The blank sheet - A short story

He was young and ambitious, he didn't care about his parents who had told him over and over to go to university, to find a decent job, who worried about this and that and couldn't live their lives as happy as he was . He had published his first novel about a year ago and it hit the bookshelves like a meteor: 600,000 copies after the first year, a nice holiday for him, a year without any work, just that you get it right. And then, at some point, from one moment to the other, the idyll of his life as a writer turned to a vivid nightmare without any hope to wake up: Sitting in front of his laptop, he remembered the day it started.

It had all begun with the letters. Of course, every writer gets letters and not all of them are friendly or from loving fans. But surely not that kind of letters and the problem was, you couldn't tell from the envelope what you should expect to prevent the shock. The first letter had arrived exactly on the first anniversary of the publication of his novel.It looked slightly suspicious and when he had started to open it, his guts had told him that something bad
evil
was wrapped up in the tiny envelope. He remembered that his hands had trembled when he opened the fan mail. Well, when he had tried to open it. He had no chance whatsoever to evade what was going to happen, the horror started right away:

He felt it on his fingertips and it started creeping up, clinging to his wrist, his elbow ... the thing was not powder and not liquid, but somehow cold and his hand started to feel numb. The envelope had already fallen to the floor but it was too late: When he stared on his throbbing hand, he saw something dark, like black velvet, covering his skin and then he realized that it could be a plant, yes, a tropical plant and it was not only growing very fast, but it seemed to live from the warmth of his hand. All he could think of was his firelighter and he could hardly switch it on. Trembling and sweating he put the fire to his own skin and felt the thing pulling back.Ah, it didn't like the warmth of the fire, he felt its fear of that natural element.

Well, the fire made the plant
thing
on his arm vanish into thin air; but as he sat at his desk, staring at the blank page and the blinking cursor, it all came back at once. The cold, the fear and the hatred.
He couldn't think of any fan who would send him a letter like this. He was used to read stuff like "please, I need to read your next novel" or "I love the depth of your characters, how can you make up all your marvelous stories?". He didn't like the more critical letters, but criticism was okay and of course, no great artist can escape envious critics. But that letter, it was too much for him and it wasn't the last one ...

Sometime later, after a lot of partying and enjoying life, a heap of fan mail arrived. When the first horrifying letter had looked only slightly suspicious, the second couldn't be told apart from normal fan mail. He had read one from a nice lady in Georgia who loved his novel more than her husband and then he had opened a small green envelope with no detectable strangeness upon it… That was all it needed to make his hands freeze instantly, this time both arms , and no firelighter was at hand.Well, before he knew what to do, the cold crept to his heart and depressing thoughts started to fill his brain: No more books, only blank sheets and blinking cursors, the voice of his mother, "This novel was your first and only one , now do something real, why don't you study Economics? Your father would be so proud of you! "
This cold he felt was more than hatred, it was pure despair and not even he, with is vivid imagination, was able to tell how somebody could possibly be able to pack such a feeling into an envelope.
He couldn't stand the cold anymore and he plunged his hands into the teapot on his writing table. Warm water, another element the thing couldn't stand, but this time, the cold didn't leave everywhere, a bit of his heart remained frozen.

Well, he forgot this event, his brain couldn't understand what had happened and so it just forgot.

Two years after the publication of his first book, he was still staring at the blank page and the blinking cursor. He was still doing okay with the money from his book sales but doing okay was not what he was used to.The day that he had decided to write a new novel was long past and the blinking cursor had become his most hated enemy. Even if he had forgotten the letters, the despair and the fear of being unable to complete a second book, there was still too much doubt to concentrate on writing. His fingers wouldn't move and his head was blocked, blocked like a river that would soon turn into a lethal flood. A flood because he felt the novel growing in his mind, he felt the ideas forming and pulsating behind his eyes, the snakelike thoughts wriggling and whirling, but there was no way to let them out. Something, maybe a memory that he had pushed far behind his conscience
a letter
had blocked the natural way of his art; his art was writing and he was now an artist who had lost the only thing he was good at.
This memory, he knew nothing more than that, as dark as it was, as sad
cold and creepy
as it might be, he had to retrieve it and finally get rid of it. So he started thinking back, the anniversary of the publication, the fan mail, the firelighter… and while he was thinking back, he started toying with an envelope, he took a sheet of blank paper and his pen, started folding and unfolding the paper and it opened a part of his mind that had been closed for a long time:A dark alleyway behind the house of his parents, the bin, the bin where his father had put what was most dear to his only son: The writings, the notebooks, every scribbled word, everything was there in the bin and he had been crying , an eight year old boy with a talent but no hope. And the dark hooded figure behind the bin, only a shadow, visible for a small desperate boy who would have given his soul to get his revenge. He had taken the papers out of the bin, trying to ignore the figure and the strong presence of something bad, but he was so angry at his father that he couldn't. And something had changed that day, his soul had altered and the time when he started writing really good stuff had begun afterwards. He had published his novel exactly sixteen years later and the opening chapter in his novel was the piece he had written in his room after his father had put the papers into the bin. The night he had met the hooded figure, the moment he had
sold his soul
grown up and decided to do nothing as his father wanted him to.Now he remembered the deal and everything fit into the puzzle. The cursor was still blinking and the tiny light over his head went out with a BUZZ. The cursor blinked according to his heart beats… blink… .blink… .blink!

He felt the envelope between his fingers, heard the crackling of the paper. The last fan letter, the last piece of celebration on this day, on the second anniversary of the publication of his book. He had spared it to open it in the evening, had opened a bottle of good red wine and started his computer. He had planned on starting to write his novel today. But now he knew that he couldn't
would never
finish this novel. He would not even start writing it. Before he knew what he did, his fingers had sliced ​​open the emerald green envelope and again something started pouring out. This time it was so much that the thin paper could barely hold it. Desperation and doom drained out faster than he could think and more rapid than the first and the second time his hands went numb.His whole body started shaking with the unbelievable cold and then he felt his face stiffen. He couldn't move his jar anymore and when he tried to look down on the dark
nothing
thing in his hands, he could only move his eyes. He couldn't see anything but when he looked up again, the blank sheet caught his view and the last thing he could realize before he lost his life was the cursor:
Blinking according to his heart rate, it became slower… slower… slower…

When the cursor stopped and the battery of the laptop was empty, he was already dead. His body slide of the chair, still clutching the envelope and the darkness gathered behind the chair. It formed a tall, hooded figure which seemed to hold a book. When it turned on the spot, the book fell through nothingness and when the shadow had vanished, all that was left in the room was the corpse of a man whose dreams had died the day he had started realizing them ...