John has lost everything. He is lost in his sorrow and is grasping at straws. Is hunting really the best idea?

Hunting The Muse
by poetheather

1

3:17 am. At least that is what the blinking red light on the clock says. I lift my head up and glance blearily around the dark room. Nothing has changed since I laid down four hours ago. The same dirty clothes hunch in the corner. The same gray and white stripy cat lying on the bed, sprawled out on his back.

I look over at the other side of my California King waterbed. She was still not there, and hadn’t been in a long time. The ache is still fresh and fights hard to keep from being dislodged. I am tired to death from crying for the loss of her. But that helps little as the clock ticks to 3:18.

I roll back and watch the ceiling. The stucco still looks like stupid patterns to me. Building code Rorschach prints to amuse the tired and sleepless. I watch the ceiling as I feel my heart beat slowly in my chest. I am tired and just a little bit drunk still from the whiskey I had after dinner. The pulsing through my body is nice and hopefully it will lull me back to sleep.

It doesn’t work. Just as most things don’t work for me anymore. A rumble in my bladder pulls me fully awake. Cursing, I get up and pad into the bathroom to heed nature’s call. The relief, however temporary, makes me consider what to do until I can get tired again.

Maybe tonight I can write. Maybe I can actually manage to write more than a paragraph or two. I hope the Muse can manage to find me or I her. I haven’t seen or felt her in far too long. And I am sure it shows in my work. How can I get my degree if I can’t write what is churning within me? Nothing I have tried so far has given me any help. The Muse has left me just like She had. Abandoned me to pain, to sorrow, to sleepless nights like this one where I basically whine to myself about how bad my life has gotten.

Gods I need a drink!

The burn of the whiskey down my throat helps me settle the unquiet dead in my heart. I use my toe to start my computer as I sit down and try to get settled. The screen blinks to life through the film of dust that always seems to be there however many times I clean it. The cartoon image of an anthromorphic skunk with her own online comic fills the screen. I like her smile as she sleepily looks up from her coffee. I definitely know that feeling. But at three in the morning coffee would be a bad idea. I actually would like some more sleep before I have to get up and play the good student. Ugh!

I call up my files and begin to scroll down the list. All of my half completed novels and stories and poems and ideas and notes all grin out at me from the screen. Years of uncompleted thoughts and ideas are all logged there neatly organized for my own embarrassment. After fifteen years of writing you would think I would have been able to complete at least one thing to where I am happy with it. The poems are all right but the stories have gone nowhere fast. In fifteen years, I have started around seventeen novels and finished two, both of which are still being revised. I need a new hobby.

But she had caught me. The Muse. Ensnared like some sort of character from the pages of Greek Mythology. I caught a glimpse of that magic, that mystery, that beauty and now for my transgression I have to suffer for it. She owns me and I think she knows it. That doesn’t please me.

I pull up one of my stories from the hard drive and scroll down to the end. I stare blankly at the words there. Nothing comes to mind to help fill those gaps. I get up and retrieve the bottle of whiskey. It can’t help me from the other side of the room. I take a pull from the bottle and stare at the words on the screen. I try to change the font, to see if that helps. It doesn’t.

I sit there for gods alone know how long, going from story to story trying to find the words to keep going, to fill up the pages with some of the fire that burns inside of me but refuses to get out. Again I can’t keep going. Awfully difficult to make a living as a writer if the words refuse to come.

I slump back in my chair and stare at the stucco ceiling. Where had I lost her? In what place did she now dwell, leaving me here uninspired and alone? I needed to know. But how could I hunt a Muse? If she were flesh and blood, maybe it could be done but this… this implied chasing down something beyond my world.

There is far more under heaven and earth Horatio than anything dreamt of in your philosophy… or something like that drifted through my mind. Great! Now I’m being chided by the ghost of old Will. Ghosts and muses and the water of life, not a very good combination all things considered. And memories.

Memories of those I have loved, who at a time seemed to embody all the majesty and magic of my Muse, now dangled jagged in my mind. Their faces, all those I have spent time with in that lovers embrace summoned by memories recall. I wonder how they are all doing? What could they be up to? Were any of them actually my Muse? Or am I reaching again, trying desperately for some sort of literary closure to my heart’s pain? Gods, who knows at this point!

So, how do you hunt an aspect of the Divine? I’ll have to go over my own work for clues. Maybe something will be there, hidden amongst all of the dreck and droll of my works. Maybe. At this point, any idea that would serve to help me find the embrace of the Muse would be nice. Arms of flesh or spirit would be fine; anything would be a nice change of pace after all of this bullshit I have been doing in lieu of living.

