Creativity Versus Productivity

I really enjoy making up stories, but I’m a professional writer who writes about real-life, grown-up things for a living, and this makes telling fictional tales very difficult to do.

I’ve been having a case of writer’s block lately. I’ve been trying to figure out how I can get on the storytelling horse again and just churn out one good short story. I’ve made mind maps, subject lists, I’ve scheduled a regular time each day to sit and write, and I’m reading books about the craft. I’ve been coming up with all kinds of different methods to try and get the show on the road, but nothing’s been happening.

Today, it dawned on me that I was approaching it all wrong. I realised that the conditions required for synthesising information and producing clear, effective articles of communication as a journalist are antithetical to the conditions needed for facilitating the flow of imagination, and generating the eureka moments that fuel good storytelling.

I attended a design and architecture conference this afternoon and had lunch with one of my publishers and a friend of hers who organizes visual art events and tradeshows. All of us are self-employed business owners, and the conversation turned to work and how to avoid taking on more jobs than we really want to.

The publisher, an architect by training, dreams of one day designing and building her own house on a beach, but she can’t because she has twelve employees and clients on her tail constantly. The art event organiser can't find the time to work on her own oil paintings, because she has too many meetings scheduled on any given day. I had a book and two short stories published too many years ago, but can’t seem to write fiction anymore because I’ve got too many paid assignments and copywriting projects to complete.

“Saying no is very difficult to do, especially if you have overheads and staff to pay,” said the publisher.

“Every deal you clinch feels like a win. The adrenalin of getting a new client is addictive. And who can resist the thought of expanding one’s portfolio.” I added.

“I sometimes feel bad about saying no, because I think that will stop them from ever coming back to me,” said the art event organiser.

“The problem with getting the big projects or having a good fiscal year, is that you have to keep it up, and you feel compelled to exceed your numbers from the previous year. So every year, the anxiety mounts because once you get used to making big money, it’s hard to go back to making small bucks,” said the publisher.

“But we have to learn to say no. What’s important to ask ourselves is: do we want to be productive or do we want to be creative?” said the art event organiser.

We only have so many hours in a day, should we spend most of our time being productive, or should we allow ourselves the pleasure of being creative more often?

Most of the time, being productive feels right; it feels more appropriate than being creative. Productivity seems like the responsible, mature approach to life, because it helps to remove unwanted circumstances (like poverty, homelessness, hunger or lack of perceived social value) and propels us upward in the world (earn an MBA or PhD, buy a home, become a CEO, buy stocks, have everyone kiss your ass).

When I think of creativity in its purest form, I often see images of Van Gogh slicing his ears off, doped out street buskers writing killer songs that never get heard, or drooling children building sandcastles on the beach. So it’s not surprising that I’ve ended up taking the productivity route.

Being busy, efficient and prosperous makes me feel like I am doing the best I can to get my basic needs taken care of, which in turn makes me feel righteous, superior to, and fit to sit in judgment of those who are less busy, efficient and prosperous than myself. It makes me feel as if I have earned my place in the world, and that I am indispensible to those whom I like to believe (often falsely so) depend on me. Being productive improves my self-esteem, it helps me feel a little more in control and a little less afraid of how unpredictable life can be. But it also leaves me with a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction.

I walk around like I have really important things to do and lament how there’s never enough time, but there’s this big question hanging over my head. Why the heck am I doing so much boring, tedious, meaningless and unoriginal crap? Probably because it’s a lot safer than the alternative.

Because of the nature of my profession, I’ve always assumed that I was being creative every time I produced decent copy. But my new friend’s remark got me thinking more about how productivity and creativity are really very different beasts.

The Oxford dictionary defines productive as “producing or able to produce large amounts of goods, crops, or other commodities; or achieving a significant amount or result”. It defines creative as “having good imagination or original ideas”, while Webster defines creative as “using the ability to make or think of new things: involving the process by which new ideas, stories, etc., are created”.

The productive person is one who is goal oriented, result-driven and concerned with dolling out quantity, and generating benefits, while the creative person is one who has the ability to think up new things. Though both productivity and creativity clearly have their merits, I find that the later is a much rarer condition of mind, and the place where great things happen.

Just before lunch, we had attended a talk by architect Rem Koolhaas about the coexistence of chaos and order in the workplace of the 21^st century. In the world of start-ups and design, innovation is an absolute necessity, and according to Koolhaas’s presentation, it is the chaotic and unstructured environments that inspire improvisation – the seed of all new creations; while ordered or highly structured spaces (like the traditional office cubicle and boardroom) can stifle improvisation and thus creativity.

Now take Koolhaas’s proposition and apply it to the human mind at work. Like a built environment, the programme that a mind is accustomed to can determine if it becomes a place that encourages productivity or a place that inspires creativity. Making “do to” lists, work flow charts, doing research or performing routine activities on a daily basis can perhaps be likened to the highly structured office. To work productively, one usually follows templates, guidelines, modus operandi and processes that allow for the efficient deliverance of a tangible commodity. Productivity often stipulates benefits or profits, either in the form of a purchase order, pay cheque, certificate, positive appraisal, social approval or a promotion and a raise. To be prolific as productivity requires, the mind needs to move within the framework of an assembly line. It has to approach its tasks step by step: Take a brief, meet the client’s requirements, deliver the work, wait for feedback, rework the concept, send to client for approval. Clean things ups so the work looks professional and perfect, get paid.

