Writer's Block Read online

  Writer’s Block

  Kluivert Galea

  Austin Macauley Publishers

  Writer’s Block

  About The Author

  Dedication

  Copyright Information ©

  Acknowledgement

  IntroductionNowhere Man

  Chapter 1I’m a Loser

  Chapter 2Eleanor Rigby

  Chapter 2aI Saw Her Standing There

  Chapter 3Got to Get You into My Life

  Chapter 4Come Together

  Chapter 4aCarry That Weight

  Chapter 5Girl

  Chapter 6Something

  Chapter 6aThink for Yourself

  Chapter 7I’m Happy Just to Dance with You

  Chapter 8You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away

  Chapter 9Yesterday

  Chapter 10In My Life

  About The Author

  I don’t really know where to start but anywhere’s good. Firstly, I’m too shy to show my face to any (and I hope that there will be) readers.

  Secondly, I’m from Malta: a beautiful little sunny island in the middle of the Mediterranean.

  And lastly, I’m just a run-of-the-mill geek who enjoys Manga, videogames, old records, Anime, you know, the usual, so that’s it, nothing special and if you’ve made it all the way here, thanks for getting this book. It means a lot to me.

  Dedication

  I’ll be honest, this book isn’t dedicated to anyone. I wrote it for myself and wanted others to enjoy it, so I guess it’s for anyone who does.

  Copyright Information ©

  Kluivert Galea (2019)

  The right of Kluivert Galea to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781528940320 (Paperback)

  ISBN 9781528970297 (ePub e-book)

  www.austinmacauley.com

  First Published (2019)

  Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

  25 Canada Square

  Canary Wharf

  London

  E14 5LQ

  Acknowledgement

  Firstly, my mother, Caroline, who pushed me to actually finish a project for once in my life and that’s why this book even exists. So thanks, Mum, your speeches were convincing enough to make me not want to quit. Love you.

  My friend, Ryan, who read the book during various stages and never shied away from telling me how absolutely awful some chapters were.

  My other two friends, Eliezer and Gianluca, who didn’t call me a wuss (too much) for writing a romantic story.

  And last but not least, every single one of my school friends who always showed enthusiasm for the finishing of this book.

  I’m not really great with words, so just thanks, guys.

  (Also, all of my friends’ pets for just being cute. You’d be surprised how much a cute picture of a cat or dog can get you going to write.)

  “A writer can only write about what he’s familiar with, for me that familiarity was the feeling of simultaneous hope and sadness. So that’s how the story came about. While writing it, my main thought was when you see your ex on social media with someone new and you recognise the furniture in the background and you wonder if it’s aimed at you or if she’s as happy with him as she once was with you.” What I’d say in a theoretical interview with Ellen DeGeneres (even though I don’t watch the show). Sue me (don’t actually sue, I don’t know how lawyers and courts work, except in regards to Phoenix Wright).

  Also, all events and characters in this work are fictional, yada, yada, yada (seriously, don’t sue me).

  Introduction

  Nowhere Man

  He always thought his life was boring, everything about it just seemed so mundane. Whenever he compared himself to others, even the sound of his name sounded dull; ‘Kraig’. Even though he found his life boring, he tried his best so that he wouldn’t be. But nothing he picked up ever stuck, save for one thing, which he would also drop after an unfortunate incident. He tried playing guitar, football, drawing, all too frequent; beginnings that never really led anywhere. And so this was a repeating process, he would always pick up a project but he never seemed to commit himself to anything.

  It was ten o’clock on a Saturday night. Kraig was standing at his desk. He swallowed his meds and turned on his N.E.S, even though they didn’t work. Immediately, the pills gave him some level of reassurance that he’d feel okay the next day. School was about to start again in two days so he intended to make the most out of that night.

  So he did that, by doing what he enjoyed most, he played video games. He played for five hours, first starting with ‘Pac-Man’ on the N.E.S, then jumping five generations forward again, to play ‘Borderlands 2’ (his favourite shooter). As time ticked away, he couldn’t fight off the drowsiness coming from the pills and he fell asleep in his reclined chair and dreamt of an event which hadn’t quite been forgotten.

  Kraig was a dreamer, but he was also a cynic and a pessimist, that’s a bit of a contradiction, but that was just the way he was. He always fought with the dualities within his own thoughts. He dreamt of better things and of how things could change for the better, but a part of him always told him that that would never happen.

  This is a story of how things ended well for him; a simple, happy one.

  Chapter 1

  I’m a Loser

  Kraig’s phone rang at six sharp. He sprang out of bed, still half-asleep. He made his bed, got dressed and went downstairs into the kitchen, all the while still groggy. His mother was waiting, she had prepared breakfast. He could have slept for another half hour and still be on time, but he didn’t want to be late, especially on the first day. It also didn’t help that he had an almost pathological fear of being so.

