Rusty's Armory

Unamused Muse

Posted on May 5, 2023

I sat down at the keyboard and put my fingers on the keys, hoping she would show up, so I was pleased when she appeared, sitting on the edge of the monitor with her legs hanging over the edge. I thought she was gone forever.

She was still wearing her pink rayon™ blouse and brown plaid skirt. I saw the puffy white flesh squeezing out of the tops of her garter band before quickly looking away. I really didn’t want to explore any further.

“It’s been a while” I said, noticing her rumpled looks.  She had been drinking again.

She saw me looking at the ratty skirt and runs in her hosiery and said defensively “I didn’t have anything else to do.  Maybe you could have sent an invitation and given me time to freshen up.”

“I haven’t wanted to do much of anything lately. It isn’t just you”. I replied magnanimously, trying to give some of her dignity back.

She wasn’t buying it though and snarked “How condescending of you”.

God, how I have missed her.

“Frankly, I was afraid that you would appear, and I wouldn’t have any excuses to not write”. I bleated.

She frowned a little, the softened. “Have I ever let you down”?

“No.  No, you haven’t.” I said in this moment of clarity.

She cocked her head and asked, “So, what are you working on”?

“I was thinking it was time to reintroduce myself to my audience.  My neglect of them is showing, and the list of followers has grown short.”

“I am sure they appreciated your absence”. She said dryly.

But I went on, ignoring the barb. “ … and I am feeling so useless and non-productive.  It shows in everything that I touch.  My studio is a mess.  Not the old mess of a busy writer, but rather one of a slob.”

She shrugged and said, “You’ve always been a slob.  Why should it bother you now?”

“I really don’t want to die this way.”

“How do you want to die”?

“I would prefer to die in cleanliness and order.”

“Then go live in a nursing home!” she said unsympathetically.

“That wasn’t called for!” I yelled.

“Look. If you want my help writing, I’m your huckleberry.  But maid I ain’t.”

“Well, here we are, 336 words into the essay, and I am still uselessly bantering with you. I need some motivation and ideas! And get some decent threads while you are at it!”

“Have you looked at yourself lately, Beau Brummel? Just because your underwear is colored doesn’t fool people. Put some clothes on for cryin’ out loud!”

“Oh. Now you are my fashion adviser?” I snarled

“I can do a better job than you!” she shot back.

This was going nowhere. I needed a new track. “Do you think that just doing some writing exercises will help?”

“You would have to write to write exercises.  Why not just dive in.  Yeah, your prose will be awkward.  Consider that the penalty for sloth.”

“I have had a couple of ideas, one being that surreal experience being bathed in the hospital by the ER team, but somehow I just can’t get the feel and the humor as well as the humiliation of needing bathing into the story without sounding like a clinician.”

She smirked and replied, “I sure wish I was there to see that! Why not give it another go?”

“It might be a start.  If I knew where to start.”

“It was a dark and stormy night, when suddenly, a shot rang out”

That is code between us for shut up and write something.