To work creatively, the mind needs to be in a state that is well, a little uncoordinated and messy. More like an artist’s studio – lofty and spacious, with cluttered corners. It needs to be in a state of play – an energetic, emotionally charged, frisky state where random thoughts, ideas, images, sounds, feelings or impressions vibrate with sufficient intensity and verve that they can actually be captured by the worker and transferred into their medium of choice.

The key phenomenon in creative thinking is randomness. When there are too many rules in place, there is a lower chance for psychic happenstance – that magical lightning bolt of the gods. Hence, a mind in a state of leisure, a mind free to entertain all sorts of emotions and notions, both good and bad, is probably more conducive to receiving random thoughts and observing previously unnoticed patterns than a mind that is too singularly focused on achieving a particular goal. Therefore, to arrive at a state of mind that encourages creativity, all structures (deadlines, word counts, client briefs, client expectations, industry standards, budgets, fees, hourly rates, formatting etc. etc.) ought to be obliterated.

If productivity is a fashionably and formally dressed lady ready to dazzle at the ball, creativity is the orphan with no shoes, but the face of an angel. Productivity clings to the trappings of the material, the tried and true formulas for corporeal success, whereas creativity is undoubtedly guided by the spiritual and seeks only to find solutions to the whys, hows and what ifs. Agenda can only be an afterthought of creativity, whereas it is the driving force of productivity.

All that said, we should not abandon productivity altogether. Pablo Picasso once said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist”. I think the problem with becoming a producer is that the rewards of quantity and worldly achievement become so seductive, that we forget about discovery, novelty, authenticity, higher purpose, and the joy of play.

I know I must try to say “no” to doing what feel I ought to, and say “yes” to doing what I want to more often. So perhaps getting on a horse and attempting to churn is not the way to get through this block. I can see now that the creative mind is not a farm where ideas can be reined in and stories harvested, it is an open field that sees drought, pestilence, rain and fire.

But as long as this field is left undomesticated, unfenced and unfettered, the sunlight will continue to shine upon it, and the grass will grow. I do not know what plant or flower or fruit will blossom there this season. Maybe there will be nothing for a while. But I take the wild field over the farm today.

Rechannel Sex for Success

Why are peak performers and high-achievers more prone to promiscuity and infidelity? Because sex is energy, it's a self-igniting fuel that when not used to power up the engine, ends up burning the car. And Type As tend to have a whole lot more of it! There’s been much scientific research linking ambitiousness to a high sex drive, and the marital indiscretions of charismatic celebrities such as Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods, Elizabeth Taylor and Madonna serve as reminders of the sex-power connection. It would seem that individuals who are highly motivated, are more often than not, hornier than most too. So what can those with big appetites do to stay out of trouble yet continue climbing the ladder of success?

In Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”, he talks about the mastery of sex transmutation. Hill writes: “Sex mutation is simple and easily explained. It means the switching of the mind from thoughts of physical expression, to thoughts of some other nature. Sex desire is the most powerful of human desires. When driven by this desire, men develop keenness of imagination, courage, willpower, persistence, and creative ability unknown to them at other times. So strong and impelling is the desire for sexual contact that men freely run the risk of life and reputation to indulge it. When harnessed and redirected along other lines, this motivating force maintains all of it’s attributes of keenness of imagination, courage, etc., which may be used as powerful creative forces in literature, art of any other professional calling, including, the accumulation of riches.”

Taoist practitioners have long understood this philosophy of sex transmutation and have employed the sexual instinct for the purpose of self-development and well-being. They understood that sexual energy could be a depletive force, as well as a creative one. Like fire, it can be destructive or productive depending on how it is used. According to Taoist master Mantak Chia, sex, when reigned and used properly, becomes an aid in the spiritual pursuit of enlightenment. Chia even went as far as to encourage men to have sex without ejaculating to intensify the experience without expending precious “qi” or life force. In the Taoist text “The Sexual Teachings of the White Tigress”, author Hsi Lai teaches women how use sex to enhance their health and vitality, and maintain their youth.

Call it Eros, qi, life force, mojo, lust or a crazy mad crush, that irrational instinct that rouses your loins is the very thing that you should thank for all your big breaks in life. But, often people with high sex-drives can become enslaved by the very thing that propels them towards success, much to the detriment of their careers and reputations. But there is a way to master that monkey!

The key to making your libido work to your advantage is to introduce discernment and restraint. Squander your mojo and you’ll be left with no more wild oats to sow in your career or creative pursuits. Nurture it, tease it and deprive it of junk food, and it will start working wonders for you. Sexual energy is most potent and influential when it exists in the mind. It is dissipated and weakened once it is physically expressed in the act of orgasm. So hold on to it, release occasionally, and redirect the bulk of it to your work and creative life.

The power of strategy

Consider the single and sexually frustrated man or women, who expends much mental energy plotting how to “target, trap, tap and tame” a desired mate. The same strategic thinking processes translate beautifully to career advancement. In order to be successful in the mating game, one needs to be, above all else, innovative. To keep a potential mate enthralled, one needs to be able to continually entertain, intrigue and most importantly remain a novelty. To stay on top of your game in the world of business requires pretty much the same skills: keep impressing your clients (entertain), make sure they think you know something they don't (intrigue), and always surprise them with something new (remain a novelty).

