine the agony I experienced. I screamed into the sun’s setting light. Days of labor, pages of penned brilliance, seeped in blood and set aflame. The world may never know of my genius, of the depths of my soul, poured forth upon paper. My work was lost to a momentary fit of madness.  

Take pity on me, I implore you. The inner workings of a psyche like my own cannot be easily grasped. Perhaps you think I behaved rashly, irresponsibly, driven by insanity or mental instability. You may not comprehend what it is like for the creativity of an artist to be interrupted and destroyed by forces outside of their control, and what that artist may do as a result. But by locking me away, you will lose the potential greatness residing in my mind. Trust that, by letting me off for these minor transgressions, you will gain insights into the mystery of man you have never even dreamed of. Would you really deprive mankind of this genius?   

Think carefully before making your decision.