Wise Men and Fools

Wise men and fools

He sat gazing, first at the small green computer screen blinking at him, a little impudently he thought, and then out of the window at the almost barren landscape that he could see from the small cracked pane in the even smaller window of his tiny hole he grandiosely called his study.

Dwayne O'Donnell was a writer, or so he thought. He had not written anything for almost 18months; the longest period of writers block that he had every known. In reality Dwayne had only every had one piece published, that was a 4 line limerick in the pages of the local rag, the Elllesmere Gazette, a free weekly paper that was a running a competition. Dwayne's entry was amongst 50 other published limericks, equally aspirant and equally banal. He was however proud of his achievement. The first and only achievement in his 32 years of existence, and he wanted to ensure it was not the last.

There was young man called Dwayne
Whose head was big but not as big as his brain
Each time he tried to think
His brain would smart and his feet would stink

To the casual observer this limerick might be considered innane and almost childlike, but the lady from the Gazette, although no literary critic had remarked on its elegant simplicity and had gushed that it was simply one of the best she had read in recent times.

Dwayne was no fool, and he knew she was just being kind and probably said similar things to the other 49 winners, but Dwayne had big ideas. He had done the course on 'how to unlock your creative potential'. His computer was of the kind that could run those fancy programs to help writers unleash their talents. Although, Dwayne had yet to master the use.

Racking his brains for an idea, then he tapped on the keyboard - 'it was a dark and blustery night'. Delete, delete, delete.

He could do better than that, 'it was the worst of times, it was the best of times'. No.

'It is a truth universally acknowledged'.... No, No, No! 'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen'." No!

He pushed back his chair away from the desk that he had built himself out of an old kitchen table, cursing under his breath. A writer is original, he thought, taking inspiration from others not copying, but pushing the limits a bit further of what has been written before.

Dwayne left his study, striding careful downstairs, avoiding the creaking step so as not to disturb the other occupants. Dwayne was here only temporarily and any misdemeanour could see him packed up and out. Living on the streets had had its toll over the years, and Dwayne could no longer imagine surviving on park benches, pavements and shop doorways. He alone, amongst many others had made it. He had picked himself up by the bloody bootstraps (metaphorical of course, as he often didn't have boots,) and made a life for himself. He had written a limerick which had won a competition which had given him $25.00 prize money, and more importantly it had given him a sense of achievement, pride and a desire to win more. Actually a desire to write more. Writing for him, was like boxing was for many underprivileged boys, a way out of the scrap heap and onto the path of health, wealth and happiness.

Dwayne walked along the gravel path that led down to the beach, he was lucky he thought, how many doss houses had a beach on the doorstep. This was were he could think and be creative. This was where some of his best work was done. The limerick, he could remember, he wrote as he sat on the sand dunes, having just finished a bottle of stout and just before rolling a spliff. It had just popped into his head and he wrote it down on the back of a fag packet. That is what inspiration is meant to be he thought. Ideas from nowhere, popping into his head, as if by magic, as if by divine intervention. Unfortunately for Dwayne, he believed in neither magic nor god.

Ideas, ideas, ideas. I need ideas Dwayne ruminated The deadline was due soon and he had given himself the challenge of writing a short story or poem for a writing competition which had a top prize of $2000, and a guaranteed publication in an anthology. Dwayne could dream of how he would spend the dollars, but he could not think of anything original or creative to write. He always found the opening lines the hardest.

He tried to recall the eight line poem by David Bowie on the Hunky Dory album, how did it go again?;

The tactful cactus by your window
Surveys the prairie of your rooooom

What is a tactful cactus anyway? Still, neither could he recall the remaining six lines of the Bowie masterpiece nor imagine anything original for his own poem.

Dwayne had been to the library and read some Shakespeare sonnets, but he secretly admitted that he could make no sense of what the Bard was saying, or that he could learn anything from them. Dwayne wanted to write poetry and verse that was real, he wanted to write stuff that everyone on the street could understand and relate to. He had had it tough, he had graduated from the University of hard knocks and he could write with feeling, surely.

'Life on the streets is hard, it makes you hard'

'You live like a tiger, searching for your hunt, finding comfort where others discard their junk'

It's coming now he thought as he wrote down a couple of lines, I can feel the inspiration he thought. He remembered the creativity course he had paid $180 for six evenings at the TAFE. Imagine the end product, the teacher had said, and live the feelings that it invokes and the piece will write itself.

Dwayne, lay in the sand and tried to recollect the pain and the horror of life on the street, hoping it would trigger more words for him to write.

'The pavements are hard, and you have to be hard'

I'm losing the plot he thought. Write what you know.

'There was a young man called Bruce, with a wife, a kid on the way and a Ute'

Write what you know.

