Finally, I type them. There’s a feeling of closure, of melancholy, of… what? Is bereftness a word? One for me to look up in the battered dictionary that sits on the shelves upstairs, still preferred over search engines. There’s an immutability to a printed definition, far more difficult for every copy to be edited in one go by one individual. It’s the same reason I still buy paperbacks – for me a story should stand of its time, faults and all.
Speaking of stories, I’ve clearly not finished with the novel I’ve just written; there’s my beta readers to look over it, and doubtless a myriad of corrections. I’ve got to go back and check the timelines and continuity. Make sure that everything adds up.
And then… someone taps me on the shoulder. I’m home alone today. I didn’t hear anyone approach. My heart’s thumping, ears ringing. Who the hell’s this? Dare I turn around? What if they’ve decided to break in to steal things, and then realised someone’s at home? Have they now decided to add murder to their list of crimes for today? What if…
So many questions in just a few milliseconds, then I realise I’m not dead yet. There’s hope. I’ve not felt a blade slice my throat, my life’s essence spraying across the screen. My family won’t come home to find me dead at the kitchen table, my laptop missing – stolen, to be sold out of the trunk of a car. The music’s still playing in the living room – Faure’s Requiem. Beautiful, wistful, and I thought appropriate for finishing my final chapter… although I’d meant of my book, not of my life.
It’s no-one I know – friends would’ve rang the doorbell; the children would have run in laughing, full of tales of the fun they’ve had on their day out, smelling of candyfloss and the seaside, radiating excitement. For a brief moment, I’d thought that the two words just written were a foretelling, that Death had come to collect now I’ve finished my story. I’ve secretly hoped for years that he’d be riding a horse called Binky. But this is flesh, blood, and I can hear them breathing behind me. I can’t just ignore it, can I? Can I?
No, of course not.
So here I am, half a second later. My eyes widened, staring at the two words, a stranger behind me. I won’t lie, I’m terrified, but any longer, and I risk angering a possibly armed assailant. Damn, what should I…?
I turn around and nearly die of fright for a second time in as many seconds.
Oh. My. God. It’s my main character.
“What’s that written there for?” she says, leaning her shotgun against the wall. “I didn’t die, despite you trying to kill me off several times, and the bad guy got away. Start a new document up, and I’ll tell you what happens next.”
I nod, mute, and do what she says. After all, who am I to argue?
