The Fourth Dragon of Creative Writing- Part One of Four

*****

“You hear them?” whispered Robin as something thudded against the outside of the apartment wall.

Lea pushed back as though she had received an electric shock.

“They can’t come through the drywall,” said Robin.

“Bet your life on it?” asked Lea as she reached up to finger the totem on her neck.

Robin pressed her platinum hair hard against her head. “No,” she said. “I told you not to call him a homo.”

“He’s not doing this because of me,” Lea said. “You’re the one that came on to him.”

Robin spun in the chair to answer Lea, who sat behind a sandbag wall of pillows … but before she could speak, a head poked through the wall. It was the size of a cherry bomb and it popped like bubble gum when it appeared above the bed. It opened its round mouth and out shot a tongue thick as a number two pencil.

“Yibbiddee yibbiddee yibbiddee,” it screamed.

Lea cringed.

Robin picked up the hardcover from her desk and slammed it against the little creature’s head so hard that her framed poster of the band Offspring fell off the wall and landed on the carpeting.

“Did you kill it?” asked Lea.

“I think so,” Robin said, pulling the book away.

excerpted from "Gamers," by Ferrel Moore

*****

"How many stories have you written?" the red-haired woman asks.

We have stopped for the night on a rock shelf over looking the stream we have been following for the last nine days. You and I have barely spoken five words. The presence of Ferdinand is like a weight hung on a rope between our necks. It pulls us toward each other while we work to stay apart. Confronting dragons, I now know, is less frightening than matters of the heart. When we speak to each other, we are looking forward at the road ahead. This recognition of the future without acknowledgment of the present is an uncomfortable thing.

The red-haired woman has no hesitation or reticence about her. She speaks freely to one or the other of us, unconcerned with the awkward situation.

"I am only an apprentice writer," I tell her. "I have many ideas, but no actual stories yet."

"An apprentice writer?" she laughs. "There is no such thing. A writer is a writer. And if you are a storyteller and a writer, surely you must have written at least one story."

"I have stories," I insist. "For now, they are in my head."

From where you sit, perched in front of the small fire on a rock the rough size and shape of an anvil, I hear a snort. Your head is hung forward, and the fire is between us, but I detect some measure of sarcasm in the sound.

"Stories don't just appear from nowhere," I say a little louder. "And they don't grow overnight into full bloom."

It is a clear, easy night, with a low wind brushing by us like the stroke of a mother's hand against her an infant's cheek. The heat of late afternoon has transformed into the comfort of a gentle summer night. A soft soil rich with he smell of sprouted grass is the blanket we will sleep on tonight. Overhead, through the transluscence of spider-webbed fog tendrils, the queen of night rides majestically through the star vaulted sky like a gauze wrapped pearl on a royal cloud carriage.

The red-haired woman smiles at me indulgently. "You are like the lad who has heard of sexual congress, but has yet to practice it."

"What?" I ask.

I cannot believe what I am hearing. From across the fire, I hear you laugh. This sound, I believe, is more affronting than your snort.

"I mean to say, that you are like the lad who has heard about the ways of the flesh, but has neither enjoyed them nor brought a woman to be with child."

"What has any of this to do with writing?" I demand.

She sits no further than an arm's length from me. True, the dirt covered rock shelf is small, but she is still closer than feels comfortable.

"Tell him," the red-haired woman says to you.

Across the fire, I see you sit up straight and stretch. It is wonderful thing to watch a beautiful woman stretch, and especially so when her well formed body is lit by firelight. Finally, you speak.

"Stories are brought to life," you say, "in the same way as are children."

"The two of you are making fun of me," I say.

"It is true," laughs the red-haired woman. "Once a story is written, then you can discipline with the rod of economy, and try to give it a purposeful life. First a story must be born before you can rear it like the child it is. And for a child to be born..."

"...there must be union," you finish and clap your hands.

"And that union must be oh so pleasureable, or no writer would ever write a story at all," adds the red-headed woman.

I feel the flush that reddens my face. I should have known.

"You both are speaking nonsense," I say. "How can a writer engage in union in such a way that a story will be born? Is there no end to your torment?"

"How indeed?" you say.

"And a crime," adds the red-haired woman with a strange smile.

I can see that her face has grown serious.

"Explain yourself," I demand.

"My mother was a great storyteller," she says, "and she told me that all great stories begin with a crime. And the greatest stories begin with a crime against the heart."

"With all respect to your mother," I say, "she mayhap be making the matter too simple."

"Indeed," says the redh-haired woman, "but can you deny that all great crimes are rooted in love?"

"And lust," you add.

Before I can respond, the redhaired woman says this: "So you see, to birth a great story a writer must begin with these three things- love, lust, and larceny. Your lady friend says you know something of love, but are lacking in lust. Without lust, you can never be a great writer."

Before I can stop myself I ask, "And what of larceny?"

"Until you understand lust, you do not need to learn about larceny."

It will be, I think, a long night.

*****