I Am Not a Writer

Marie Hunt

I am not a writer. I’m a thinker. And there’s a big difference between the two. Writers actually get credit for what they do. They have proof. No one gives out awards for daydreaming, musing, and otherwise contemplating. How do writers get their thoughts out of their heads? Mine get stuck. My mind and my keyboard are not compatible. They don’t understand each other. They’re never at the same place at the same time. My mind gets so focused on thinking, it forgets to direct my fingers across the keys. So what am I supposed to do?

This was my dilemma. I thought my thoughts were worth sharing. Not because they were particularly profound, but because no one else had them. They were one of a kind, never been used—which meant I could charge money for them. So writing them down and making a living seemed like a good idea. I didn’t realize that translating my thoughts into characters on paper would be such a problem.

 

I tried drugs. It seemed to work for everyone else.

I figured I’d start with the classic—alcohol. All drinking did was get me pissed off at that condescending little bastard paper clip in the corner of my screen—the fucker kept pointing out all the words I spelled with numbers. I moved onto pot. But I just ended up staring at that little blinking vertical line (is there a name for that?) and trying to overcome the urge to watch The Wall. And then I realized I was too much of a pussy to try anything else.

My luck changed a couple years ago. It was a typical fall day— it was cold, raining, and I had an ache of the head from staring at Untitled1.doc and an ache of the stomach from slowly starving to death. My mind was wandering again. My hands were lifeless on the keyboard. I needed a break.

I swiveled away from my desk and grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the bookshelf on its right. I didn’t really smoke, but I felt like I should. As I was a writer, and writers smoke. I navigated the narrow path through my apartment—a thin strip of visible carpet between piles of laundry, books, papers, foodstuffs, odds, and ends (writers, I heard, are messy). I opened my door. And that’s when I saw the leprechaun passed out on my front lawn.

A fucking leprechaun?

Yes. A bloody fuckin’ leprechaun.

He was about the size of your average 1st grader, but had a bushy red beard and a potbelly unlike your average 1st grader. He was wearing one black leather shoe with a large gold buckle. The other appeared to be missing, revealing a green shamrocked sock. His attire was typical leprechaun fare—kelly green coat, brown pants, an unnecessarily large belt, and a one of those nifty green leprechaun hats (A derby? Are they derbies? ), and he was lying in the mud on his belly, his head turned slightly to his left, his right hand tightly clutching a flask, and being pelted with rain.

What does one do when one finds an intoxicated leprechaun in one’s yard? No one ever told me, so I had to improvise. I approached slowly, kneeled down about a foot away from him, and reached for his shoulder apprehensively. He awoke after a few ginger jostles, looked up at me, then closed his eyes again and furrowed his brow after some depressing internal revelation.

“Ahw….shite. Feck me,” he groaned in a frustrated brogue.

“Umm…are you okay?” I asked.

“Well whadoo yeh think, darlin’? I’m swimmin’ in yer damn lawn.”

“Right, well…would you like a cup of tea?” I offered. My dad is Irish. He taught me that tea solves everything in Europe.

“Bloody Jameson,” was his only reply. I offered my hand and helped him to his feet.