Realism is phony. Isn’t it arrogant of an artist to believe that he is painting reality? Reality is what is before our eyes, it is three dimensional. We can see it, taste it and feel it. A very talented artist can paint a very realistic painting of a bridge, and it could look just like it. Every detail could be perfect, every cable and stone perfectly drawn to scale. No matter how real this bridge looks, it is still nothing more than paint on canvas. I will believe that an artist can paint reality the day that he paints a bridge that I can drive over in my car.
I know an artist who works in realism, and believes that is the only true art form. He has an utter disdain for works of abstract art. He spends months and months on a painting, using his amazing ability to capture the world how he sees it. It infuriates him when he sees a “masterpiece” that is nothing more than two lines drawn on a plain white canvass. He cannot understand why someone would be more interested in looking at a couple of lines over his perfect recreations.
What he doesn’t see is that if he spends a month painting a perfect cityscape, a cityscape is all that he has created. People will look at it, possibly remark at the talent it took to create, and move along to something else. It is in abstract art that deep questioning and thought is created. An abstract piece of art is open to any and all interpretations.
Abstract art is like poetry, and realistic art is like a textbook. Realistic art takes an amazing amount of effort and skill, just like a textbook can only be written by someone who has a deep wealth of knowledge on the subject. Abstract art, just like poetry, can be done by anyone. A poem can consist of only one word, just like an abstract masterpiece can consist of a couple of drops of paint.
“Wow look at that painting of the Manhattan skyline,” Jeff said while standing right in front of the giant painting with his legs spread and his arms crossed. “Can you even imagine how long it took to paint this? This guy is a genius.”
“What you have never seen the Manhattan skyline before?” asked Jennifer, confused at her boyfriend’s fascination.
“I have, but never painted like this, it almost looks like a photograph.” Jeff replied with his eyes still fixed on the painting.
“Well maybe he should have just taken a photograph then, it would have probably saved him a year of his life, and it would have looked the same.” They continued walking down the corridor of the museum, and came across a canvas with two blue vertical lines on the left side of it.
“Look at this garbage!” Jeff said too loudly for the quiet museum halls.
“Shut up idiot, what do you mean garbage?”
“It’s just two lines, I could have done this painting when I was four years old,” he said with a laugh.
“Well, what do you think it means?” Jennifer said to him in an attempt to engage in an intelligent conversation about the piece.
“I think it means absolutely nothing and should not be considered art,” he said while starting to walk away.
“It may not be art, but it’s real,” she said to him, her eyes now fixed on the piece in front of her.
“Real? No sweetie, that is real,” he said pointing at the painting of the skyline. “This is a joke.”
“I hate to break it to you honey, but those aren’t buildings over there, they are paint, and they are the joke.”
“Well what are these then?” he said starting to get angry.
“These are lines,” she said to him almost in a whisper. “And they don’t try to be anything else.”
Friday, May 8, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
War Reporting
Americans are shielded from the brutal horrors of war. American armed forces are currently involved in conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and through great distance and strong defense infrastructure, the American people are relatively safe. They are safe to enjoy sports and entertainment, and feel worlds away from the suffering abroad that seems to never end. There are some people though who have the drive to travel the world to tell gruesome and horrifying stories, as an attempt to enlighten the safe and comfortable of the world to what is really going on.
There is something about war that makes it easy to glance over in the media and in historical studies. Growing up we learn about wars in social studies classes. We learn that the War of 1812 was fought between the United States and Great Britain. We learn the political reasons behind the conflict, and the outcomes for the nations that participated. We learn history on a grand scale, nation versus nation, leader versus leader. The history of war many times leaves out the truth, that wars are not fought by nations, they are fought by people. These People are just trying to survive, trying to live fulfilling lives with their family and friends, and end up caught in the middle of political and ideological conflicts that are way greater than any one of them.
Ernest Hemingway covered many conflicts in Europe during World War II. He wrote two pieces for the Toronto Daily Star in 1923 called: “Mussolini: Biggest Bluff in Europe” and “A Russian Toy Soldier.” In these articles, Hemingway seems somewhat distant from the action of war, from the dying and suffering. He does however give his reader an interesting look into the worlds of the men who make the decisions that lead to war. Benito Mussolini, the feared and respected Italian fascist dictator of the day, is called a coward by Hemingway. “Really brave men do not fight duels, and many cowards duel constantly to make themselves believe they are brave.” He does not only succeed in making Mussolini into a coward and a “bluff,” but he also succeeds in making him undeniably human. We look back on dictators like Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini as statuesque figures of hate and greed, and sometimes we forget that they are human just like anyone else. The very important characteristic of successful war reporting through the ages is in integration of the human element into politics and warfare.
