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    Writer's Dementia: A Short Story
    Writer's Dementia: A Short Story
    Writer's Dementia: A Short Story
    Ebook65 pages59 minutes

    Writer's Dementia: A Short Story

    By Stephen Measure

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    About this ebook

    A character inside a writer's mind, Natasha has been waiting patiently to be put into a story, but when she is infected by the writer's growing dementia, she can't wait any longer and has to take matters into her own hands. With the help of Alter-Simon, a discarded draft of one of the writer's characters, she must find her way into a story before the writer's dementia makes her vanish forever.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStephen Measure
    Release dateFeb 6, 2021
    ISBN9781940778501
    Writer's Dementia: A Short Story
    Author

    Stephen Measure

    Stephen Measure is an author of social and political satire, both humorous and dark.

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      Book preview

      Writer's Dementia - Stephen Measure

      WRITER'S

      DEMENTIA

      Stephen Measure

      Weird Imprint

      Copyright © 2016 by Stephen Measure

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

      This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or organizations is entirely coincidental.

      silverlayer.com

      Silver Layer Publications

      P.O. Box 1047

      Chino Valley, AZ 86323

      Last Updated:

      February 2021: front and back matter

      Natasha sat patiently in the waiting room. The seats were soft, padded in black faux leather, and quite comfortable. She imagined some day she might sit in a seat just like this while waiting with a child at the dentist, or while waiting for a job interview, or while waiting for her car’s oil to be changed. But that would only happen if the writer gave her a child, or a job, or a car. Right now she had none of those things. Right now she was just a young woman in a brown leather jacket, white shirt, and jeans, sitting in a waiting room chair inside the writer’s head. She had a small backstory, something about her father sacrificing his life to carry her out of a burning building, but that was it. Nothing else would be decided until the day the writer gave her a story.

      The walls of the waiting room were white, bare of any decoration save for a strip that ran across the middle of each wall, filled with constantly changing thoughts and images that swirled and twisted as they passed from one side of the room to the other: the writer’s creativity. And the evidence of that creativity sat in seat after seat, with more characters being added regularly. Each time was the same. The swirls of creativity would twist across the wall, and then a new character would appear in the room, where they would take their seat and wait for their story, just like everyone else.

      A few characters had already left. Simon had been first. That had been hard for Natasha. She hadn’t had the chance to speak much with Simon—how could she, with beautiful Dana always hovering around him?—but she had wanted to. There was something about Simon, something that drew Natasha to him, a strength, an inner will to do right despite the odds stacked against him. He seemed to radiate those qualities like a quiet, brooding paladin—a paladin with an inner demon so dark you could see it lurking behind his eyes. But his demon was contained, locked away behind Simon's great strength, so the darkness provided a contrast, highlighting his honor. Natasha had never dared ask Simon what his demon was. She didn’t think she wanted to know.

      And then one day Simon had left. That was the day the story shepherd first walked into the room. She had never been there before; the door she entered had never been opened. Natasha wasn’t sure if it had even existed before the story shepherd walked through it. But then it had opened, and the story shepherd had walked in with her white robe, her brown skin, and her white eyes that looked blind but clearly weren’t. She had looked straight at Simon and then beckoned him, never saying a word. Simon stood and walked to her. She touched his hand with one finger and a walking stick appeared, ornately carved yet somehow marred. Then she led him out of the room, Simon leaning on his walking stick, Dana on his other arm, with young Alice on Dana's other side, holding her hand. As Natasha watched Simon go, it seemed as if part of her left with him. Things had never been quite the same since he left. She didn't think they ever would be again.

      Other characters had followed in their time: a farmer with a black sword; a simple-minded sheriff and his deputy, neither quite ready for the adventure that awaited them; an anti-social dentist; an old gentleman, who tipped his top hat to Natasha as he left; a schoolboy clad in gray, who danced with flowers in his hair.

      Yet the more who left, the more who seemed to come, the writer's imagination far outpacing his actual writing, leaving the room full of characters, some old, some new: a treant, tall and majestic, his branches full of leaves, with a dragon sitting beside him; a baker with white, feathery wings; a vampire, his eyes pools of regret; an acolyte, wearing the robes of a scientific priesthood; a mad scientist in a wheelchair; a wild mage, the image of a noose tattooed

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