The power of conquest

I knew of a guy, let’s call him Jed. Jed was what some would call a player. In his early twenties, his made a list of all his sexual conquests: name, age, hair and eye colour and how well they rated in the sack. Today, Jed who is now an extremely successful Hollywood scriptwriter has shifted his focus. He now makes lists identifying possible projects he can work on, existing and potential clients he can approach, story ideas and areas where he can develop new business. He prioritizes this list according to how easily he can achieve each item, how lucrative they will be, and how much satisfaction he will derive from working on them. The amount of time Jed use to spend pursuing and romancing new paramours, he now spends writing brilliant stories. Sex allows us to gain more territory (we get access to a body or bodies that we previously did not have access to) and increase our influence (we mate and send out mini versions of ourself into the world), and by shifting our focus from the physical to the psychic, this expansion can take place in our work life too.

Keeness of Imagination

The “keenness of imagination” that Hill writes about is something that anyone in the grips of sexual obsession knows well. The smitten spend hours entertaining thrilling fantasy of past scenarios or construct encounters (complete with dialogue) that they hope to have with the object of their attention. Their imagination fires on all cylinders until it has exhausted itself with multiple scenes or perhaps multiple partners. Now take away the more obvious imagery and ideas associated with sex, and what’s left is an enquiring mind and a clear eye that causes one to delve deeper into the emotional states and existential quandaries that cause us to seek out sex with such a desperate and despairing urgency in the first place. What reveals itself is a fear of loneliness, of poverty and lack, the sorrow of loss, rage at and dependency on a parent, the urge to dominate or submit, the need for connection, the desire to win, the need for God or a resistance to pain or death. Remove the obvious and what comes to light are subjects that are the source of all the world’s most sublime art, and the impetus for all of humanity's advancements.

Courage

Watch the male praying mantis braving death in the arms of a female for a shag, or the male wasp spider, whose genitals get broken off inside his girl before she eats him after sex, and you won’t be able to deny that pursuing sex takes the type of “courage” that Hill might have had in mind. Now imagine how much better off that praying mantis and wasp spider might be if they hadn’t explored their women’s naughty bits? This courage and risky-taking proclivity when transmuted can lead to great success in terms of wealth acquisition. It is this kind of fearlessness that encourages the entrepreneur with only a hundred dollars in his pocket to turn his dream into a reality, or that nudges the investor eyeing a dark horse to make that leap when others daren’t.

Willpower

Defined as “the strength of will to carry out one’s decisions, wishes or plans”, I interpret willpower in the context of sex as the ability to meet your goal at all costs and without consideration for others. Squids, too eager to get down to business, pierce holes into their mates before inserting sperm into their cuts (ouch!); elephant seals have been known to crush hordes of seal pups when they are in a mating frenzy. Another definition of willpower is “firmness of will; the ability to control oneself and determine one’s actions”. Once transmuted, the sex instinct can convert willful insistence to pure, directive intent, which has the power to manifest greatness and an ebullient existence.

Persistence

Watch male lobsters boxing over who gets the girl, or observe the bowerbird of Northern Australia slogging away to build their complex tunnel like nests to impress and entice a mate, and it becomes clear that sexual desire inspires almost trance-like persistence among those in its grip. Persistence, as you probably already know, is a key ingredient for success, and when rerouted from carnal pursuits towards intellectual or spiritual endeavours, can result in long-lasting and ever-increasing victories.

Creative ability

According to certain cultures and religious texts, the purpose of sex is procreation. If this notion is correct, sexual intentions are thoughts of pure creativity. In the physical expression of sex, the creative power of sexual thoughts is diminished or extinguished. But if they are withheld and not constantly given an outlet of flesh to tire themselves with, these thought-instincts enliven, adapt and are forced to find different modes of expression, for example art, music, writing, acting or the expansion of empires. When the libido is brought to submission, a person is thus able to tap more fully than ever into their creative abilities and manifest their dreams when previously they could not.

Pretty Girls

The top shelf of the closet was high, so I needed a stool to reach its contents. It was crammed with an old duvet. Poking around underneath it, my fingers felt the hard shell of the shoebox; the thing I was looking for was inside it. 

I had always hoped a day would come when I would be happy enough with Inez to throw it away. But that day never came. 

Inez was on vacation with her mother in Marbella. It was nice having the house to myself. The distance allowed me to find her mildly enchanting again. I didn’t have to listen to her laugh at her own jokes, eat tiny overpriced dishes with her at pretentious restaurants, watch her roll her eyes at me when I say something she disagrees with, or listen to her nag about teabags in the sink. 

Our marriage might work if I could just frame her and stick her up on the wall, right next to the ludicrous Rothko hanging in front of our bed. That thing makes me anxious in the morning; I feel the colours shouting at me, screaming that something’s not quite right. Last year, over the course of a week, Inez had developed an appetite for abstract expressionism, so I was coerced into shelling out a revolting amount for what looks like a large lurid bruise. Her desire for Rothko started around this time last year, after her mother, a vapid botoxed socialite, gave her a coffee table book from the National Art Gallery for Christmas. I tried explaining to Inez how she could probably find a much better painting from a more talented, less famous artist at quarter of the price that would actually match our carpet and blinds. In typical Inez fashion, she accused me of being cheap, having no taste, then made sure she got exactly what she wanted.

I bought her the ugly thing. She has since forgotten about Rothko and is now keen on some surrealist called Miro. Thankfully, mother dearest suggested a girly getaway, which I was happy to pay for, so Inez couldn’t lounge around at home all day in her designer bra and panties dreaming about the Miro that she would soon manipulate me into buying. 

