THE WRITING OF GREAT THINGS

The room stank of old piss, a memory of when it had been used by the old lady that had died there. It was the last room on the darkened corridor on the left when one came up the stairs. The dust screened louvers were shut tight and had not been opened for many years. Old cobwebs and new spiders cramped the edges of the window like curtains. The curtains were tattered rags that swayed slowly with the wind that managed to escape into the room through one loose louver.

The smell of old piss was much stronger closer to the bed but there was also the smell of fresh sweat, stale with the days it had hung in the room with discarded clothes. The mattress on the iron spring had lost its covering and only loose, sagging foam commanded the view on the bed. The pillow was a depressed shape, pressed to the wall by the shape of some reclining backside early on in the day.

The walls used to be painted a cream color but the hand of time had raised dust, cobwebs, old bloodstains of squashed greedy mosquitoes, gecko shit on the walls and several repaints had done nothing to save the despondent state of the room but instead left trails of paint like old tears on the walls.

He had paid 2000 naira a month for this small space and he had to share the old bathroom with clogged drains and unresponsive taps, with two other tenants; one a single young lady who worked nights at a bar and the other, a single old lady, who led a small church in the city.

The landlady gave him no trouble as long as he is back from where ever he goes to by 9pm and remembers to lock the gates behind him as there was no guard to do that. It was a peaceful life, quiet and unexciting, perfect for someone who was hiding from the world or wanted to be alone in order to do something important like say, write.

He slid another paper into the typewriter then proceeded to stare at the blank sheet. He had different ideas of what he wanted to write about but faced with the task itself now, he felt empty, reluctant to commit his words on paper. It was not caution that made him to hesitate like some writers who fear that their words would be stolen, no. it was fear that he would not be able to complete the task or even if he could complete it, he would not create something worth reading. He stared at the paper.

His friends had advised him to get a laptop so he can have a semblance of seriousness to his task but he had rejected the offer. He considered the writers who used those vaunted gadgets as traitors. He saw them like photoshop artists, whom he could never accept as real artists, no matter how exciting or impressive their creation may be. It would seem that all he had was that, an opinion.

He placed his hands on the keys as if he was about to tap notes on a piano. His fingers flexed as if they could smell the object he intended to create but nothing came out of him except a sigh as he turned, picked the glass of water on the table beside the typewriter and took a sip.

Some few hours ago, when he had got up from his bed, his eyes shining with inspiration, he had thought he had landed on something that would change his writing forever but now, after three hours of staring at the blank sheets, he was not so sure. He let his hands rest on the typewriter keys, then he caressed them in absentminded worry. Is this a writer’s block of sorts?

The steady drip drop of water on the ceiling reached him. A part of the roof leaked directly above his room. That part of the ceiling was discolored with the shape of water spreading about like the map of a distant, ancient civilization. He had never noticed the sound before but today he was paying attention to everything except that which was important.

The smell of sweat reached him again. as if from a distant place and he twitched his nose like a rat, seeking for the source. He soon located the singlet lying on his opened travelling bag. He had won the singlet yesterday in the heat of the afternoon sun. The heat had been welcomed at first as it had let him bathe in the cold water. No one could use the bathroom water heater as it had not worked in over thirty plus years. Later, however, the heat became an impediment as his armpits filled up with the smell of sweat. He had not been able to get a deodorant for that.

He picked the singlet up and looked for a place to hang it to dry and he decided to take it to the balcony. He came back and sat down before the typewriter again. He tried to find inspiration from the empty sheet before him but nothing seemed to come. He cracked his knuckles and placed his hands behind his head. It was obvious that today would go the way of other days too without him writing anything. He wondered how long his agent would be able to withstand this delay. He wondered how long his landlady would be able to show understanding. He needed to write.

He placed his hands on the typewriter and stopped thinking. He tapped the keys three times and a word appeared on the sheet of paper. It had begun, he could not go back now. So he typed on and on. He typed until the night stole into the room, casting everything in shadow. He typed until his hands became numb and cramped with fatigue and his head hurt from hunger pangs. He typed until the flood became a trickle and then slowly it stopped.

He sighed in satisfaction after he was done. He went through what he had written and as he read it, the feeling that it was a poor rendition of his thoughts clung to his guts. Half way through the piece, he jerked the piece of paper out of the typewriter and tore it to shreds. He had written rubbish. He dumped the torn pieces of paper into a waste paper basket already full with other torn pieces of paper.

He looked about the old room, his eyes catching the old telephone that still hung from the wall; a testimony to what the room used to be in the old days. He was not bothered that he had the nanny’s room, the smallest room in the house. It was the cheapest and easiest to maintain. It was not as if he had much property to speak of to fill the room with . The only thing worth clinging to in the room was his autographed copy of Death and The King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka.

Its worth was not in coin but in the literary weight such an encounter added to his conversation with his peers whenever he had the misfortune of meeting them at the state library or at one book festival, or reading, or symposium or any gathering where literary minded men and women proudly sampled threadbare longsleeved shirts and ugly hairdos as well as dusty coats and scruffy shoes, while they curated, anecdoted, reviewed, studied, discussed, critiqued the works of successful colleagues.

He had chosen this life. He had abandoned his job as a sales representative for Toyota in Lagos, in order to write his great novel. He had explained to himself the grandness of his ambitions. Yet two years later, he was yet to write a chapter in the novel. His little savings had ran out and he could only speak for this night’s dinner only. Tomorrow will have to take care of itself.

He inserted another blank sheet of paper into the typewriter and resumed his staring at the blank space.