Frank Herbert once said “There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story”. Met by drunken fury and thought-provoking blockage, the writer crumbles the words and discards them into an already insurmountable pile of blotted garbage. The frustration is unbearable and eats away at everything he holds dear as an author. “I don’t understand” exclaimed the writer. “Why did she leave? Why the company!? What have I done to get to where I am”? It had been 1 year since Zoe filed for divorce. The love of his life – gone. Years of building up to what had been a beautiful foundation of love and trust had decayed with the same ideology of Newton’s Law of Motion; once in motion, there was no hindering the inevitable. With his personal abuse and untamed temper coming to light with the public, he was laid off with the publishing company. The writer smears off his desk the tools of his craft; only to be replaced by what were his tears. The only solace he could seek is the bottle of bourbon that now lies shattered with his work.
Located on the coastal outskirts of Maine, the writer is found half awake, half sleeping. Looking to take out his frustration, he drags himself down the steps of a house he was renting for the week. The plan was to momentarily escape the horrors of reality and rekindle the flame of his writing passion. By the water, he swears, curses, and releases what could be described as Poseidon’s rage out onto the sea. Met with greater retaliation, the waves crash against the coastal rocks with herculean might. At the end of the rigid formation lies a lighthouse. Its light had given out a long time ago. Already startled by the vast power of the shifting seas, he can see low clouds and thunder coming from beyond the horizon at great speed. With hesitation, he makes his way back through the cold and dark January night.
The rain, now unrelenting crashes and beats on the house. Thunder, making its name now heard. The writer has only now just made it back to the porch. Drenched in wet clothes and the aroma of alcohol, he reaches for the door. Suddenly, there was a strong gust of wind. The sound of what was either distorted whispers or free blowing sand garnished the writer’s attention. He turns around, only to what discovered to be nothing. He turns back around and opens the door.
The room, now littered with wet writing paper greets him. He notices an open window, “Damn it! I thought I shut that fucking thing” he lashes out. Stomping his way over, he smashes down the window from across the room above his study. The lights go out. The door in which he entered closes with great force, startling the writer. What appears to be standing by where the now closed door is, a dark silhouette appears. Its presence is known and calls attention to the room. Like a sun, it radiates, but what it radiates is despair, fear, hopelessness. Sucking in everything that was joy like a black hole and spitting it out renewed as sorrow. Were his years of anger and blame manifesting into a creature of the night?
He was cold and the entity started making his way to him. It was there to greet him with open arms of depression. With its arms wide open, it hugs against the walls of the narrow hallway, scratching down the sides, tearing cleanly through the old wallpaper. It picks up pace and chases the writer. Tripping, falling, stumbling over nothing on the floor, the writer makes a break for the stairs, only this time he falls downward. What felt like hours, was only mere seconds. Finding himself regaining his consciousness, he is now the epicenter under what appears to be the only working lightbulb. Taking in his surroundings, he finds that he is in the wine cellar. Surrounded by that in which destroyed his marriage and life’s work, he remembers the damn vague entity.
There is nothing visible, but like a child, he feels a dark presence lurking in the shadows. Looking upward, he now sees his only avenue of escape begin closing. The door. He must reach the door. Without regard for what might still be lurking upstairs, he runs up the steps. Doing so seems to have triggered some commotion from down in the cellar. Like the wind outside, the faint whispers can only now be heard much louder, but they are still garbled. The last oasis of light shatters and burst in the cellar as the writer is making his way up the stairs. Running as if something was out for him, he can see nothing behind, he can only hear something running at the same speed as him.
He reaches the door, but it slams shut just millimeters out of touch. Banging and pleading with every fiber of him does nothing. Its impregnable. No use, the only thing in which he can do now is rest and wait for what was coming up behind. Cornered between a rock and a hard place, the writer waits. Fear ensues as the unrelenting wraith of hopelessness entraps him. The steps leading up to him have gone quiet. Thunder, lightning, now culminate as one. Flashes from the storm outside provide the only brief moments of light for the writer as he sits by the corner of the now closed door. The lightning provides only small sharp angles of light toward what is down below.
What was once in suit of him, begins to now make its way up. Thud after thud upon the stairs is the hourglass of writer’s life. He can only see shifting variables of shadows being illuminated by the flashes. It makes its way closer and closer to the writer. He can only manifest 2 thoughts: “Is this the end? Will I see Zoe again”?
The entity shows itself before him. Through a façade of shadows and darkness, the figure is colored in. The figure is the writer himself. This unknown presence has been an all too familiar one. “It’s a pleasure to meet you” psychotically smiles the entity. The writer is overcome with realization but is quickly struck back down with fear. The door opens and the writer falls backwards onto the paper ridden floor. Surrounded by dark thoughts, he weeps. The doppelganger in which he sees is him. It is his depression. It was every altercation, every sip of alcohol, every sleepless night he had coming back to collect its pay.
The him, the entity, the dark presence. Going by a multitude of monikers. Every bad day plays before the writer. Through his tears, he scooted backwards to the crushed bin of hopes and narrative. The papers in which he wrote to hopefully escape the life that has already set sailed. He looks at them and reads the garbled mess. The whispers become clear and audible. It was his dark thoughts. The crumbled bits of paper were his attempt at writing one last piece in the event someone found him. A confession of all that he done wrong and what went wrong with the world. He feels something heavy hug him. It was the presence. The writer felt tired, done with everything and everyone. He embraces it. The world becomes black. Its getting darker and harder to stay awake. Then slowly, and surely, the writer’s world goes black.
He wakes up to his empty home and empty bed. It’s his room. Was it a dream? Next to his nightstand was a glimmer of light. It was the morning. Besides that, was a bottle of bourbon and pain killers. Through the abuse, he had gained terrible migraines. This was just one other thing to make his pain go away. He remembers that night, he had written a note and soon after took a combination of the bourbon and painkillers. But next to him was a picture of Zoe. The only source of light that was in his life. The terrible dream he had was the end of the story he had written. His attempt on his life went unsuccessful that night, but it had caused his note, his story to become vividly real to him.
A terrible pain echoed through his body and stomach, but he got up. Looking at and memorizing the warmth of Zoe brought to him vicariously through the frame, inspired him. His writing block was clear, just for a moment, but enough to re-write the story he wrote. He grabs his typewriter and bleeds into it the ending in which he needed.
In this ending, the heavy feeling in which hugged him transformed into the love of his life, Zoe, the light bringer of his dark world. This was his only guide. His only way navigating back to port from the rough seas. In the darkness of the night, the power returns. The home he rented out for the getaway returned to life. Through the window in the distance, the writer watches the storm retreat and the light house come back to life anew. Operating and becoming a beacon for those who were now once lost.
As the he finished stroking the final key, he stopped and rested. He was content with his work. Then the phone rang. It was a message:
Zoe: “I’ve been thinking about you… I miss us… I miss you”.
Zoe: “I know its been a while since we last spoke, but I’d love to see you again. Let me know if you’d like to meet”.
He opens his phone and begins to type, but the pain in his body was too much. Years of abuse have now come to collect. And with that… he, the writer, passes away.