The Metaphysicist (Kill Your Darlings) | Featured

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Imagine a writer, not so different from yourself, living eternally in the basement of their best friend's house. Yes, this may seem like a tale of pity and a lack of success, because that writer is twenty-three years old and doesn't have a job besides gathering the various papers strewn about the driveway and occasionally on the front stoop, but there's something beautiful in that writer's head that should be kept in the basement of a married couple's home, and that writer is hoping to explore it.

That spark has been blooming for a while now, ever since the writer discovered the ancient typewriter in the dusty confines of their parents' attic back somewhere in Paterson, a place on which he chooses not to reflect despite dwelling in it currently, and eventually the writer's fingers snapped at him to type something worthwhile onto its rusting keys, and at last there was the first draft of a one page thriller partially plagiarized from the plethora of used history textbooks littered across the chilled stone of the basement floor.

That's where it started, so long ago in his creative childhood, but that is certainly not where it ends. The writer has endured three novels and now weekly updates on his blog, The Metaphysicist, which receives a frequent splurge of comments before settling back down for a few moments to collect the readers' praise for something with which the writer has replaced fiction writing entirely, and that's his life now. It's not a glamorous life, per se, but it's the only one he was endowed, and lord knows humans always mess theirs up. He's doing well behind all of the layers of caffeine to hide the violets sprouting from underneath his eyes, behind the fountain of hair spraying from his head, behind the reassuring clicks and swipes of his computer mouse to produce an article the public will devour in the span of a few minutes and then share with their equally as astute companions, and the writer is fueled by that. That's why he continues to write, because after forcing himself to chug through a chapter every day in the novel writing phase, stringing words onto a page isn't so magnificent anymore unless there's feedback to clarify that his hard work is deeply appreciated to the mind of an intellectual.

So, in a way, basking in the glow from the computer screen late into the night is the sole life of a writer such as this one, in addition to avoiding the pleas of Edie Parker to get his ass up here because she's been cooking all day for him and her husband Jack, and the writer won't relinquish it for anything, for it's all that they are accustomed to.

To be upfront with you, this writer is me, and beyond all of the hardships of hating every word I spew out onto the digital canvas of my laptop, being that writer is quite the treat when I'm not sobbing in the dark because I killed yet another character whose demise flew to me while I was choking on chamomile tea, and Jack Kerouac and Edie Parker are simply fine with that, so I don't push them and ask if they really are fine, as I've been hoarding every last drop of milk from their refrigerator in my stomach without so much as a word to them about it, and I'm pretty sure I've broken their washing machine once or twice since I've been residing here as well. Long story short, these boundaries exist for a veritable reason, and I prefer just to wallow in the dimly-lit basement of their New Jersey cottage so that I can never cross them.

And usually that entails never leaving the house unless Edie scolds me for being a worthless ingrate who only benefits from her one sidedly, but today is a different occurrence where I am required to haul myself out of bed and trudge to the library for another article to appease the public and make them think I'm a pretentious scholar who understands more things than I actually do, but the bed feels nice and cozy and precisely like sinking into a blissful ignorance that I should despise but never want to escape from, and it is only with the reminder that Edie isn't awake during this time of morning to reprimand me that I tumble from the mattress with a belt already restrained within my fingers for utilization and for the stability I manufacture whenever I flee the house to research the topics of my articles.