'Brucy Bruce he had some dreams, but then the crash and the burn. Whatever happened to the Ute, the kid on the way and her indoors.'

Dwayne scratched his balding head, a bit dry and scaley, and white powder drifted around his shoulders as he pondered more about his life and about his verse. Life imitates art, he thought, or is it the other way round. He couldn't remember but his life had been not art. It had been a disaster, he had been a confident young man with the world at the tip of his fingertips, but the attractions of the bottle and allure of the girls and the buzz of the big win was his downfall.

He could write that he thought. A verse about a wise man's fall into disgrace, and a fool's subsequent rise to stardom through the mighty pen.

Dwayne made his way back to his room at the shelter and sat in front of his computer and started to type.

The words suddenly started to form, first in his mind and then on the screen in front of him as he tap, tap, tapped at the key board. He wasn't even sure that these were actually his own words, or words he had previously read or heard and forgotten or repressed into the dark recesses of his mind.

Title - The legend of the wise man who fell into disgrace.
There was once a wise man, whose wisdom was legendary.
People would come from near and far to seek comfort and solace and inspiration from his wisdom. He never had to say much, but what little he did say meant much, to many. The wise man wasn't born wise, and as a child, when asked by adults what he would be when he grew up, he never said that he wanted to be a wise man when he was older. So it would perplex him sometimes when he considered the source of his wisdom, was it something within him, or ascribed on to him?

Dwayne read his words and pondered for a while and felt that he liked what he wrote, but he couldn't actually see where this story would go?

'Dwaynee, Dwaynee, are you there'. A voice, was it real or in his head, but coupled with a load banging on the door, Dwayne reckoned it was real and he turned to see Lilian standing there. Lililan was one of the other residents who somehow always managed to wear a smile and smell of lavender. Sometimes she got called Lavender Lil, and Dwayne would often times silently sing 'lavender blue, dilly dilly', whenever he saw her.

Whatcha you up to Dwaynee? She always called him Dwaynee in a sort of sing song voice.

As usual, Dwayne became a bit tongue tied and couldn't think of anything smart, or witty or clever to say. He just sort of mumbled something non-descript, and started to stare intently at the screen in front of him in the vague hope that this would make him look clever or smart, and hence more attractive to Lil.

Lavender Lil, was two of years younger than Dwayne, but had been on the street two years longer than him, which made it hard to work out if she was really younger or older. Whichever way you looked at it though, she was a smart cookie, sharp as a button and jolly attractive to boot.

Dwayne had a crush on Lil. Well, actually it was a bit more than a crush, a lot more. He was truly, madly and deeply in love with her. The only problem was he could never bring himself to do anything about it for two big reasons

Reason 1 - Dwayne was acutely shy
Reason 2 - Lil was acutely vivacious and devilishly beautiful

Lil, not being one to be easily thwarted, walked over to where Dwanye was sitting and absent mindedly put her hand on his shoulder and started to read the screen, 'you writing me a lovey dovey poem, Dwanynee?'

Absent minded touch or not, Dwayne felt the intensity of the connection, like a shock of electricity, causing the hair on his neck to stand and the slightest hint of an arousal in his pants.

'Naw, Lil, not a love poem, I'm trying to write this story for the competition and win $2000 and get out of this hell hole.'

'Let me see' she said as she nudged Dwanee along the seat and squashed herself close to his side peering at the screen, the scent of lavender was heavy in Dwayne's nostrils and all of a sudden it seemed as if the temperature had increased by 10 degrees or more. Dwayne started to silently perspire.

It was while perspiring gently that Dwanye started to drift away. He did this occasionally, usually only when stressed, but he found that over the last year or so he had drifted less.

Drifting, as he called it, used to help him manage the acute pain, agony and futility of his life on the streets. The nights that he had spent, penniless, hungry, alone and asleep in doorways were, he recalled, made only just bearable with a stiff drink of cheap booze and his drifting.

When drifting, Dwayne was totally detached from what was going on around him, and his mind would be someplace else. Often, in fact always, he could never recall where his mind drifted to, only that like waking from a dream, he felt, not so much better, but that he had endured something painful.

So, here he was, sitting up close up to the most beautiful girl in the world, who had a certain fondness for him, yet he was drifting.

Unlike previous drifting, when he was 'Lil-drifting', he would imagine a perfect world, where he and Lil were together, happy and laughing, holding hands, running across green pastures, or through wheat fields, or soft sandy beaches, or any one of a dozen Lil-idyllic scenes.

It was only in his drifting that Dwayne could be the person he wanted to be with Lil.

'Dwaynee, you away with the fairies again?, Lil cooed in his ear and nudged her elbow affectionately into his ribs, bringing Dwayne sharply out of his drift and back into the real world.