The Lost Story

The only way to trigger your imagination, and actually write, you figured, is writing your pieces as though they were a rough copy. And so you’ve created a word document titled ‘morgue’ where you type down random thoughts that trickle down your mind from time to time, although at not so laudable intervals.

The good thing about the articles written in ‘morgue’ is that you often manage to string enough words to make a complete article – where complete is anything more than 800 words. Looking at the word count, you are close to eight thousand words – a feat you wouldn’t manage if you wrote the stories in individual word documents.

But then the trick comes with a disadvantage. Sometimes as you scroll down, one story arrests your attention, even when you insist to it that you are rushing down the hospital to deliver another story. It demands a bribe – but then how do you bribe a story you wrote yourself. It’s like reading the chats of your girlfriend who is soon bound to be your ex. It is simply irresistible.

Even though you should have rushed to the end and began typing the little story that bobbed up and down your stormy mind, you read it all through. You add and remove words that you think were not well thought and then nod at your creative genius, because, you face it squarely, no one has ever found it fit to tell you how impressed they were by your imaginations. When you are done patting your own back, the story you wanted to deliver to the morgue has limped off into the bush. Knowing how dangerous he was, you decide to let him roam for a while, may be the threat of his own powerless against powerful adversaries in the jungle will bring him back to his senses and come back to you.

‘He was a good story damn it.’ the silent scream in your mind goes off. ‘You better find him. Now.’ It yells even further, sounding like your neighbour’s alarm which he either ignores or he is too asleep to hear it. If the night is still, it feels as though bombs are being detonated right inside your eardrum. And that’s how your mind screams, telling you to find the story.

The story developed self-healing properties, and disappeared in the jungle of the stories that shall never see the darkness and the coldness of the morgue. It is out there, living its life. Perhaps partying, and probably will wake up with a stranger beside him tomorrow morning. Or with a legendary hangover the following day.