Jeff Jones, Week 10

“And my soul from beneath that shadow

That lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted – nevermore!”

Poe again. “The Raven” again. Not very creative creature.

I’ve read every manuscript in this chest that I am able to read. They’re written by significant individuals. T.S. Eliot. Poe. Robert Frost. Shakespeare. Wilfred Owen. Bob Dylan. Then there are a bunch in languages I do not know, but with names I recognize. Homer is one of them. Charles Perrault, Dostoevsky, Sun Tzu, and a few others also have manuscripts here. But they’re manuscripts by these people that were never published.

And the one thing they have in common is that they were all about a creature that resembles a man in a suit (though few of them described him with exactly those words, their descriptions match it) with elongated arms and legs and no face.

This frustrates me. I wanted to find answers, and all I’ve found out is that apparently this creature is a fan of my work, and considers my pathetic excuse for a novel to be on the level of these great men, and is having me read their descriptions of him. Did he think I’d enjoy this? Why kill Roland? Why taunt other people before me? Why why why why why why why why WHY DOES NONE OF THIS MAKE ANY SENSE

I am so tired of it all.

Just a few moments ago the creature appeared inside my very bedroom. I didn’t even pretend to act startled. I just fell to my knees and started pleading. Pleading for my life to be given back to me. Pleading that he leave me alone. Pleading for answers. Some sort of explanation of what I need to do, of what he will do to me if I don’t, of how I can get my life back. But the creature is an unfeeling bastard and just stood there, staring with that blank head of his.

I got angry and tossed all the manuscripts from the chest at him, but they just passed straight through him. I shouted more and started to destroy my room in a fit of rage. In a minute it started and then in a minute it was over. The creature somehow calmed me and made me face him, at which point I saw his hand was raised. A pen and a stack of lined paper appeared at his feet, and I felt myself forced down to my knees so that my face was practically pressed against the paper. I looked up, saw he had tilted his head to look directly down at me, and watched as he touched his finger to my forehead, and vanished in a flash of light.

All he left was the stack of papers, the pen, and a shadow in the center of my bedroom, cast right over my head.

I think he wants me to write about him.