Inside the Pages and Other Stories

Inside the Pages

Chapter 1

T

he sunlight kisses my face as my fingers continuously hit the keys of the keyboard of my laptop. My gaze shifts from the keyboard to the screen from time to time. My lips move imperceptibly. My wrists press against the edge of my laptop.

I’m writing the 29th chapter of my novel. I still can’t think of a title for the story, but I usually worry about that matter more after I finish the first draft. The title of my previous books only contains one word, of course, excluding the word The. I’m planning the same format with this one I’m currently working on.

Chapter 2

I

began writing when I was nineteen years old. I was a college student taking BSIT course. I lived in an apartment near the university with my friend Pablo. He was an Engineering student and dreamt of working with a prominent company, which he didn’t reach because three years after Graduation, Cancer took his life painfully.

Despite my lack of a generous amount of extra money, I still had the guts to buy a lot of books; I just got to look for cheaper copies at a book sale or second hand book stores. At that time, I’d always set aside a specific amount of money I’d spend on books for a month, which was nearly a quarter of my weekly allowance. I could buy three books with that. Four if I got lucky.

On a Sunday morning, I went early to a second hand bookstore and found a beat-up but cheap copy of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road. I finished it the same day and it was amazing. That book made me fell in love with reading, or literature in general.

The day after reading that amazing book, I began to write a story as a practice. It’s about an unnamed man who woke up on a post-apocalyptic earth. You’ll see the heavy influence of McCarthy’s novel. I only wrote two pages of that story; then I began another one, then another. I had my friends read my stories and very few of them actually liked my works. Most of them didn’t understand a thing. A professor of mine read a short story I wrote called Project Metamorphosis. It’s about a group of scientists who kidnaps beggars on the streets and conduct experiments on them, turning them into deadly Cyborgs for the Government. My professor said the premise was interesting (not necessarily original), but the prose needed a lot more work.

During my remaining days as a College Student, I’d always find an opportunity to write, usually before bedtime. Pablo, my roommate, would always tell me to sleep.

For god’s sake, it’s one in the morning already. Get some shut eyes, he’d say.

Yeah. Just one more chapter. I’d say, then sip a bitter coffee.

We have an exam tomorrow. Know your priorities, he’d reply as he covers himself fully with his smelly blanket.

Yes. I know my priorities, and my calloused fingers would continue to hit the keys on my keyboard. Tak-a-taktak-a-taktak-tak-tak.

I finished my BSIT course without any honor, but I couldn’t care less.

I finally went home. After a week of rest, I began locking myself in my room and writing my first full length novel. My room was quiet except for the sound of the keyboard and the sound the electric fan makes. I don’t listen to music while I work. I don’t understand those writers who prefer it. But to each his own.

One afternoon, while writing a steamy bed scene for my first horror novel, my mother went to my room (real good timing) and told me to start finding a real job. You’re old. Soon you’ll have to get your own life, and you’ll need to work.

But ma, I’m already working. I said, pointing at the screen, hoping for the pages of the document to be zoomed out enough for it to be illegible.

But it’s not a real job. Find one that’s related to the course you’ve finished. Apply for work to big companies, schools, or something.

I promised her I’d get the story I was writing published. The royalty may not be as big as the salary in an IT job, but probably enough to pay for bills and books. As a BSIT student who hated my course to the core, I’d be a fool to get an IT job. It’s like entering a prison for the second time, or hell, in that matter.

Years went on and I still hadn’t published anything. I would wait weeks and months just to receive a rejection letter. Some wouldn’t even send one. So to help with the expenses in the house, with the money I borrowed from a friend, I established my first business. After a year of operation, I was able to return the borrowed money and help with the house bills and other financial responsibilities. I was earning a decent income.

Between those hours of running my business, I would open my laptop and start typing. I did a pretty good job of being patient with the customers who interrupted me while I was writing an important plot point.

...he brought down the knife repeatedly with an unidentifiable pattern. Hot blood splashed on his face. Drool fell from his mouth. He utte

How much for the Spanish bread? a customer would say.

After three years of managing a Bakery, a publisher finally accepted a manuscript I submitted. It’s a sixty-thousand-word novel called The Church Usher. It’s about, well, a church usher, who, at night, fights fallen angels while he himself is a fallen angel. It deals with redemption or something. That kick-started my career as a professional writer. I wrote books that sold a decent number of copies, and I wrote books that became laughing-stocks, but the former was dominant. I attended book signings. I signed thousands of books. That smell of ink as I write my autograph on the first page of my book, and the sound that friction between the tip of the pen and the surface of the paper produces stays with me.

I met a girl at a book convention. We became friends, then later led to a romantic relationship. She got tired of me and then our shared love ended badly. Then I wrote more wonders and mysteries.

Chapter 3

I

began writing this novel on my 32nd birthday. It would be a slasher novel, and the perspective will shift from the past to the present in a continuous manner. The story tells the struggles of a group of teens that began when they accidentally ran over and killed a school bully in a deserted road at night. The father of the bully, a corrupt City Mayor, hires a hitman who happened to be a psychopath. I still don’t know what will happen because I didn’t write a plot. I’m what they call a Pantser.

Of all my books, this would probably be my favorite. It’s not special or anything. The concept is not new. I can’t explain why I believe this would be my best work.

Chapter 4

I

created the antagonist in my mind while attending the funeral of my uncle. The funeral was conducted in a church. After the priest finished his tedious sermon, he asked among the audience if someone would like to give a message or some sort of eulogy the star of the show wouldn’t hear. My uncle’s youngest son went on stage. He talked about how much he loved his father, his father that he refused to take care of in his dying days because he was with his friend and was having a blast; he talked about how he misses him yada yada blah blah blah cry, made those fake tears flow from his ugly eyes yada yadayada and all that crap.

After the eulogies, the priest asked the attendees to take a look at my uncle to pay our respects. I went first because I planned to leave early for another book signing event at a mall nearby. My primary purpose for going to that city was because of that book signing event. Uncle’s funeral just happened to be in the same City, so I stopped by to meet with my relatives and, you know, to be polite.

Behind me was a weeping old lady; she had curly, short hair. I still can’t forget that disgusting sound every time she sniffed her dripping snot.

So I took a look at my uncle behind the glass of the coffin. You ask me what was in my mind? Definitely not the memories I had with the bastard, that time when he forced me to try a cigarette, or that time when he pulled down my shorts while I was singing James Ingram’s Just Once in Karaoke. So no, I didn’t remember any pleasant memories with this dead meat in the coffin. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t loathe him.

What’s in my mind was another idea for a novel. I saw my uncle’s dead, white face, his lack of expression, and his way of lying inside the coffin – erect. So what if I create an antagonist that has a white complexion, almost like a corpse’s? An antagonist that always stands oddly erect. An antagonist that bears no expression on his face: a face like a mannequin’s. Yeah.  I found it a pretty good idea.

Even during that book signing event, I couldn’t stop thinking about the concept. And he’s gonna be a psychopath, a man that feels no remorse, no emotion, no empathy, exactly like a dead person. Yep. Not original, but a good concept, nonetheless.

When I went home, I took a nap, and when I woke up, I immediately went to my working space and opened my laptop. I began writing my ideas. I don’t always take notes because I believe that’s where I get bad ideas. But this time, I just couldn’t help it. I wrote down the ideas not to prevent myself from forgetting it, but to simply have the pleasure of writing it down.

I glued my eyes to what I wrote, then I smiled.

Chapter 5

T

he next day or two, I began writing the novel in which this new antagonist of mine would lurk. Every time I lay in bed, I just couldn’t take the picture out of my mind; his expressionless face looking through a window, or looking straight into your