  “Are you excited for your first day?” she said, while serving sausages on his plate, the smell filled the room and it was hunger-inducing.

  “Mum, it’s sixth form, not the first day of pre-school,” he said while laughing.

  “Sixth form and yet my son still can’t prepare his own breakfast,” she told him, slightly chuckling from her own joke.

  Kraig finished his breakfast quickly, kissed his mother on the cheek and left the house with everything he needed in his messenger bag by his side. His mother’s name was Catherine. She was still quite young, being just 40; she had him when she was just 24. While growing in age, Catherine still remained young at heart, she was his best friend and the only person he trusted, she meant everything to him. Kraig had given up on people. He believed that all of them, in one way or another, were assholes. He had given up on everyone, except for his mother.

  Kraig caught the 07:00 AM bus, he hopped on with his hood on and headphones on his ears. He took a seat at the back of the almost-full bus; the less he was noticed, the better. He grabbed his phone from his pocket and opened up the front camera, his glasses seemed fine, his short, black hair seemed in order, nothing really stood out in a wrong way so that eased his anxiety for a little while. Kraig spent the whole bus ride thinking, or rather, he was daydreaming.

  He dreamt of the perfect scenario, a version of his life that played out perfectly from beginning to end without a single thing going amiss; a version of his, where he was always happy and never met any
sort of challenge, but he knew that that was never how things quite played out. Being only sixteen, he couldn’t help but think of the future. But he realised he couldn’t control destiny and so he lived by his own philosophy, ‘life is like a train ride; if it derails as I’m looking out the window appreciating the view, so be it. At least I would have been happy looking at the trees while I crashed’.

  His daydreaming was cut short, as he heard the sudden movements of the various other students as he was looking down, so he wouldn’t be seen (even though this made him carsick), he had arrived at his destination. He got off the bus and took a quick gander both ways, before sinking his head back towards the earth and crossing the street and walking towards the gate with the flux of other students.

  As he approached the gate, it seemed as if the universe played a little trick just so it could torment him. Just as the song he was listening to faded out, he heard laughter coming from not too further back behind him. He looked back and saw a group of girls, all bunched up together, but one of them in particular seemed to stand out as her laugh resonated in his ear and seemed to play a million times over in his mind.

  She was almost as tall as him and had the prettiest of smiles. She had a fair complexion, short, brown hair, with little curls at the end, so that the tips of her hair looked up at the sky and beautiful, brown eyes.

  She was beautiful, to say the least, but Kraig didn’t seem to care. The only thing he noticed, was laughter. It taunted him as it convinced him that he was the butt of the joke. His stomach felt heavy, his walk seemed to slow down, his expression was distraught, and that’s when another man bumped into him. Kraig’s expression quickly changed to one of confusion; he hid his true face and looked at the man. “Sorry about that,” he apologised.

  “Don’t sweat it,” replied the man. He smiled and gave Kraig a nod and hurried off towards the gate. Kraig thought that his face seemed vaguely familiar. While that scenario unfolded, the group of girls that was behind him passed him by. The beautiful girl looked at him and for a second, their eyes met, and Kraig felt a little kick in his stomach; something similar to his usual anxiety, yet somehow different.

  Anyway, he stopped looking right away and pushed his head down yet again. He turned up the volume of the music further to make sure the noise would be drowned out.

  He made his way to the hall where several school representatives were waiting on stage. The principal with the surname, Plant, gave all of the newcomers the stereotypical “welcome to school” speech which filled with a fair share of “Do your best”, “express yourself” and “be creative”.

  Kraig didn’t care enough to listen, he had heard it all before. After the speech was concluded, a woman in a black suit and blonde hair started handing out timetables to the people in the back. She passed one to Kraig and he took a look at it.

  They spent the day touring the school, checking out the classes and meeting the various teachers that would go on to teach them. Nothing grand happened on that day, except that the beautiful girl; the one with the somehow beautiful, brown eyes, had English with poor Kraig, and so he readied himself to be a joke for a whole year.

  Now mind you, he had no reason to believe this, but he did, and he couldn’t help it either. It was just the way he was and there was only so much the medicine could do to ease his mind. Hell, maybe the dosage was off and he needed to talk to his psychiatrist again. But he knew that wasn’t the case, he was just being anxious again.

  After the orientation, there was an hour left before school ended. The activities had ended sooner than expected, so all or rather, most of the first years, went to hang out in the school cafeteria. There was nothing special about it, just an average run-of-the-mill canteen with white walls, cream-coloured plastic tables and chairs and a couple of pool tables in the middle. A great number of people had amassed there.

  As Kraig walked up to the canteen and saw the huge amount of people there, he backed away and decided to sit on the benches a bit further away, where the amount of people was at a minimum. He put his headphones back on and listened to the Beatles.