Perhaps my life would be much easier if I married someone who wasn’t 14 years younger than me. I imagine my life might be more pleasant if I shared it with someone less demanding, less vain, someone willing to pay her own way through life, someone who wasn’t an emotional vampire or a materialistic leech. But that would probably mean that I’d have to settle for someone plain, because girls who are built like Inez aren’t very good at putting anything or anyone before themselves. 

When we are out and she starts pouting because I don’t eat where she wants to or buy her something she likes, the lyrics from that Jimmy Soul song starts playing in my head. “If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife, so from my personal point of view, get an ugly girl to marry you.” Should’ve paid more attention to him before I bought her the ring.

Inez likes to tell people that she works, but making and selling little silk pouches for mobile phones at flea markets is not exactly what most rent paying adults would consider a real job. She likes to think of herself as a designer, even though she actually sells less than three pieces every month and earns enough for two meals, and we’re taking meals at Nandos or Pizza Express. She thinks that because what she does is “creative”, she really shouldn’t have to work as often or as much as the rest of us. She’s got what some might call an artistic temperament, only she has zero talent.

Whenever someone actually buys one of her garish and flimsy contraptions, for the next three days, I’d have to listen to her tell me what a gifted artisan she is and how “just you wait”, she will be the next big thing. “You see how intricate this piece is, the way they sequins glitter just so. I call it ‘the right light’, because when you find just the right light, everything changes. That’s the essence of this piece, get it? There must have been like a dozen stalls at the fair selling mobile phone accessories, but this lady took one look at my creation and said she would not bother with the other stalls. I bet once her friends see ‘the right light’, I’ll be getting loads of commissions. Designing is my destiny. I am sooo good. I should really just charge more of my creations, don’t you think? You know what I think? I think creative people like myself have minds that are most similar to God.” My skin crawls every time she uses the word “creation” to describe those useless little rags. I wonder how Inez would react if she found out that the woman took ‘her creation’ home and gave it to her cleaner of hairdresser for a Christmas present. I wonder what Inez would do if I told her the truth, not just about her silly phone pouches, but about how I really see her. But I spare myself that trouble, because she’s so exasperatingly thick that you can’t really have a decent argument with her anyway.

It doesn’t help that Inez is always right because she has that very unfair advantage of physical beauty. The world, myself included, condones her haughtiness and keeps her blind to her lack of wit or character because she is so damn pretty. She’s one of those women who come from a different mould. One of those birds so aware of the brilliance of their own feathers that they’ve become accustomed to always being venerated, pandered to and adored. Always looked at with an admiring eye and spoken to with a gentle voice. 

It’s said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the truth is, there is a universal template – symmetrical, striking facial features, a slender, elongated frame with flesh in all the right places, a full head of hair, smooth, taut, flawless skin and a high level of touchability. When I look at a beautiful woman, I feel pleasure. I feel for a moment as if I am a more important, more interesting man, living a larger, more exciting life. Gazing upon female beauty is a transcendental experience, and looking at a pretty girl makes me feel vigorously alive. That seemed like a good enough reason to marry the bitch who is now my wife.

******

Inez returned home three days ago, on Thursday morning. On Thursday and Friday evening, we said nice things to each other and we made love once. But by late Saturday afternoon, we began to pick at each other again. We were watching a beauty pageant on TV. There was segment where a “humanitarian” award was being presented to the contestant who did the most charity work, probably because she knew she was going to be in the show. They showed Miss Nepal, a pleasant looking but flat-chested girl, smiling at scraggy looking little kids in some mountain village. The camera zoomed in on the faces of the poor village girls. “She’s a pretty one. Urghh, that one is just scary, her nose is so big, she looks like a boy,” I said. Inez shot me a glance that made me feel like a cockroach. “Dom you’re so fucking shallow! These are poor, starving little girls for God’s sake, and you’re looking at them like their pieces of meat. What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

“Darling, you’re the one who wanted to watch this crap. I’m just getting into the spirit. Don’t get on my case.” And like our many domestic scuffles, it escalated to the point where I just wanted her to disappear. As was happening more frequently, our bickering led to a massive fight. She was so mad at me, she yanked the phone from the living room out of the wall socket, I think she was planning to smash my head with it. I ended up sleeping on the couch.

It was Christmas Eve when Inez left me. On Christmas day, I took down the shoebox and opened it. Inside, were mementos from my past romances. From the friendship bracelet that Juliet made for me in high school to the lacy red bra that Natasha left in my dorm room when the two of us celebrated our graduation in my bed. Here was all the stuff from my life before the hot young wife. Photographs, postcards, letters and mix tapes from all my honeys of yesteryear.

Buried under all these love tokens was the red, leather bound address book.

I put the book away when I asked Inez to marry me. Having easy access to it made me feel like I was being unfaithful somehow. In my teens and twenties, this book was the heart of my romantic life. Strangely enough, after I got married, the book became more precious. Like that secret stash of candy you keep under your bed as a kid. It became a symbol of what was left of my free will, my right to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, with whomever I wanted to do it with. Knowing that I could open that door if I so chose made me feel a little less caged. Like I still had my balls intact.

Within its pages were names with delicious memories attached to them. The best memories men have. Memories of flirty glances, knees brushing under tables, brassieres being unclasped, of flushed cheeks, damp panties, wet lips, moans and lung crushing embraces. Gestures that die with marriage. 

