Ghostwriter
I just couldn’t take it anymore. All the noise. I used to love living right downtown, right in the middle of everything. Not anymore.
Sure, I chose to live right beside a set of train tracks, but I thought I’d get used to it. I had gotten used to it and then I didn’t. There were more of them, the trains. Every seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Even with the door closed I still heard them.
The construction was non-stop. Buildings on top of buildings. People out in the hallways at all hours. Yelling, fighting, screaming, laughing. Again, I used to enjoy the chaos, but it was getting to me.
And my phone, my phone made all kinds of noise. Every type of noise except the sound of a phone ringing. I turned the sound off and it vibrated. Turned the vibration off and it lit up. Always wanting to steal my attention. When I went to sleep, I started wrapping it up in a blanket and hiding it under the bed.
My phone didn’t know I was trying to finish my second book. The book was basically done but in terrible shape. And all the noise around me wasn’t helping. I had hoped that the cold weather would help deaden the noise, but it just brought an army of deafening snowplows.
I fired up my computer. It took a while, a long while, so long. One of those old neon coloured Mac’s with the gigantic monitor. Every time I turned it off, I wondered if it would ever come on again. The next stage was to warm up my modem with all its blips and beeps. Every blip cutting into my brain, every beep bouncing off the inside of my skull.
The interweb was slow that day. I searched for silence, for a quiet environment to be able to catch my thoughts. I found a place up north, printed off the directions on my dot matrix printer, each scan imprinting right inside my ears. I didn’t even rip off the holed sides of the paper. The noise already existed in my head and it made my heart shudder.
I drove around trucks and past horns honking and so much traffic. The buildings got further apart. Fewer lights. Colder. Until all I heard was the light spinning of my energy-efficient car and the low hum of the wind blowing against the windows.
The only time I stopped was in the small town closest to where I was heading. The local store was open, no one around, very quiet, Still, the dull buzz from the street lights. The door signalled my entrance with a chime, which made me wince. The proprietor of the shop leaned behind the counter reading a newspaper. He looked down at me over his glasses that were so far on the edge of his nose that they threatened to fall down in a clatter on the floor. I collected a mountain of can goods and other assorted staples. Milk, eggs, cereal.
My destination was what you’d consider a budget resort, somewhere between camping and cottages. The big house on the hill was where the owners of the campground lived. About ten small cabins were dotting the landscape in the darkness. As they told me on the phone, the cabin I would be staying at had a bright bare bulb shinning over the front door. I’d be their only guest, so they’d leave the light on.
I drove slowly around the big house and headed towards the light. As requested, it was the most remote cabin. When I turned the car off, the engine died. I just sat there for a moment. Every floorboard on the porch creaked and swayed underneath. As I got closer to the bulb, I heard the slight buzzing undercurrent.
Inside I removed my boots. It was all one room - half a kitchen, old poker table instead of a dining room table, mismatched chairs, single mattress military-style cot. There was one piece of art above the old dresser - a painting of the Northern Lights. The bathroom was efficient and when it flushed I had a second or two of doubt that it would go down. I piled the canned goods with the labels facing outwards into a cabinet above the sink, poured myself a glass of water. Unclipped the latches on the small suitcase and set up my typewriter on the old poker table. A pile of blank paper beside it and my last draft of the novel on the other side.
It was difficult to sleep that night. The silence was almost too much. It was what I wanted, but I would also need to get used to it. There was a knock on the front door. Slight. I slowly walked through the cabin. Another knock. I looked out the window, but it was too dark. When I opened the door, nothing or nobody was there. I stepped out into the cold. No movement. I looked up at the main house in the distance. A light was on in an upstairs window. I don’t recall a light being on when I arrived.
Back inside, the painting of the Northern Lights seemed to glow in the darkness. It was probably just my tired brain, but I swear the lights were slightly dancing within the parameter of the picture frame.
I saw my breath when I woke. After some time here, I had gotten used to the cold. My routine was strict and I followed it. Most of the time. I tried to keep the fire going, but I get so involved with the writing or other menial tasks that I often forgot. Allowed it to burn down to only embers. The routine had quieted my life, made it simple. I needed to keep warm, eat, and write. Not necessarily in that order.
The snow crunched under my feet as I made my way to the wood lot. Stuffed some pieces under my arm, and inside stoked the ash-filled iron caste stove until the wood caught fire. With a steaming cup of coffee, I sat down in front of the typewriter and banged out a few pages. I woke up so early in the morning out here and I didn’t know why.
Usually, around midday, I put on almost every piece of clothing I had and went for a hike. Cleared my head. I walked along the barren beach, climbed some rocks, and looked out on the water. I imagined the summer with lots of families and crying kids and loud music. A shudder waved through me. Entered the forest. I liked being surrounded by bare trees.
Whenever I walked through the forest, I felt as though someone was following me. Watching. This scared me the first few times, but now it helped make me feel less alone. Every once in awhile, I stopped, thought I heard something. A broken branch. Boots on snow. Never saw anything.
The only time I talked to someone was when I went to the store to replenish my groceries. This was probably not the healthiest of situations - not talking to people, the isolation. But it suited me.
I finished the book, but I stayed. Between the woodcutting, the hikes, and other tasks, I had more than enough to keep me busy. Sometimes I couldn’t sleep, so I went hiking at night. I swore someone was following me. When the sky was clear, the moon was so bright that I wore sunglasses. The days had gotten shorter. I preferred this. There were some nights when I felt very alone, but most of the time I was okay.
One night, deep into the winter, I sprang out of bed. There was no wind, no storm, everything quiet. I put on all my clothes and stepped outside seeking the clarity of the night sky.
Every star in the universe visible. Off in the distance above the lake, the Northern Lights danced on the horizon. The same Northern Lights in the painting. They called to me. I walked to the edge of the lake. Tried to make my steps as light as possible as I didn’t want to make a crack in the silence.
I stood still, could have been a minute, could have been an hour. I was not cold. I took a step on to the ice and it held me. So I took another step. When I got far enough out, I turned back to the shore. A woman stood at the foot of the water. We stared at each other for a long time.
The ice under me cracked.
I put my finger up to my lips, silently asking her to be quiet. I finally knew what I had been looking for after all this time.
The ice under me cracked.
The woman spoke in sign language to me. I knew intuitively what she said. She signed, The lights are beautiful.
The ice under me cracked.
The cracks in the ice deepened. I turned back to the Northern Lights. She was right, they were beautiful. The ice breaking apart was the thing that would cure the sound of the beating of my own heart.