The Unfinished Ending

He throws the ink bottle across the room. It splatters everywhere; over the dark furniture, the shaggy curtains and the last of his leftover food. He climbs under his mahogany desk, crouching, clutching his knees and begins to wail into his arms. It is a hoarse cry of grief, like his heart is being torn out of his chest, and in the faint light of a flickering candle, he looks like a tragically fallen angel. His body aches, and his heart even more.

He grips the crumbled paper in his palms a little tighter, as drops of blood drip from his eyes. He slowly unravels it and straightens its creases. Scrawny black ink is smudged across the surface of damp parchment, and the words sway in his mind as he reads them.

He regards it with strong affection. His soul gushes, and from it emerges the spring of a story, a river flowing. He chases its flow only to see it disappear around a turn for the millionth time. No, he thinks. He can not see it leave him again. He plunges into the cold, harsh water. It is total darkness. He tries to steady his body and see where the stream would take him. But the current would not allow it. Nature is a fury. It rips against his body, and he is thrown along the rocks, giving him deep gashes. No. He must endure. He thrashes harder with his weak arms. It doesn’t take too long for the water to engulf him, before he despairs for a breath of air from the surface. Drowning, his voice gurgles a cry, and tears pour down and fill the river. No. No. His consciousness is vaguely aware of the sinking feeling, and he sees the last bubble escape his mouth. And his eyes close.

He wakes up from the shore. Washed up, in tatters, in shame. He is at the same place.

The writer sighs. He watches his manuscript burn. The second time didn’t make things any easier. Another unfinished ending. Another heartbreak. He had wept for many days for this one. It felt like his most promising work yet. And yet. There was no cure for his disease. No remedy for this curse, no antidote for his poison. Who could have foreseen this fate? A writer who can never finish his stories.

He is tired. He lies on his worn-out armchair and lets his eyes rest. The fireplace is blowing out smoke instead of heat. He is tired. Let him sleep. The night thinks.

Before the days of his curse, He visited the willow tree every morning just before the sun rose. He lay under its grandeur and soaked in the souls of those he admired the most. He noticed the wisps of gold that floated in the air and saw the glimmer of the creators. The glorious storytellers who came before him. He brushed his knuckles over the yellow daisies, and they shivered with a sparkle. Then soon, he would watch the people emerge to visit the magic in all its glory. They would bow down before the Tree of the Greats.

But the writer can never make himself go there anymore. It stings with the painful memory of the day he traded his pain for respite. His heart for emptiness.

On that day, he reached the tree at the stroke of midnight. The hour, he had read, when the darkest magic can be requested for a single wish. His footsteps echoed heavily across the night, and he fell on his knees.

“End it.” He begged, on his knees, “End this agony.”

The tree drew back in disgust, repulsed by his weakness, his inability to stand against the trials of a person of the arts.

“I am shunned by society!” he wailed “, The woman I love! They punish me for simply writing the truth. I can do nothing but feel, and it is painful, it is torture. End this constant heartache.”

“I have for so long dismissed worldly happiness, but please for a moment,” He said wretchedly, “Give me a moment of pleasure, of feeling accepted. Why? Am I not entitled to some amount of success? of greatness? I was destined for greatness! Do you not see my potential!?” He shouted at the vast expanse of stars in the sky.

He was suddenly surrounded by thousands of phantoms moving around him in such a strange, synchronous direction. They morphed into the figure of hands. They circled him, their pace getting faster and faster. The writer stood in fear. “There’s no turning back now,” they said in one synchronous voice. The writer cautiously nodded. They grabbed at him, clearing the ink stains from his palms, threw the books he was holding onto, and finally peered into his soul and sucked it out until he became like one of the phantoms. Pale and ghostly white, he walked back home, and yet he felt their hands upon him, as if he was pinned down. His thoughts were ushered to a single direction: conformity. society. uniformity.

He walked on the streets a few times after that. And the people waved happily to him. His presence was acknowledged. Their noses no longer turned up in disgust. They smiled. He felt his lips form a smile. His eyes stared listlessly. He tried to love the world. But he couldn’t create, and so he couldn’t feel.

He was promised no more heartbreaks. But this was his greatest heartbreak of all. He wished he had never drunk that poison. He tried to make himself feel pain. Eventually, he could write a little more and more. But every time he got close to an ending, it slipped past him. A fog takes over his mind, and he becomes lost. And the story ends without an ending.

The writer soon found a respectable job. An innkeeper. He asked for their name. A lovely couple. He welcomed them to their stay. But he ached for his pen. “Wonderful bed,” they said. He nodded. No, he would call it a majestic piece of art to lay a precious head. He would describe its luscious satin sheets and compare them to his mother’s touch. He would see the lace curtains and recall the wedding that never arrived. No, it wasn’t a wonderful bed. It was a poem waiting to be written. A poem he couldn’t write. Even though there was food in his mouth every day. He could not bear it. The few drops of ink left in the bottle never dried up.

“I must find my soul again”, the writer thinks to himself as he walks in those very streets. He looks up at the sky. “I want it back,” he says with conviction this time.

The phantoms appear instantly. They sneer at him. ‘You want it? Disgrace yourself.”

The writer continues to walk. He stops on top of a sewer and peers through. At the bottom, gold wisps emanate. His soul pulses weakly. He stares at it lying at the bottom of the gutter and hesitates. He looks around to see the people, the phantoms and the tree keenly observing him. This is his moment. He leaps in and retrieves his soul. He emerges; his stench is like that of garbage, but he is renewed. The people just watched a strange man descend into the depths of revulsion. The writer sees the people taunting him, knowing that those who once waved at him have rejected him as a pariah once again. He smells like sewage, but he feels new.

He strolls again towards the park. The tree smiles.

He breathes a long breath. Shakily, his hand reaches for the pen, dips it slowly and puts it against the paper. He watched each stroke as it stumbled and rose. He held his breath. The ending was near. He could feel it. It is so close. He can hear the babbling brook, smell the river meeting the sea. He rests his eyes for a moment.

___________________The Unfinished Ending______________________