I shut down the computer again. The brightness of the screen is not helping any. Now I need to actually try to find something that might even remotely resemble a plan. Sadly, the only thing that comes to mind is a not so good film with Olivia Newton John. She played a muse. But then again so did Sharon Stone in that Albert Brooks film. What do I want to do, call them? Oh, good plan. Can we say stalker? Knew you could. I write myself a note to remind me in the morning of what I want to do and I head back to bed.

At least the waterbed is warm and comfortable as I lie back. That is at least something that is tolerable. I close my eyes and try to slow my breathing, making my body think it is sleepy. It does not work.

Thoughts dance happily through my mind, teasing me with fades towards sleep only to be pulled back by stupid questions that have little relation to the world I live in now. I don’t even have a fucking fireplace so who care if my andirons need polishing! I just want to be able to lie back and lose myself to sleep and perchance to dreams. However, even they have gone on their own journey into tomorrow.

My sleeping drug can actually bring them back into my ability to remember but the exhaustion that weighs me down is not worth the memory of sleep’s journeys throughout the vast realm that is dreamscape. Where I used to travel freely, back before…

…before engagement rings and moving vans pulled me into an orbit that severely decayed, and falling from the sky, burning. She had torn my life and I found myself wounded, bereft of Love and Muse, and abandoned in the south. Sweet Tea plus biscuits and gravy does little to heal a wounded heart.

Gods…. just let me sleep! I am so tired of being tired. Tired of being teased like Tantalus with sleep, with dreams, with the caress of the Muse again. With the magic of words trickling out like the gift of gab from the Blarney Stone. If only I could sleep. I try counting sheep.

It doesn’t work. I give up and stare blearily at the ceiling.

Finally, I feel myself fading, lingering for a gnat’s eternity until I loose my self till waking.

2

….a world
….mutable color…
Stars… …sand…
…intermittent grains
…clouds
A Mobius stair….
…Mystic’s wood
…ethereal…
…rough waters…
…dead land
…Green Mother…
Satan’s tears
…ghosts
I reach out…
…and…

With a cough, I wake up. The image in my mind fading as my chest burns with the air. What the hell was that? A dream? I try to recall all of the images that vanish in my grasp like smoke. I pound the waterbed in frustration.

It always seems to be like this. Just when an idea will finally appear, it slips through my fingers like sand. Makes the job of writing just that much harder.

I pad barefoot into the kitchen to make coffee. By the time the beans for the hazelnut coffee are finished being ground my arm is tired from manually grinding. Maybe I should spend the twenty bucks to get an electric one? However, the manual grinder works fine and is here. The aroma is wonderful and I sprinkle in a little bit of cinnamon in with the grounds. Tastes good that way.

The sticky pad note jars my memory. Hunting the Muse… hunting the Muse… how could a person go about doing that? According to legends, they simply show up when they want. Is it a feeling, an urge, a what? Could it be some sort of spirit person? Sure, that’s a stretch. But the idea… of hunting the Muse lingers.

Perhaps play with ideas till some feeling of her presence arrives? Then what? Beg on bended knee? Drop a cage? Use rope? Who knows what will actually work. With my luck so far, none of it will do anything helpful. All I have to do is apply myself to the problem and I should be able to get an answer.

It doesn’t work.

Trying to get her to arrive seems to be the easy part, but what to do when she gets here is another matter. What makes it so frustrating is the whole nature of the Muse. If she were merely a spiritual entity who shows up to brush you with ideas and inspiration none of my ideas would work. But I swear, when I really get going and she moves me, it is almost as if there is a hand on my shoulder or running through my hair. And I miss that.

Yeah… I know… get a date. It doesn’t work. I have tried, but apparently I get too wild eyed at times for anyone’s comfort or they get jealous of my time writing or even, saints preserve me, when I am with someone I find myself unable to write. And besides once She left me to ponder my now cold bed alone, I am too depressed to actually care about anyone else. I mean wouldn’t that just be me continuing on in the same manner as before?

I know I thought that some of the women I dated were my Muse, as if it were a permanent appellation instead of some fanciful romantic gesture. And how do I even know that the Muse is female? She could be male. I mean, think about it… the Greeks… were a little like that. Do women artists see the Muse as male? Do they even get this hung up over the whole thing? I try to think about that. It doesn’t work.

I shrug and have another cup of coffee. I sit down again and at least try to go over my works, try to add something. The process is slow and painful. No nudge of inspiration to guide me along. I eventually give it up.

Maybe I should just give up writing? Yeah, like that could happen. I have already tried to do that time and again. It doesn’t work. I always seem to come back to pen or keyboard like a drunk to a bottle. Maybe there is a twelve-step program for recovering writers. Hi, I’m so and so and I’m a writer. You know, maybe the process doesn’t work for all things.