When my thoughts linger on these past loves, I don’t see their husbands or children, or the wrinkles and pounds that they’ve no doubt accrued with age. I see them as they were – nubile, malleable and gorgeous. I’ve always had a weakness for pretty, well-formed members of the opposite sex, and when at sixteen, I realized how easy it was to bed them and keep them for a while, I felt like I had discovered the secret to the universe. I’d like to imagine that if I showed up at their front doors right this moment, they would all still sigh, pull me into their bosoms and bury me in hungry kisses. 

The less I liked Inez, the more I would entertain the idea of calling one of my old flames. Leyla and Maartje come up in my thoughts often. Maybe I could call one or both of them to “catch up”, complain about my ex-wife a little, or maybe arrange to meet up and fuck?

I even considered calling crazy Carmen once or twice. Carmen was a yoga teacher with washboard abs, a short bob, caramel skin and the cutest little pixy nose, but she was a little too neurotic. I enjoyed Carmen because she always told me nice things about myself. In her eyes, I could do no wrong. Compared to Inez, Carmen treated me like a king and she made really good tea. But between having sex, watching foreign films, listening to her talk about her childhood traumas and then gushing about how wonderful I am, I couldn’t quite relax around her. She was nervous, too eager to please and suffocating. So I cheated on her and she left.

Leyla was a Turkish siren I met in a bar. She had come to London to study graphic design. She would invite me over to her small bedsit in Camberwell where she would roll me a joint, read my fortune with a pack of tarot cards before putting chocolate ice cream all over my balls and eating it. Leyla was a real bohemian roller coaster. After about a year of weed, tarot cards and sugary testicles, she got bored and decided to spend a year backpacking around the world. She wrote me a few times, but then she met a strapping German named Carl in Nepal and that was the last I heard from her. 

Maartje was a tall, big-breasted blonde air stewardess. The kind of girl that turns heads and gets wolf whistles. But she was frightfully jealous. Once, we were watching a movie, I think it was The Deep. Jacqueline Bisset shows up on screen in a wet T-shirt. My balls happen to itch, so I reached into my Y-fronts for a scratch. Maartje freaks out. She starts yelling at me, telling me how disrespectful I am, pulling my pecker while she’s sitting right next to me. That was the end of Maartje and me. 

Then there was Laura. Laura was an actress at the Youngblood Players when we met. She was frisky, wild and animal-like, the girl that all the boys, and some of the girls secretly loved. Aside from sparkly brown eyes, the most heart warming smile and a fit little body, she was clever, funny and kind. I always had a good time with her, even when we disagreed about things. She was like good coffee, I always felt perky around her and I didn’t get the jitters after. Laura made me feel like a baby in bed, safe and uninhibited. She was an easy companion. Sometimes I think she might have been the right one. 

******

A friend once told me that he spent almost a year wooing a model, some catwalk queen who was pals with Christie Turlington and Heidi Klum. When he finally bedded her, he woke up disappointed and a little sad, because with her naked body just inches away from him, this creature whom he was accustomed to seeing in a state of absolute perfection on billboards, Vogue covers and runways, was just a mass of flesh, bone, hair, pores and freckles. Up close, she became of this world, and the magic evaporated. 

By year two of marriage, I stopped wanting to have sex with Inez. I used to enjoy stroking her long dark silky hair, but I had started noticing her greasy roots more. At night, when the calluses on her heels rubbed against my shin, I pull away and keep to my side of the bed. Married life induced in me a state of mind-numbing boredom, so I had to think of other things to get me going.

Inez is slim, a little skinny in fact. Before, she looked statuesque and regal, but as my missus, she just felt too bony for any fun. I would much rather pet her like she was a kitten than make mad love to her. Sometimes, I’d find myself staring at the ceiling, imagining a fleshier, rambunctious Laura rubbing her thighs against mine. Sometimes, Leyla or Maartje would supplant Laura in my fantasies. Maartje had great rhythm and the vision of her creamy ass bobbing up and down in my palms, while her straw coloured locks whipped against my cheeks often did more for me than the sight and smell of my wife. 

******

After Inez left, I bought a stack of Xbox games to kill time in the evenings. But I got bored shooting monsters and breaking down doors. I work like a fiend at a hedge fund and even though I know I make more in a month than most men make in a year, I am driven by a fear that I will never have enough. 

At the end of the workday, I need a break. I need the company of a beautiful woman. I realize now that having Inez around calmed me down, looking at that pretty, young face made me feel like I didn’t have to keep chasing something. Even when she was being difficult, being so easy on the eye, she softened up the very bleak reality of day-to-day life. Owning beauty somehow made waking up at five every morning, sitting at a desk for ten hours every day and all the other tedious life-stuff like paying bills and buying milk worth it.    

I tossed the address book up in the air then caught it with my left hand. I picked up the phone and dialed Laura’s number. 

“Hello? May I speak to Laura please?”

“This is she. Who is this?

“It’s Dominic.”

“Oh my god. Dom! Talk about blast from the past! To what do I owe this honour?”

“I was just thinking about you, and I found my old address book with your number, so I thought, I’d call and say hi.”

“Really? That’s nice. So how are things with you?”

“Oh, could be better. I’m getting a divorce.”

“That sucks. I’m sorry to hear that. I have to say though, I’m not that surprised.”

“What do you mean?”

“You remember my friend Ruby, she was a secretary at your firm? When she told me you got married, I told her, I’d give you three years. No offence! You just never struck me as the type of guy who could go the distance.”

