The Sleepy Writer - Flash Fiction
Updated: 1 day ago
A flash fiction story about writing, success, and the strange ways people get the work done. In “The Sleepy Writer,” Greg Luti follows a humbled writer who visits his bestselling friend after a reading no one attended — and finds the advice less straightforward than he expected.
At a local bookstore recently, I read a poem from one of my poetry books. Of course, there was no audience in the actual place, but I only learned that when I arrived. I told a buddy of mine after the event, and he told me not to worry about it. All writers read to an empty room at one point in their lives. I took his words of encouragement and accepted that it was just bad timing on my end. My buddy is quite an accomplished writer, the kind of guy who has had a few books become bestsellers, and even one of his books was the talk of the Christmas season a few years back. It was the story about a man going after an alien on another planet, only to find out he was the alien. My friend even gave the alien some sort of language, too, so the readers were really thrown off by the ending. When he gives me advice to follow on how to go about my career, I listen.
He invited me over to his house one day so that he could give me a signed copy of his new book, one I was not going to read or even try to skim. I was courteous and accepted the offer. There is a long tradition in American literature that readers are to pretend to read much more than they really do. You are not only to have that one book in your hand, but the books on your shelf are to be known by you as well. It is why so many act like we have all read those great classic novels. Have we? I am sure there are a few that you have read, and then a few I have read, but there will not be a person who can claim to have vast knowledge of the literary scene, for even that person, at a point, is lying. The last thing any reader wants to do is say they didn’t read a book. According to my buddy, I read that popular Christmas book, and I thought it was quite good.
One mid-morning, I took the train to his apartment since he only lives a few towns over. As I sat on the train, I wondered why I didn’t just have him mail me the book or have him come to my house instead. He is the one who is interested in the book, not me. It was too late at that point.
I was quite exhausted, so I shut my eyes on the train until the conductor woke me up to see my tickets. After a second of searching my pockets, I found the ticket and gave it to him. Although I was still a bit sleepy, I was only a few minutes from my friend’s station, so I stayed up.
Before the train stopped, I got up and waited for the doors to open, and exited before the other two behind me could even take a step. I recalled the directions he gave me to his apartment. “Go past the Dunkin and turn left. The building is the first one on the right.” I walked past the doughnut shop that got rid of half its name, and ignored the couple screaming at each other across the street. I don’t know whose fault it was, but I was not going to stick around to find out. As I walked down the sidewalk, I dodged an older gentleman coming towards me, for I thought he would move, and he didn’t. I said nothing and went on my way.
“First building on the right,” I said aloud to myself, once there was room between the old man and me. I spotted the building and noted its color scheme of orange and red. “What an ugly freaking building.”
I recalled the number he gave me to his apartment and headed towards it. I knocked on the door a few times, even though he did say I could go right in, since he knew I was heading over. After three knocks, I entered the apartment.
“Hey… Anyone here?” No one answered. My mind raced. “Great, he is either dead or not here.” I didn’t know which would be worse, but I searched his apartment. I stood in the small entrance room, which didn’t seem to have much of a function, only a small table set. To the right was the small kitchen. I inspected the room, with only a small table with two chairs, a fridge with newspaper clippings on it, and a microwave that seemed clean enough to use, and I went on searching.
“If you are not here, don’t say anything,” I said aloud, as though I were making a joke of the situation. I went into the living room, which was the largest room of the place, and had a couch, a bit too large for the area, in that you had little room between the walls, and the table in this room barely fit. Books were all about the room, and I did notice that none of my books were on the table or floor. My author friend was still not to be found, though. I ignored the bad possible scenarios and realized there was one more place he could be, his actual room.
I walked out of the living room towards his bedroom. The door was slightly open. I pushed it open and saw a middle-aged man hunched over on the laptop at the desk. His head was down, and he was not looking at the screen, but somehow his fingers were still typing away at something. I was not sure what I was looking at. Unless this man has defied all that science knows about death, he is still alive. “Hey… I’m a… here.”
He didn’t respond, but his hands kept typing away. “Hey buddy, you okay?” Nothing. I slowly crept over to him and leaned over to read the words on the laptop. I scanned the last passage he wrote, which he was somehow doing even though he was not entirely awake.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but you would think that after all this typing in your sleep and working hard, the words would be…” I hesitated. “A little better.” This the work of the guy who wrote bestsellers? This is the guy who captured the hearts of the Christmas readers? I was not sure if I was to be encouraged or upset over this revelation. It’s so… so… so… Oh, what is the word?
He pulled himself up and finally spoke up. “Oh hey! You made it!” He cleaned himself up and jumped out of the chair. I stepped back, and he closed his laptop and adjusted the shorts he was wearing. “I call it sleep typing. I position myself to type, and when I sleep, my mind still works on the story. Not bad, eh?”
“Is that why you have no shirt on?” I asked.
He ignored my comment and went on about this idea that he sleeps while he writes and that it helps him write all his books. He even tries to get sleepy so that his mind can get into that mode. He didn’t put a shirt on, and he headed towards the kitchen. I took a second to notice the sticker on his closed laptop, “Wordssss…. They are my thing.”
“Hey, you coming? I got something for us for lunch.” I snapped out of it and went into the kitchen.
He pointed out a newspaper clipping on the fridge, “Now this guy, this critic, an absolute jerk. I knew I was set when he liked my book.” He named the book, which was not the alien story, and I made a wiseass remark about critics.
He opened his fridge and offered me some Chinese food he still had. He put the containers on a plate as we both sat in the chairs a bit too small for men our size. If I were any fatter, I would break the chair I was in.
He redirected the conversation back to his method of creating stories. “What do you think? Am I on to something or what?” He leaned back, impressed by his new theory, as I was deciding if the Chinese food was still good to eat.
“Wow, yeah. You can tell it really helps with your writing.” I said as politely as I could.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him.
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