On Tuesday morning, I awoke with a vague sense of unease. Sitting up, I surveyed my small apartment. Nothing seemed out of place, but I couldn't shake the feeing that something was amiss.
I got up, got dressed, and walked to the corner to buy a newspaper to read with my breakfast. Over toast and tea, I scanned the headlines, as is my habit, and then departed for work.
I work in a small pastry shop about a mile from my apartment. Weather permitting, I walk to work for both the fresh air and the savings in bus fare. Pastry shops are not known for offering extravagant salaries.
I arrived at work promptly at eight o'clock ( I am always punctual), greeted the shop owner, and went into the kitchen to prepare for the day's baking.
I am not, in fact, a baker by chosen profession, but by necissitity. I am a poet. While I would like to devote myself entirely to the perfection of my art, day to day expenses force me to hold employment.
I live a frugal, modest lifestyle, and apart from the minimum required effort to maintain myself, all my energies are directed at my writing. That was the reason I left college before receiving my degree- it took too much time away from my art.
I have no wife to support or placate, and if my family is disappointed with my decision, I cannot say I truly care. One must be an artist to really understand the creative drive that burns within me. Lesser minds may be content to muddle through life without ever CREATING, but not I.
I have always been certain that my drive to create haunting sonnets and somber, introspective poetry was more than a passion; its a duty. One day the world will be a more beautiful place for having my work in it.
Throughout the day I turned over a couplet in my mind as I baked. "the chilling scream of an owl in flight/tears asunder the velvet night". I had thought of it on my walk to work, and remained staggered by it's impact all day. A true gift from my Muse, indeed.
It might just be the most wonderful phrase I had ever created, and I could not wait to get home and begin work on my latest creation: The Flight of a Darkling Owl.
At exactly five o'clock, I bid farewell to the shop owner and began the walk back to my apartment to prepare my evening meal and work on my newly inspired poem.
As I rounded the corner by the newstand, I was gripped by the prickly feeling that I was being watched. I stopped at the newstand to great the proprietor, and casually looked around to see who might be about. No one appeared to be watching me.
A thought occurred to me: perhaps it was my muse. My dark beauty who inspires my flashes of creative brilliance. She may have become impatient with my plans to dine before working, and stared at me that I might feel her presence.
There are no doubt some of you who will think that muses are only myth, and perhaps that is so. If it is, then attribute my belief to poetic license. I am, after all, a poet.
Deciding to skip dinner, I hurried to my apartment to begin work. I opened my door, and was again struck by the notion that something was not quite right. I found nothing out of place, and went to my desk to begin writing.
I worked on The Flight of the Darkling Owl until about nine o'clock, and then began preparing myself for bed. With my evening ablutions attended to, I crawled into bed and and fell asleep almost at once.
I awoke with a start about three AM, and quickly noticed what had disturbed my slumber- it was a smell. The smell of cigarettes and coffee and aftershave.
By the window, there stood a tall, gaunt man dressed in black. In surprise I shouted at him, "who the HELL are YOU!".
The man looked somewhat taken aback, and pushed his long hair away from his face. "Excuse me?" he said. "What do you mean "who am I?" You know perfectly well who I ..."
He broke off and glared at me for a moment. hen he struck himself on the forehead and exclaimed " Oh, for pity's sake, you're not one of them, you just pretend to be.".
"What?' I said. " Who are you and what are you talking about? I am pretending to be one of whom?". The man sighed heavily, and sank down into a chair. "You live alone, you spend all your free time writing, you call to me all the time...how was I to know that you weren't really a poet?".
"WHAT?!" I leapt out of the bed in a fury. "What do you mean I'm not really a poet? And why would I be calling to you all the time when I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO YOU ARE!? I demand that you explain yourself AT ONCE!".
Favoring me with a look that suggested he was addressing a very dim-witted child, the man arose from the chair and began pacing slowly by the window. " I am what you call a muse; or more aptly put, I am The Muse. I am also known as Death.".
I felt myself shrink back in shock and stammered"...but you can't be a muse, you look nothing like..."
He rolled his eyes at me. "Oh, of course. I can't be a muse because I'm not a pretty lady in a Greek tunic with flowers in my hair, right? I can't be a muse because I don't skip about sprinkling fairy dust on the benighted heads of fools like you. And most most importantly, I can't be a muse because I am Death, and everyone knows that poets NEVER thing of death. Sheesh."
From nowhere a cigarette appeared in his hand. He lit it with an antique lighter from the breast pock of his coat, inhaled deeply, and blew a long plume of smoke at the ceiling.
"Look, pal,"he said. "Think about it for a minute. The is a reason for phrases like "only the good die young" and "tortured artist"....the most greatly gifted are usually the most tormented as well. I understand this, and when they long for me, I come to them. I help them to find words to put pain on a page. I help them write of fear and grief and hate. I do all that I can for them, and they begin to love me. When there is nothing left to be expressed, they beg to be joined with me, and I embrace them, because I love them, too."
"I was with Poe in the Baltimore alley where he lay convulsing and seeing his wife's image reflected in my eyes. I was with Sylvia Plath that day in the kitchen when she wanted nothing more than to be carried to oblivion on a cloud of gas. I am with them all. They are beautiful, not in spite of being broken, but BECAUSE of it.' He sighed and crushed his ciggarette out on my bedroom carpet.
"You, on the other hand, are an ego-maniac with an urge to write bad ryhmes. Perhaps,sir, you should consider a job in the greeting card industry." And with that, he was gone.