“Well, smarty pants, you got me wrong. I was married for five years. What do you mean anyway, I’m not the type of guy who can go the distance?”

“Well, you’re wonderful Dom. You’re a real catch, but lets just say, if we were both in the ocean and a shark was headed our way, I just don’t think you’d throw your body in front of it’s gapping jaws to save my life.”

“What idiot would? Wow, that’s what you expect your man to do? Make chump of himself to prove his love to you?”

“Something like that. Henry would.”

“Is that your husband?”

“Yes. We’ve got a couple of years under our belt. And two crazy boys. Josh is eight and Timothy is six. No more kids though, enough animals under one roof!”

“Well, I’ll be damned. I never figured you’d be ‘appy wife and a mommy Miss Laura. I figured you’d be on your way to Hollywood by now. What does he do, this Henry? For a living I mean.”

“He’s a manager at a hardware store. And I work at a travel agency.”

“You work too?”

“Yes, gotta feed those growing boys. The acting was a blast while it lasted, but it doesn’t pay the bills and I’m too much of a wimp to handle the rejection, over and over again. Believe it or not, I like my life better now.”

“You’re kidding right? You were such a good actress. No one commanded the stage like you. Remember the time when that fat guy from Glasgow climbed up on stage and chased you for a hug?”

“Oh yeah, I remember. And you just sat there laughing while I was terrified and embarrassed as all hell. Glory days! That was all too much hard work, and I’m not even talking about the acting. Exercising like a madwoman, all those silly diets, all that work trying to look a certain way. The directors will tell you it’s about talent, but that’s bullcrap. Ten percent is about talent and the other ninety percent is about how you look. Put a gun to their head and they’ll never admit this, but for the meaty roles, they want pretty girls, and then they want us to never age, never have a bad hair day, never get fat and never look tired. They just want us to stay pretty and thin. And I just didn’t have that in me. It was too much of a compromise.”

“So you’re a dog now Laura, is that what you’re telling me?”

“You’ve got some nerve Dom! You’re a real ars aren't you? Wonder why the missus left? You see that’s what I mean when I say you’re not the type to go the distance. You’re just too enamoured by the superficial. You know, in the four years we were together, I would wake up before you did, go the bathroom, floss, brush my teeth, mouthwash and all, brush my hair, wash my face then get back into bed before you woke up. The things I did to keep you sweet…”

“Awe Laura, you didn’t have to. I didn’t just like you because you weren’t a total cow, or didn’t have stink breath…”

“Yeah right. Hey, Dom, I have to go. I’ve got to get Tim to soccer practice. Listen, it was great hearing from you. I hope the other numbers in the book still work. Take care and good luck with life as a bachelor. I send you rockets of love and good vibes. I’m sure you’ll do just fine. Bye Dom.”

I hung up and crawled into bed. A dreaded lonesomeness crawled in with me. I stared at the Rothko. Windows of colour, a block of vermillion and a brilliant slab of mustard yellow set upon a muted grey background. I always noticed the loud, peacock-like vermillion and mustard that jumped right out at you, anyone would; but this time my eyes moved to the grey that ran along the edges of the canvas and cut through the two colour blocks. As I focused on this, it became clear that the painting was actually of a canvas painted entirely grey with the red and yellow thrown it as calculated distraction. The grey was soft, rich, soulful and rewarding. I relaxed, and slowly it all began to look good. 

Copyright® Michele Koh Morollo 2010    

Listen If You Will (a short story)

When I was a student at Goldsmiths, I attended these guest speaker seminars in Russell Square on Friday nights. These lectures weren’t part of Goldsmith’s curriculum, but my tutor suggested we attend them for ideas on topics for our thesis. I went almost every Friday, not because I was a particularly diligent, but because I had no social life. My parents often rolled their eyes when we discussed the course of study I had opted for: Comparative Literature. “Marcus, I tell you, you’re letting a good brain go to waste. Send you all the way to London to read story books!” my mother would complain. According to my father, I should have studied economics. Books on politics, business or science, “those are real books for smart people,” my father would say. Shakespeare, Steinbeck and Seth, according to him, were for idiots who had too much free time on their hands and who would never take life seriously or make a decent buck. But I love books and my plan was to get my degree then become Singapore’s own Stephen King. But this writing business was proving to be more arduous than I had expected. The harder I tried to produce, the more I started to think that my father might have be right about literature after all. I was considering aborting my fiction writing aspirations and maybe switching to a degree in marketing. I certainly had good enough grammar and punctuation to slap together a press release.

I entered the auditorium, which was only a third full and took a seat four rows from the front. Most of the people around me looked like students too, they were all dressed up and looked like they were there to kill time before hitting the clubs. The guest speaker tonight was the head of the Creative Writing Department for some obscure university in Middlesex. 

A burly Indian man with a turban, thick glasses and a green and purple Barney T-shirt sat comfortably slouched in a swivel chair on the stage at the bottom of the sloping auditorium. On the white board behind him were the words: The Heart of Narrative in thick red upper case. He stood up and introduced himself as Professor Amanvir Singh.

“Hello future teller of tales. Welcome to The Heart of Narrative. Today, I want to address the topic of finding good material for fiction. I meet many students in Middlesex who tell me they cannot find anything to write about. I tell them that stories are all around them and that they are a living story themselves, so they should stop complaining about writer’s block and just get on with it.