  Time seemed to pass slowly as Kraig tapped away at his phone, a couple of minutes later a message from his mother came in, “Hey, sweetie, I’m working overtime today. You’ll have to make your own dinner, love you.”

  He replied, “Love you too, Mum, and don’t worry, I won’t burn down the kitchen.”

  One by one they left, and the canteen slowly emptied itself and as the number of people decreased, Kraig’s courage increased and he finally built up enough to go inside. Although there were much fewer people there, he still didn’t feel completely comfortable; his stomach felt numb and a feeling reminiscent of fear rested on his mind, but he could put up with it.

  Although he cursed the fact that the pool table was in the middle, he walked up to it and slid a euro coin into the slot. The balls rolled down with a loud thud. He racked them up, placed the cue ball dead-centre on the line, pulled back the cue, and a hand tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Mind if I join you?” said the voice attached to it. It was the man he had bumped into that morning. He had remembered his face then. He was a year older than him but they used to go to the same school.

  “Sure,” replied Kraig.

  “Thanks, the name’s—”

  “Gary?” interrupted Kraig, “We went to the same school together, St. Helena Secondary, you were in the school’s football team, right?” continued Kraig.

  “Oh yeah, I was.” Gary took a long look at his face and scrambled his brain, trying to find any memory of the speaker’s face.

  “You’re Kraig, right? The writer? I remember you. How have you been, man?” He extended his hand looking for a shoulder bump.

  “Life’s been kind of slow, truth be told, nothing too exciting has been happening, but it’s nice, nonetheless,” said Kraig, always self-conscious when it came to admitting that his life wasn’t a particularly grand one.

  Gary pulled his hand back after Kraig left it hanging. “That’s good to hear,” said Gary, “There’s nothing wrong with boring though, if that’s even a thing. Everyone’s life is actually pretty interesting.”

  He put his fingers on the inner edge of the pool table; his fingertips touching the green, his palm on the wood, knuckles slightly hanging in the air. Kraig gave him his cue, he pulled it back and the balls shot around the table and the striped nine ball sank into the back-right corner pocket.

  Kraig raised an eyebrow. “Impressive,” he said.

  He got another cue; he pulled it back, hit the cue ball and a couple of balls rattled and moved, and in went the eight ball. A failure in everything, he thought.

  Gary contrasted Kraig pretty drastically, especially in physique. Gary was taller than him and much more built and chiselled; you could clearly tell he was training regularly.

  Although he looked somewhat intimidating, he actually put Kraig at ease, as he felt a bit more relaxed meeting someone he vaguely knew.

  As it happened, Gary would be just one of the many changes Kraig would go on to face in this story. He found his first true friend in Gary, and he’s going to make more, as this tale continues.

  Kraig arrived home at about five, his mother was still at work. He went up to his room and changed into his casual house attire. His phone buzzed and he picked it up from his drawer; it was a friend request from Gary, he accepted. He thought that maybe it would be nice to have someone to talk to at school.

  He turned on his ‘PlayStation 4’ and while it turned on, he went into the kitchen, put his medicine in a small, blue pill-box and took it back up to his room and placed the box on his desk. He went back to the kitchen to get a bottle of water which he forgot to bring.

  He took a quick look outside the kitchen window and saw a group of loud (cheerful) people walking by; men and women just mingling, he hated the sight of it. He went back into his room and played videogames and, just like all the other countless days before, that was how he wasted it.

&n
bsp; As he got up to go get a bar of chocolate from the kitchen, he noticed his journal was lying on his desk. He promised himself that he’d start using it again, that he would write down his ideas there and that the greatest story to grace this generation would spawn from that journal. But he always made excuses or put it off entirely as he wasted his days playing videogames, a small part of him felt guilty about it, but he had the capacity to ignore that small amount of guilt (just that small amount).

  And so, as he stared at his journal, repressed memories came to mind. He let out a deep sigh and picked it up and flipped through the pages, the first twenty pages or so were filled with crudely jolted down notes of days gone by. He closed the notebook and put it in the bottom drawer under his desk. So he got his chocolate bar, reclined his chair, and played ‘Borderlands 2’.

  Gary arrived home at four, he quickly changed into his kit and scurried off to training. He was a striker in a local football team, Spartans FC. He trained for two hours, then hung around afterwards near the pitch, to meet up with his close friends, who lived close by.

  Ronald, an aspiring chef, and Eric, who was a year older than Gary and was currently in the progress of joining the army, and even though he quit school, he still hung around the school from time to time to mingle with his friends.

  After all was done, he made his way home, where he prepared dinner and ate it delightfully; chicken wraps were always his favourite.

  After a quick shower, he made his way up to his room and played videogames for an hour, before slowly beginning to drift into an easy sleep, but not before he sent Kraig a request on PSN. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he felt attracted to Kraig in a strange sort of way. He believed that there was something else hiding behind his gloomy exterior; something special, something he refused to show, and he wanted to see it.