I glance at my note about trying to find a plan in review of old works. Looking to the old to find the new. Talk about trips down memory lane. Here, on faded and fragile paper is my first story. Fifteen years gone and the first time the Muse even remotely brushed against me.

Ugh! I had forgotten how bad that story is, but I can see her there in a few places. The Muse has been with me a long time and tainted my world. Nothing like getting your own pair of rose colored glasses free of charge. But… I like the world she has shown me. The teasing of it is irritating but the glimpses are like paradise close enough to taste. Paradise can be yours… if you follow me.

That part of the clause did not reveal the fine print until later. I mean, to think that the Muse was my bitter mistress, leaving me alone when others were about. Jealously hoarding my time and energy when I wanted to spend it on the various hers. The Muse was like an overly possessive lover, who actually gave more than she took, but demanded everything. I think I may have actually dated her more than once. She was like that.

However, is that truly how she is? Perhaps that may have been my problem. I have misread the situation. What if she was actually sensitive to the divisions between Muse and writer? What if she was giving me the space to be with the flesh that comforted in a different way then her? What if she were hurt and upset about being taken for granted all the time? Tired of being blamed for my failures but not entirely thanked for my successes? What if she was like a woman in love, open to the casual pains a dork like me seems to be good at giving? Oh, bright blessed ones. What if that’s it?

If that is the case then maybe, just maybe I can call the Muse back to me. I need to come up with a plan, do some research. I knew a couple of people who might have some good advice to give me. I needed to woo the Muse to bring her back into my life and find a way to work things out between us.

3

“You look like shit, John. Do you even sleep any more?” Living here had softened Terry’s brogue but the Irish in him remained. He sat the glass of stout down in front of me. The thick darkness of it swirled slightly. The milky foam looked inviting after all of the whiskey I had been drinking.

“Thanks Terry. No, I haven’t been sleeping.” Why Terry always seemed to be worried about my ability to sleep rather confounded me? Ever since She had left me, it had been asked. Was he really a good friend or just oddly obsessed with my sleeping? I snorted and drank down the stout. Creamy goodness. I wiped the traces of the foam off my nose.

Terry took a long pull from his own glass. He sat the pint down carefully on the filing cabinet he used as an end table. For a musician he had oddly fastidious manners. Those he blames on his mother back in Dublin. “So you said you had a plan you wanted to talk over with me?”

“Well, yes. This may sound a bit stupid, even for me, but please here me out. I am trying to hunt down the Muse and I think I have a way to do it.” I held back the excitement that my idea brought to me. I could probably make this work, even with my track record. He looked skeptical.

“You’re trying to do what again?” His eyebrows lowered some and he looked at me through narrowed eyes. Something was turning in there that I could not read.

“Catch the Muse. You know… the Muse of inspiration.”

Terry laughed. Even his laugh was touched by the sound of Ireland, though it was irritating to me right now. “And how are you going to do that? Travel under hill? To get at the Fae where they live? I thought you read myths and legends? All of those attempts have ended poorly for those involved. Besides, what is your daft plan this time?”

“Well, I thought I would clean my house, play some nice music, make dinner, and try to invite her back. You know, something simple.” It had taken me the better part of a bottle to come up with this plan and I thought it was one of my better ones. Sometimes my plans were elegant, but usually they ended up like this one.

Terry seemed to sober up immediately. He sat up straighter and looked me in the eyes. “John, get it through your thick head, She’s not coming back.”

“The Muse?” I was shocked at this. How could he possibly know? He was only a musician.

“Not the Muse, you idiot. She left you. Took her stuff and found someone else to leech off. Stop trying to live in the past and move on. She is not coming back.” He shook his head sadly.

I blinked in confusion. I hadn’t talked about her but the Muse, had I? “What are you talking about, Terry?”

“John, I am talking about Jen. She… is… gone. Stop trying to fix something that is utterly broken.” I could hear the concern in his voice, but I didn’t understand it.

“I know that. Don’t you think I know that, Terry? My house is quieter now for one and another is that I have to eat my own crap cooking. Why would you think I was unaware of her being gone?” My anger at being reminded about her leaving me and my failed attempts to win her back was not helping.

“John, you have been drinking heavily for the last four months. You smell. You look like shit. I’d bet you were clinically depressed about all of this. You need to let this go.” He spoke slowly and carefully as if to a child. That pissed me off even more.

“She fucking left me, John! She threw the ring I bought her in my face and left with some guy she knew. Of course I’m depressed. But that has nothing to do with the Muse.” I drank deeply from my stout. A few deep breaths let me get my calm back. I did not want to think about her. “Look Terry, I have been in a really bad period of writers block. The Muse has left me. I am trying to fix that, not Jen. This has nothing to do with her.”

