Writing Exercise 1

This is a quick writing exercise where I drank a bottle of red wine and drew a card from a tarot deck as the subject and inspiration for the story. The tarot deck used this time around was the Normal Tarot Deck (this link leads to their Kickstarter but I bought it from here.) The card I drew was "The Librarian". This was also done for a YouTube video which will be linked below.

The story:

It’s a bright, sunny Monday morning as Sky walks to work. Her hair is a mess and she is still half asleep. Mornings are not her natural time. With the coffee in her hand, she soon wakes up. The day seems promising.

She arrives at the book shop where she works. It is an old, independent book shop that has seen better days. She is the first one there this morning, she realizes as she tries the handle. It’s still locked. She pulls the key out of her pocket and opens the door. The dust whirls up as she walks into the store. The morning sun shines in through the dirty windows and the open door. The store needs to be cleaned. Sky sighs over the chores of the day. Of course Danny is not going to want to clean and everything will end on her shoulders.

She turns to the light switch. There is a twinkle at the end of the hall. She looks. There is nothing obvious. She turns back to the light switch and nothing. She turns the light on. The light illuminates the hallways and the dust. She walks in and removes her coat at the same time. She puts her coat on the front desk and walks into the back room to fetch a broom. When she comes back out, Danny is standing at the desk.

Sky has never really liked Danny, he’s good looking and he knows it and he uses it to his advantage.

“All ready here I see,” Danny says to Sky.

“Well, someone had to be the first.” Sky responds. “It looks like today will be a cleaning day.”

“I wouldn’t be to sure.”

“Have you seen the dust in here?”

“It’s old books, what do you think people expect? Sterility and everything spick and span. No, people like the dust, at least when it comes to the older stuff.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be so sure of that. You just don’t want to clean.”

“I want an easy day.”

“Party hard this weekend?” She starts sweeping the floor.

“A bit, got like 10 numbers. I prob have a shot with like half. That’s usually the ratio.”

“You have a ratio when it comes to phone numbers?”

“Of course, every player has a ratio.”

“You just seriously called yourself a player. Do you realize that?”

“A player’s life is a player’s life.”

“Uhuh.” Sky drops it and focuses on the floor. It probably hasn’t been swept for a while. She reaches the corner. She skims over the books. A book grabs her attention. The Truth about Everything. The letters are clad in silver. So that is what twinkled earlier. She pulls the book out.

“Done sweeping are we?” Danny pears around the corner.

“No. I just found an interesting book.”

“You know we are not supposed to read the merchandise.”

“It’s better if we know what we are selling. And besides I like to read. Books have knowledge that we can’t even dream of.”

She places the book on the top of the books on the shelf and continues sweeping.

The day goes on. Customers come and go and the book is always in its place. Nobody sees it. Nobody is intrigued by it. At the end of the day, Sky fetches the book and brings it to the counter.

“I’m going to buy this.”

“Only if I’m willing to sell it to you.”

“And you are not?” Sky hated this about him. Because he was the owners son, he always thinks he can do anything. Like he is in charge.

“If you really want it then I’ll sell it to you.”

“I specifically put it on the top of that shelf this morning because it intrigued me. Surprisingly nobody else took it.”

“Fine. I’ll let you buy it. Do you need a bag?”

“No, I think it should fit in my jacket.” She pays for her book. “Is it okay if I go home now?”

“Sure, only one of us needs to be here for the count.”

“Thank you.” She grabs her jacket and rushes out the door. She does not notice the smile on Danny’s face as he watches her leave.

“Why did I let her leave so early?”

Sky is on her way home. She is half running. She can’t wait to read the book and see if it holds any real truths or on the other hand if it is just a novel that pretends to know everything. She arrives at home and pulls out the key to unlock the door. As soon as she opens the door she runs inside, closes and locks the door and runs up the stairs. She throws her coat on the sofa and throws herself on the sofa with the book in her hands. She opens it.

“The Truth about Everything” it says on the first page.

She flips to the beginning of the book.

“If you are looking for a book that wants to lie to you and pretend that it is fiction, this is not the book for you. If you are looking for a book that pretends to know reality and tell you how you can win at reality, this is not the book for you. This is a book for those that are willing to accept the truth as it is, even though you yourself are not really apart of it. This book goes over the truth of the universe and everything in it. This page is here to warn you if you want to continue because it is not something that will help you advance in life as many think it would.” Sky looks around. Of course there is no one there, she lives alone. She wonders if she should put the book down. She doesn’t. She keeps reading. She comes to the first chapter.

“The truth is that everything is the truth. That is everything that has been written down is the truth. If it has been written down it is somebodies truth and therefore it is THE TRUTH. All that needs to happen for the truth to happen is for someone to write it down. That makes it the truth, because others will see it as truth. The truth is that the written word becomes truth no matter if it is true or not. If there is anything that you take from this book, this should be it. Think about what you write because to someone it will be the truth. This includes things like novels and poems, but also manuals and drug pamphlets. Anything written down on paper or the Internet becomes true, because someone takes it as the truth. Truth as far as it actually goes is what someone believes to be true and therefore everyone must be cautious with what they put down in words. Therefore words are in themselves truth and they bare the burden of truth. That, in a way, also makes them meaningless, because everything written becomes the truth even though it did not happen. The pen is mightier than the sword, is a saying that is the truest of sayings. Nothing comes truer than that little proverb. To repeat. What has been written is the truth or will be the truth. The truth is therefore subjective and down to the qualms of people and other beings that exist. Of course there are other beings that exist. There is a whole genre of fantasy to contend with as well as sci-fi and such like.”

Sky pauses for a second. Someone must be trolling me, right. This can’t be true can it. The written word in itself cannot always be true. Sometimes it contradicts itself and both sides can’t be true, can they? That would create a paradox, wouldn’t it? This doesn’t really make sense does it? But to Sky it did make sense, too much sense to be honest. She couldn’t stop reading the book and she read through the night and ended up calling herself in sick for work because she needed to finish the book, even though it was just the same idea written over and over again.

Meanwhile Danny stood the watch at the book shop. He contemplated sending her a text with his feelings for her, because he did like her and had been planning to ask her out for a couple of months but had always chickened out. He had never put it in writing before, but during Sky’s sick leave he wrote down all that he felt about her. And just by writing it down, like the book said, it became the truth, because everything ever written becomes the truth.

When Sky returned to work, she didn’t know if she could talk about the ideas from the book to anyone. She saw Danny’s notes one day and she didn’t know how to take them, but due to the books message she knew they where true, that he had these romantic feelings for her, because he had written them down on paper. She didn’t tell him that she knew and eventually he had the courage to ask her out. She said yes, because she knew his feelings where true, and during that date, he opened up to her like he had never done before. That was the last day either of them spent alone. After that the two of them were always together, because they loved each other. Danny read the book and understood the same message as Sky, so everyday for the rest of their lives they wrote down on a piece of paper how much they loved each other, because they knew if it was written down it must be the truth.