I’ve been living in Britain for more than forty years. And this place is full of stories. But I’ve found that many of my students are so inward looking that their works read like personal diaries. Or, they venture so far into the fantastical that their characters become like cartoons, human-like but not human. So many aspiring storytellers today write like they are writing for the movies or television. They have forgotten how to tell a simple tale, so they resort to some gimmick to get your attention. But really, who can blame them, because isn't that what we writers all want? Just a little attention?”

I saw a few people nodding. The professor gesticulated a lot; he had an odd habit of adjusting his turban, and a nervous mouth that would twitch between sentences under a stringy white beard. It made him look a little crazy and I found his animated-ness a little distracting. So I closed my eyes and listened.

“We writers live so much in our own heads that it’s easy for those in our line of work to lose touch with the people around us.” He said.  “We’re obsessed with our own peculiar perverted version of reality. In our eagerness to impress, we try too hard. We sometimes create worlds that nobody can understand. Uninhabitable landscapes born of our own grandiosity; amusing only to us and no one else. The need to be so very special always gets in the way of the telling, doesn’t it? When we get a little reprieve from our desire to always be unique, then the need for some kind of reward for our labour pulls us away from the humble task of painting with words. Well my young writer friends, let me tell you the trick to finding a story. It requires you to step outside yourself, to be so absorbed attempting to understand another, that you almost forget who you think you are.

I found myself agreeing with everything the professor said. He was spot-on about the need to be so very special. How often had I been stuck on an essay, not because I did not have the facts, but simply because I wanted to sound good and original? Waylaid by my need to impress my tutors with more humour and wisdom than I could muster, I often ended up staring at a blank page for hours.

With a glimmering eye, the professor stood akimbo and looked at his small audience with a face full of intent. Looking at his supreme confidence, it occurred to me how similar we who write are to actors, or rock stars. Always hungry and so full of self. 

“Don’t worry too much about being a good writer. Just write. Just tell the stories. We don’t need to live large lives to tell worthy tales; we just need to look hard and listen well. Be curious and uninhibited. Infer, expound and imagine. Be interested in those around you. Writers with talent don’t need big words, or a life packed with romance and adventure, though that helps sometimes! Talented writers are just more mindful of the little things around them. Using that rare gift of absolute empathy, they can tap into the theatre of humanity. 

Some people think that fiction is drivel. Contrary! Nothing reveals the human condition more authentically than skillful storytelling. Of course, nothing is literal in literature, and you must remember, there is more than one way to tell the truth!

When I was a boy in India, I used to walk pass a temple on the way to the market. On the steps of this temple I saw an old woman. Her face looked like melted wax. On the right side, she had no ear and an empty socket where an eye should have been. Her jaw and lips on this side looked like they had sunk into the middle of her face, and her mouth was twisted into a perpetual lipless gasp with yellowish teeth and purplish gums exposed. Her right arm ended at the elbow in a smooth pinkish stump.

If anyone dared to come near enough to her, this old woman would follow them and say, ‘Good day kind sir. No, no, I don’t want your money. The temple feeds me. But can you sit with me for a while? I want to tell you about my life.’

One day, she approached me and asked me to listen to her tale. At first I was frightened by her appearance and thought I should walk away as quickly as I could. She was even more frightful to look at up close. But I was also curious to learn how she ended up looking this way. So I stopped to listen. This was what she told me.

‘Before I was born, when I was just a seed in my mother’s womb, my father thought he saw my mother under an oleander tree with another man. This made him mad with rage. He made some poison from the leaves and bark of the oleander tree and mixed it into the nettle tea that made for herself every morning. But my mother was strong and the poison did not kill her. It went from her blood into mine, melting my growing bones and flesh. When I slid out between my mother’s legs, she took one look at me and screamed. My father insisted that I was not his child. That I was the offspring of the man he saw under the oleander tree, and we were cursed. So my father and his family chased us out of their home and away from our village. My mother and I moved from village to village, taking whatever charity we could find. Whenever we arrived at a new village, mother would go straight to the temple to pray, asking Krishna to heal me. But the villagers did not want me inside the temple, as they thought my ugliness would cause Krishna to withhold his blessing for them. They threw stones at me and chased me out. So my mother would go into the temples while I sat outside waiting for her.

It was in this very temple that my mother died, so I have decided to stay here. The priests are very kind and they give me three meals a day and a mat in the temple courtyard to sleep on. Sometimes I look at the men who work carrying heavy rocks all day in the hot sun, or the women going back and forth with huge clay pots filled with water on their heads. I feel such pity for them. I am so lucky that I do not have to toil under the sun all day with such heavy loads. I just sit outside the temple and watch the world go by. I have food and shelter. To entertain myself, I think up stories. I can read your fortune too. Spinning stories and fortune telling, it’s not that different really. Would you like me to read your future?’

Two years later, I came by the temple again and the old lady was still there on the steps. I walked up to her. “Hello madam,” I said. “Do you remember me? Can I sit with you for a while?” The old woman contorted her mouth into what could very well be a smile and patted the step that she sat on, inviting me to join her. I sat a little closer to her this time. This was what she told me.

‘I lived in a village with my husband and five children. We are dalits, untouchables, and in this village, everyone was of a higher caste than us. I knew nobody liked us there and I told my husband we should leave. But my husband was stubborn and insisted that as long as we stayed put, the other villagers would eventually have accept us because we are good people. But this did not happen. Instead their hatred grew and spread like cobra venom. Their fear and anger swelled, and each week and each month their harsh words and dirty looks become darker and more poisonous, until it became a heavy storm cloud that had no choice but to break. When the family living next to us lost three goats in a week, the villagers blamed us for witchcraft.

