English Advanced - MOD C Metafiction!

[ToChristinaLin]

The Author sits down and listens. In the stillness of the morning warmth, the pen rests snugly between his thumb and fingers. The day’s new strength seeps into him, like an artist with his sun-soaked brushes. The chair had just the right hardness; the desk with fresh nakedness. To his right laid plain, not lined, paper. He rubs his thumb against the callus on his middle finger.
Some words appear. But they collapse. The laughter of the children outside in the quad reaches him. They were like...little bursts of sunshine, watering the quietness of the morning.

He looks down from the window behind him. It was Richard, Lisa, and Annabelle. He will focus on... Richard - that ruddy blonde child with almond-shaped eyes. Richard will have a rich past. Instead of the 19th of March, he will be born on St Patrick’s Day in a decorated cradle. Images of Richard’s infancy arise, but they are not clear enough. The Author sits back down and rubs his callus. Miss Sally knocks on his door and enters with fresh scones and tea. In front of him, he steals a look at how the ruffled white apron sculpts out her breasts. Like two plump pieces of fruit hidden beneath white petals. The maid leaves, and the mixed smell of scones and soap lingers. The Author slumps back and could not help feeling a tinge of disappointment - breakfast time, and he had written only two sentences:

Prince Albrecht rejects Giselle. She is reincarnated as a white flower by the river. 

The river symbolises her tears, the Author tells himself. But he does not write it down. For there was something about writing it on paper that destroyed the beauty of this idea. He rests assured that he will know when he reads the sentences again. In front of him the aroma of the butter dollaped on the scones lure him. But two more ideas, and then he can eat. The thought of his breakfast getting cold began to bother him - but what ideas? He looks around and notices that the vase of pink carnations has been changed to lavenders. Mrs Willows must have done it, for he suddenly remembers the soft sounds of pouring water as he awoke half-asleep a few hours earlier.

Her youth was filled with flowers, kisses and affairs.

There was now only faint steam on the scones. The Author scratches his callus with his thumbnail. A strange, irritable morning. One more, but time was running ahead of him and ideas came painfully slow like wisps in the air. The distant church bell chimes at ten. The Author quickly looks out the window and catches sight of a flock of pigeons.

Yet for a little while you made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.

Where did that come from?

The Author stands up and muses at the few sentences he wrote. Through the windows and unto the paper, the sun casts a holy light. Three roads, but no bridges. He takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose. Folding back his wrinkled, ink-stained cuffs, the Author picks the knife and cuts a scone. In his mouth they were a sweet delight - the lemony tea softens the spongy texture into a warm paste, before melting down the back of his throat. 

Now full, the Author rests his head against the window panes. The story won’t stop in his mind. Everything must connect; in some sense, with a word, a comma, or sometimes the lacunae with ellipsis. He still has twenty-three days. If he could get a satisfactory opening, he could let his mind rest for the night. So he searches for anything deeper than what the eye sees. Out in the streets he wonders briefly why sweet things taste sweeter on warm days. What was the word to describe the earthy smell left by the rain? The 12:15pm train to Victoria Fields arrives just as he comes on the station. On a whim the Author decides to board it, albeit crowded. Like a child stepping into wonderland, he feels enraptured he has entered into what he calls the portal of a thousand roads. Out of the few empty seats, the Author decides to sit awkwardly between a man who was reading Satre with a puckered face, and a young lady. If he had sat next to the other man, he wouldn’t have been able to bear his stench. If it was next to that child - well, he needed some peace.

The yellowed dog-eared Satre book intrigues the Author. The man must have read it like the Bible, he thinks, scanning the sea of pencil markings and occasional sticky note on the page. Perhaps his wife had cheated on him, and now the thought of life scares him. But he (by his dress) is a professor, so his pride wouldn’t et him weep. He would be educated than bear these moments of void! Oh how the sorrow must sting, this man - Albrecht’s - every waking hour!

To the Author the thought of life needs no explanation; it is much more fun to create meaning than to find it. The train stops at Victoria Fields, and the man gets up hastily. The Author feels a little cold at the empty seat beside him. But from his peripheral he realises the young girl on his left the whole time. She was...gazing out the window. At what? Maybe nothing; just passing the time.

Passing the time. How boring. The Author carefully eyes her profile. He could detect a sunny face, with strong eyebrows but with a shy smile. She would be Giselle! That is why she looks out the window so melancholily. Maybe after Albrecht gets off, in the stillness of the evening, Giselle would meet Albrecht...in a park. They would dance and be joyful, only transfixed in the moment of them together. The Author knows now, so he leaps off and returns. 
 
By night papers of sentences and scribbles consume his dim office. Miss Sally had placed some crackers on his desk. For the third evening, the Author finds a daisy on his work.

Something burns inside him now, and he must get it on paper.  Like fireworks they come so fast - he must grab it!
Coming to his last sentence, the Author is satisfied. His mind no longer restless, and peace floods like a river.
He marks his last sentence with ellipsis and rests the pen on the paper.