Lost for words
Welcome to the Advent Calendar Story Train, where you can read through 24 stories under this year’s theme, “Lost”.
Nick sits at his desk; elbow bent and his face in his hands. The once-steaming cup of coffee has now cooled but he ignores it, or forgets about it.
The calendar above his head has a large, Stabilo-pink ring around the 20th. He used to love the thrill of the challenge of producing work for deadlines, now he just feels a knotted stomach. His computer screen shows a document page. Empty.
With a sigh, he withdraws his face from his hands and stands up, finally noticing the coffee, which he drinks, ignoring the fact that it’s almost cold. He walks over to the Advent Calendar and opens the little window. Inside, there’s a picture of a candle blazing. He sits down and takes his diary.
December 10
Brain fog. Clouds in my brain clouding my brain. I feel like a rowing boat without oars with no idea where or if I’m going. The calendar above my head is a weight on my shoulders.
Fingers swarm over keys and the keyboard taps away. He stops and looks up at the screen, eyes moving across the page. He looked down at the one key that mattered. He pressed it and watched the words disappear. The short story for the year-end anthology remained unwritten. And time was closing in.
December 12
I feel like a literary eunuch, I’ve been castrated and my words fire blanks. Mr No-Nuts is at the keyboard again.
A paragraph, flat, lifeless and automated, empty words about a lonely Christmas on a lighthouse in the middle of a raging storm. Who gives a toss about lighthouse keepers at Christmas, when everyone’s on the sauce and wrapping presents? His new-found friend, the Delete key, came to the rescue. Whatever he wrote no longer seemed to be his. The thought was like a splinter: I have forgotten how to write like me.
A soft chime startled him. An email, from his editor, Annie. He read the subject line: Checking In – December Story. He opened the mail and read the rest. She was her usual bright and breezy self, something he had once adored about her but now her enthusiasm felt like a punch in the stomach.
Nick got up and walked around the room. He needed a distraction and found it in the box he’d brought down from the loft; decorations from Christmases past. It was time to throw out the old, and since his parents were no longer, he decided now would be the right time.
He opened the box; a couple of old Christmas cards, mangy tinsel, baubles scratched dull. And the manger. He hadn’t thought about that for years. The little wooden manger passed down from grandfather to father to son that used to sit on the mantlepiece. Except, there was no manger. He tipped the box out on the table. Nothing. It wasn’t there. All thoughts of the story deadline disappeared as he raked through the contents of the box laid out on the table. His grandfather had made it while being held as a prisoner of war and now it was missing.
With shaking hands, he threw everything back in the box. Eyes wide, he staggered from the room and climbed into the loft. There were other boxes, all marked with their contents. Kitchen, Nick – Baby, Books. He opened every one. He sat in a growing pile of family history as he inspected each box. Desperate, he reached the last one, Odds and sods. His hand pulled out scraps of cloth, paper glue and anything else his mother used for her bricolage hobby. He rummaged through the box.
His hand closed on a familiar shape.
With care, he pulled his hand from the box. He held the manger, discoloured, scratched and missing a few details, up to the light of the window. Forgetting the mess around him, he went back downstairs and placed the manger on the mantlepiece, where he’d always remembered it. As he lifted his fingers, the little wooden roof of the manger came off. He turned it over in his fingers, looking at the broken joint. Under the roof were three words, carved under the harshest conditions.
NEVER LOSE FAITH
The message was not lost on Nick. He had made a career from his writing, earned money from his words and now, here he was, a blank page for his efforts.
From a drawer he took a tube of glue and repaired the manger’s roof before placing it on the mantlepiece. Then, with a sense of calm, he started clearing away the mess he had created, one ordered box at a time, until everything was back in its place.
He took one look at the blank screen, closed his eyes for a few seconds, then turned the computer off.
December 15
That strange sense of calm of doing bugger all, even when the clock is ticking and there is expectation. This mad mariner tale no longer interests me. I hope a seagull shits on his head for Christmas.
December 16
I do nothing, except laze around the house, read and sometimes look at the ornament.
December 17
I keep analysing my grandfather’s message scrawled into his creation at a time when faith was probably the only thing he had. Faith in who, or what?
December 19
Dear diary, thank you for being there. Grandad’s message never leaves me and here I am with, selfishly, only faith in myself. Not in my empty words but in my diary pages. It’s me in there. I’d lost me, myself.
He opened a new document and typed the title: An Advent Adventure.
No lighthouses or lonely Christmases, he wrote about the fear, pain, and loathing on a blank page, and purpose found among lost things. The story was short, imperfect, heartfelt, and his.
The next morning, deadline day, he read it once and pressed the Send key.
A scratched message, like the scratch of a pen on paper, gave lost words a voice.
The end
Thank you for reading today’s story. The next story will be available to read sometime on the 19th December, titled “Lost Project“. This link will be active tomorrow when the post goes live.
If you missed yesterday’s you can go and read it here.
My Words, My World 