One night, twelve men came into our home. They were kshatriyas, the warrior caste. They had knives and axes and I saw my children being cut into half. They threw my youngest son against the wall, breaking his neck. One by one, they murdered all my children. They tore off my clothes and ravaged me. Then they hacked my arm off. When my husband came to pull them away, they sunk an axe into his skull. Then they made a fire; they grabbed me by the hair and tried to burn me alive. They pushed my face, this side, into the flames for what felt like eternity, but I got away and I ran as fast and as far as I could.

This is the temple that everyone comes to for their final blessings before they die. I am waiting here for the men who did this to me. They will have to come here one day, and when I see them, I will go into the temple to tell Lord Krishna that they are here, and to make their spirits roam the earth forever, alone, fevered, thirsty, with sores that never heal. The priests have told me that I need not worry myself with this, because Krishna already knows everything about the wicked and they will not escape their karma. But I’m afraid Krishna might forget, so I sit here everyday to make sure it happens.’

Everyone was listening intently now. Eyes were lifted from mobile devices. The young audience had perked up and was giving their full attention to the professor.

“When I was twenty, I left India and moved here to live with my uncle and attend university. After completing my PhD, I went back to India for a holiday and to visit my parents. I decided to go to the temple to see if my friend was there. Indeed she was. It had been five years since we last met. I walked up to her and asked her if she remembered me.

‘I can tell you yes and make you happy. But the truth is, no. I don’t remember you. I see so many people everyday and they all look the same, not so special looking like me,’ she chuckled. ‘But what does the truth matter? You are here and you have ears. So good sir, sit with me for a while. I will tell you about my life.

Thirty-three years ago, I worked at a ticketing booth at a train station in Karnataka. I was supremely beautiful and was engaged to a Punjabi lawyer living in San Francisco. My mother had sent her matchmaker friend in America my photograph. The man I was to marry was from a rich family and he had picked me out of all the girls in the matchmaker’s photo album. It was a week before I would leave for San Francisco. That week, everyday, I walked to the station with a big smile because I was so excited to meet my prince in this strange new land. I was lucky, my husband-to-be was not too ugly and he was not too old either. And he was wealthy, so I would not have to work anymore. And maybe I would even have my own maid.

The night before I was to leave, I noticed three figures running along the train tracks. I got out of the booth, walked a little further and saw that they were three young boys who seemed to be playing. “Get off the tracks!” I shouted, but the three shadows seemed stuck at one spot. I was getting annoyed at these naughty children, who should really be in bed by now. I had a plane to catch early the next day and wanted to get my beauty rest. I heard three voices yelling for help. I walked slowly towards them. Two of the boys were grabbing at the arms of one boy, who was on the ground. I thought they were bullying him.

I stepped down the platform and onto the track to get a better look. As I walked closer, I noticed that the boy on the ground, the smallest, had his foot trapped in between the tracks. It was bleeding. His friends must have been trying to yank it out.

Toot toot. The train was coming and I had to decide quickly what to do next. The two boys jumped up onto the platform and ran out of the station to get help. The tooting was getting louder and the light from the train was getting brighter. It was a few feet away and I still had time to get off the track. But the train’s headlight shone upon the small figure on the ground, so I could now see the shape and face of the boy. He was crying for help but his voice was muffled by the noise of the monstrous machine approaching. Like a magnet, the boy’s eyes locked into mine. Perhaps that should never have happened.

Suddenly my limbs froze. In a split second, I saw his father and his mother who waited anxiously for him at their home. I saw the boy in a schoolroom, raising his hand because he always had the right answers to the teacher’s questions. He was a very clever boy and would become a surgeon and save lives. I saw a grateful beggar that this kind boy gave his lunch to earlier in the day. I wanted to run, leave him and save myself. But like magic, all these things were revealed to me through his terrified eyes as they pleaded with me not to go. To help him. It was as if I were under a spell. I could not move. The last things I remember from that night was the boy scrambling up the platform and pulling my hand, then the light from the train, pure white light. When I woke up I was no longer beautiful.’

Professor Amanvir Singh leaned back in his chair. The audience was completely enthralled, as was I.

The professor fingered his turban as if he were wiping imaginary sweat off his brow. A cheeky grin formed on his twitching mouth. “Did you like that story? Now future teller of tales, I tell you honestly, I have never met such a woman in my life! But on my way here from Middlesex, I saw a limping drunkard with no shoes, an eye patch and a bloody nose shouting to the air: ‘Listen to me you fools! For God’s sake… someone listen to me…please!’ On my journey to London, I started imagining what turn of events could have brought this man to his sorry state, and that’s when the old lady showed up.”

After the lecture, I invited the professor for a drink and asked him to help me with my thesis. We became good friends. I graduated with honours and I’ve since published three novels and am now partner at a publishing firm in Singapore. Last week, I attended Professor Amanvir’s funeral. He had died peacefully in his sleep. He was sixty-one years old. He taught at the same school in Middlesex till his death. He had one short story published in a Middlesex literary journal, but he never wrote a book or received much in the way of literary fame and fortune. There was a bar at the wake. As I was waiting there for the bartender to make me a gin and tonic, a gentle looking man with a cane and an eye-patch approached and asked the bartender for an apple juice. He smiled at me, said hello and walked away. I thought perhaps I knew him.   

Copyright® Michele Koh Morollo 2010