“Sure John. If that’s what you want to do, give it a try. Clean your house and have dinner with the Muse? What harm could come out of it?”

4

I set the table with some trepidation. I mean, how weird was it to set a table for two with only one person to really eat. But I had pulled out my best dishes and glasses. I had even gotten a wine that was supposed to go with what I was cooking. Given my limited repertoire, I was going to stick to chicken, peas, mashed potatoes, and salad. I hoped that would work.

It had taken me the better part of four days to get my place clean. Dishes, laundry, carpets, windows, everything was finally clean. I even aired out my house. Now instead of a slightly sour dirty smell there was an incense smell. It was a nice change of pace. The cat even seemed to like it. Jen had been the last one to really clean the place, as I had been busy with several papers for Grad school.

I set that thought aside. I was busy trying to figure out how to start this. I put on some Dave Matthews. I always wrote well to him so I would work on the premise that the Muse would not mind them either. It was a good working hypothesis.

I really hoped this would work, so little else does that I was very unsure as to the chance that this might even do anything at all. However, I had to try. If I was right about her feeling neglected and alone, about her feeling used and not cherished than that could explain why the font of my creativity left. If she felt anything like I did with Her then I know she wouldn’t have stayed.

She, Jen, had tainted my life so heavily that it is still hard to separate things. I was busy rebuilding my life from the remains She had left me.

I looked around the living room. The walls were the stupid color she had wanted. Over there was the print she had insisted I get her but called stupid when she left. Even the bed I slept in held lingering traces of her touch. And now she was gone. Years of memories flushed.

There was the table, set for two. The candles were glowing nicely. She had liked those plates. I liked them, now.

This was fucking stupid. I moved over to take the plates off the table when I could feel the first light touches of the Muse. I froze. Bright blessed Ones, was this going to work?

“Hi there. It’s been a while.” I pulled back the seat for my guest. “Have a seat.”

Only ten more minutes for the chicken to be done baking, if I hadn’t screwed that up. I poured wine for the Muse and myself. I put the salads down. The touch was still tentative but there. I sat down and smiled at the empty place across from me. “Please. I hope the salad is good. Any dressing you want?”

The silence was awkward. This whole thing felt weird, now that I was doing it. Gods, I felt like a fricking moron. How the hell was a ghost dinner going to work to bring back the Muse? However, it was too late to quit right now, right? I mean it was working. Sorta.

But I wrote really well from the awkward. There were some great stories I had done that had so little to do with reality, but had burned with the fire of the Muse. I felt strange writing them but they had turned out so good. I smiled faintly. I had written some fun stuff.

I had some of my salad. The Italian dressing was nice. However, I did add more pepper as I felt it was a food group. A glance at the clock told me it was time for the chicken to be ready. I took both plates and served both of us. Steam and flavor wafted from the food. I actually had an appetite for a change. I really looked forward to eating. At least this wasn’t the usual Ramen I choked down or some other simple and nasty food product that was cheap.

I tasted the chicken. It was good. When did I learn to cook? Surely, this was not merely a fluke. Was it? I mean, this was tasty.

The feeling grew and I could feel the stirrings of a story grow in me. This was working. Wow. I had been fairly sure that this was going to fail as well. I might even manage to pass my classes this semester. This was good.

The phone rang.

I blinked. The phone?

It rang again so I walked over and picked it up. “Hello?”

“John? How are you?” She had called me.

My heart lodged itself in my throat. It was pounding furiously in my chest. I grasped for words. “Uh… okay. I guess. What can I do for you?”

Now it seemed as if she was the awkward one. I could hear her breathe on the other end of the line. The caller ID said it was her cell phone. “I miss you. I was wrong. Can I come over?”

I looked over at the table. Two place settings, food going to waste. I could keep it warm until she got here. Who knows, maybe we might get back together. Things would go back to the way they were.

I took in the room. I could remember the smell of her perfume, the taste of her kisses. My heart ached to be with her. I had planned to marry her and spend the rest of my life with her. I missed her touch, her presence.

I glanced again at the empty chair and I felt the touch of inspiration recede. That shifted the current of my thoughts. She hadn’t been my Muse. She hadn’t cared for me. She had left me, for some other guy. That gave me my answer, “No.”

“No? No? Please John. Please. I miss you.” She used the little girl voice I could never refuse, that had gotten her so many things.

“You already made your choice Jen. I’m sorry. Take care of yourself.” I hung up the phone. I walked back and finished my meal, enjoying the flavors. This really was good chicken.

I stood and extended my hand toward the empty seat with a slight bow. “My Lady, would you care to dance with me?”

Together we swirled into the living room, moving in time to the music and I danced with my Muse, fingers flying over the keyboard.