THE FACELESS AUTHOR

-There was once a man who lived a thousand lives. He…-

He paused on typing, wondering if he was making any sense. He wanted to write something sombre, borderline tragic but not too terrible. So he locked himself in a dark room all alone and reduced the screen's brightness till he could barely see the words on the screen.

It worked before. The dark ambience he created once let him write a very enticing story in his eyes. But it seemed he needed more to stir his emotions.

He took out his phone and went through his playlist. One song after another, nothing did the trick. What if he lay on his bed?... No inspiration, he needed to dive deeper.

He got up and turned on the lights. His earphones were supposed to be close. Maybe the problem was the lack of the music right at his ears.

It took him a while to find it, tucked in the pocket of a blue hoodie hanging by the wall. Next time, he would keep it somewhere he would recall easily…at least that is what he always says.

On the bed, he put the earphones in. It still wasn't enough. The words felt sad but he himself felt nothing. He needed it to happen, an amazing story depended on it. 

Maybe, just maybe, he was approaching this the wrong way.

'What if I live it?' he asked himself. They say the human mind is powerful, and what better way to prove it than imagine a whole life emerging before his eyes. He could do it, he had to do it. Listen to the words, translate it, understand them…surely it had to work.

So he closed his eyes and imagined. Plunging his mind into the song, into the lyrics, the words, the story, the heartbreak…his emotions were stirring. He felt sad but not enough to write. It was still too shallow, too insignificant to move the mind to the heart.

So he dove deeper, deeper than ever before. And finally, I saw a spark. He had finally reached his lowest low. He took a pen and ripped his drawing book, he would write freely. Only pen on paper would do justice.

So he wrote, and wrote the tale of a man so lost in his mind that he forgot his own life. A man broken so many times he had all the reasons to throw it all away. He who had seen to the deepest depths only to forget he was still at the shore. He who saw a thousand lives yet lived none at all.

I saw him put his pen down, a glint in his eyes, a smile on his cheek but a hole in his heart, a tear ripping his soul. A masterpiece it seemed to be but at what price. He was moving farther from me, and on the days he wrote his best, were the days I saw an author… with no face.