Friday |

The open-plan office gaped, empty, the cubicles like crooked teeth in a vast mouth from where she stood by the lift. Although it was only five minutes past five o’clock, on a winter Friday that meant the place was as deserted and dark as at midnight on Hallowe’en.

Jo had been in the archives longer than she’d realised and now she was alone in the building, it seemed. Every hallway was gloomy with only the security lights on. Half an hour ago, there had been a hundred people here. But now …

Two rows down a computer screen glowed. As the lift doors closed behind her, she could see the blue sky and yellow sand of the beach-scene screensaver. She was halfway down the aisle when the music started.

Say ‘Night-ie night’ and kiss me

Just hold me tight and tell me you’ll miss me

While I’m alone and blue as can be

Dream a little dream of me

The sudden sound brought her up sharp, and the tiny hairs on her forearms prickled upright. She shivered. The tinny, hollow sound continued, the song bouncing off the cubicle walls and seeming extra loud in the emptiness. She had a feeling she wasn’t alone but a hasty look over her shoulder, then another showed her emptiness by the water-cooler, and deep shadows by the photocopier. Nothing moved.

Swallowing a sob and forcing herself to walk with measured steps to the computer, she reached out her hand to jiggle the mouse to bring up the desktop. Confused, and not taking in what she was seeing, it took her a moment to realise the music was still playing, but not on this computer.

There was someone here, she knew it. Someone watching her. She turned to look behind her again, but could see nothing but shadows. It was ridiculous, she told herself, it was only just after five o’clock, still early evening. Everyone had only just gone. Then, as she flicked the switch under the monitor to turn off the screen, she felt angry. Someone, a colleague, was playing a joke on her. And not a nice one. Let them be in the office in the dark when everyone had gone home, see how they liked it!

She paused where she was for a moment, considering. Should she go back to the lift doors to the master switch and turn on all the lights, or should she just figure out which computer the music was coming from, turn it off quickly, then run all the way back to the lift and down to the main doors and freedom. As this last word echoed in her mind, she lost patience with herself.

“Oh for God’s sake.” Her words braced her. She turned to face into the office, trying to track the direction the music was coming from. It sounded like it was coming from the far right corner, either from Gina’s computer, or Sophie’s. She moved down the rows until she reached that corner, going slowly because it really was dark here at this spot furthest from the window and the security lights. She went first to Gina’s desk, it was closest and on this side. Just when she got to within ten feet of the desk, the music stopped, the song had come to the end.

Relief flooded through her, but the silence that filled the void was too heavy, too brooding. She started violently when the song began again, the gently measured female voice eerie in the darkness. The music wasn’t coming from Gina’s machine but from Sophie’s. Jo made a detour round to the last line of computer cubicles, jumping when the leaves of the huge potted palm brushed her cheek.

When she saw how dark it was round this side she thought about just going home and leaving it for the security guys to find at some point during the night. But she knew they wouldn’t be likely to notice. She doubted they’d even leave the ground floor where they had their office. She didn’t want to leave that music to play on a loop the whole weekend. She glanced back to the lift doors, waiting at the far end of the office. No one would know. She could just leave. Why should she be concerned if someone else hadn’t bothered? But then the next verse began, and seemed so much louder, it started her into action. She hurried round to the desk, relieved to discover this was indeed the right computer. She jiggled the mouse to get rid of the screensaver and clicked to open the media player.

And then it was all too late. The hand came from behind her to cover her mouth, and by the time that she realised what was happening, it was over. The music started again.

Why do Writers Write?

I’ve often asked myself why. Why do I do this? Why do you do this? Why do we spend hours every day – or most days – engaging with the blank screen or blank page and labouring to produce words – words with meaning, emotion, information? Words.

And why words? Why not knit, draw, bake, garden, make model planes, breed dogs, or even just do a nine to five Monday to Friday job with a salary you KNOW is going into the bank on a set date, then go home each day and barbecue some steaks or sit in front of the TV or go to a nice restaurant with your family?

I used to think it was just because I was screwed up. Or because I was an only child and not used to company or because I had to make my own entertainment, or because putting my thought-words into actual vocalised words was hard. Part of me still thinks this might be true. Even though I have a family, I’m still a very solitary person. I don’t mean to be, I don’t even like to be alone that much, but it’s a kind of a habit, I’m used to it.

But that isn’t the whole reason. And I suspect (haven’t actually checked!) that there are a number of sociable writers out there from large, boisterous families, writers who enjoy engaging with others. So why do they write?

When asked why as a mother of a growing family, she had stopped writing, Winifred Watson, author of the wonderful ‘Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day’, said “you can’t write if you’re never alone.” Watson was a hugely popular author in the 1930s and very successful, but now she is almost unknown. If she wrote purely for personal fulfilment, then once she was married and raising a family, I can understand that the need to write may have gone, or been satisfied in domesticity. But for myself and for many writers, I still don’t think this is the whole story.

There is something about creating another world, something about purging myself of all those words that need to be put onto paper. But it’s not just about escaping reality, not just about unburdening oneself. Yes, it is often – but not always – a compulsion. There is an urge to create in an abstract way sometimes, a need to make something with your mind, your hands and then be able to step back and think, ‘yes, I did that’.

There is also a desire to communicate with others. Often as writers we wonder if other people – our readers – will see and understand the message we are seeking to bring to them, and if they will see it in the same way that we see it. Often they do not, and they find something new in our words. Literary Criticism shows that reading is an active process as is perception, and that there are many ‘truths’ hidden in a text.

One well-known writer whose name escapes me at the moment said, when asked why she wrote, said that the question should really be, “why doesn’t everyone?”

The jury is still out on this question. I think it may be one of those how-long-is-a-piece-of-string type questions. So I will close with a quote from a book that has been the most influential on my writing career: Dorothea Brande, whose book ‘Becoming A Writer’ was published in 1924, said this: “A Writer writes”.

End of.

Friday

New short story – Early Finish Friday

Why?