Martha Gellhorn, a war reporter who was actually married to Hemingway during World War II, also wrote very intimately about the human experience during wartime. In her article, “Dachau: 1945, The Face of War,” Gellhorn described in great detail the brutal horrors from within the Dachau concentration camp. At the time, many people did not fully believe the rumors of European death camps, and could not even imagine some of the things that went on there. Gellhorn’s story is disgusting and haunting, vividly describing the living skeletons that the prisoners had become, and the millions of faceless, nameless dead that were carelessly thrown aside to rot in the sun. She told the story of a Polish surgeon who was forced to carry out savage experiments on living subjects. Gellhorn’s story shows us the scale of human suffering that can be the result of political decisions that were backed by an ideology of prejudice and hate.
War reporting today is not just for the few brave souls who want to make a difference, but rather a profession of journalists who do their work abroad. Every major media outlet in America has correspondents in the warring regions of the Middle East. For the most part, newspaper stories about these wars, such as the Iraq War, read like textbooks. They tell of military invasions, give quotes from world leaders, and the human lives lost are limited to a number, the number of “casualties.” The way that war is covered in the American media aids the American tendency to keep distant from conflict, and leaves them with the freedom to be able to flip the paper over and read about really pressing issues, like the lives of Alex Rodriguez and Britney Spears.
One reporter has taken war reporting to a whole new level. Kevin Sites, the war correspondent for Yahoo, leaves the politics back home and reports on the horrible things he sees and the people he encounters along the way. The way that Sites does his reporting is very different than the reporting done by Ernest Hemingway. The big difference comes because of great advances in technology. Hemingway had an amazing gift of vivid description in his writing and was able to give his readers an image of the way war affected people. Sites does not need such a gift, because he has a camera crew at his disposal. In his Hot Zone videos on Yahoo, the viewer can now be brought directly to the war zone, seeing the destruction with their own eyes. Although Hemingway had a great gift for storytelling, there is nothing more effective in media than visual images. Today’s world is so dependent on visual images to tell stories, that the great storytellers like Hemingway may become a dying breed.
War correspondents in today’s visual culture have to be careful to not include personal bias into their reporting. The coverage of America’s wars is very closely monitored, and reporting that questions the motivations and actions of the American government is not taken lightly. NBC correspondent Peter Arnett was fired because he went on Iraqi television and made questionable remarks about the US plan that was “failing” in Iraq. Arnett’s intentions were probably not to criticize the American government or to give Iraqis more reason to resist the American occupancy of Iraq. Arnett should have known what the consequences of his actions would be. A war reporter should always be able to report freely and honestly, but it is always dangerous to give personal opinions, this is true for any journalist. To make remarks like he did, and where he did it, was career suicide. Arnett may have just been trying to create an open discussion between two nations at war, but he only succeeded in losing his job.
Our visual culture has had an impact on how war is being reported. There was nothing stopping Hemingway from reporting every single thing exactly how he saw it. His work would only be noticed and criticized by the few in the world who choose to read it. Today, pictures and videos fly around the world in seconds, which leads to a culture where everything is under the microscope. In one of the Hot Zone videos, Sites tells a story of an Iraqi man who had been shot and bleeding out on the sidewalk. Site was embedded with Marine forces at the time, and one of the marines said he was going to kill the man. The marine asked Sites if he was going to videotape him shooting the dying man. When Sites replied that he felt that he had to, the marine chose not to go through with it. This marine was scared that a video of him taking that shot would be all over the news, and would tarnish his reputation.
There is no way to hide from the public’s eye today, and it is affecting how war is waged. In World War II, Soviet troops raped and pillaged the countryside on the way to Berlin to cut off Hitler. They did this because nobody in the world knew it was happening, and there was no way to stop them. In today’s world, tragedies and horrors can be combated by one click of a button. A picture may be the most powerful weapon against oppression.
There is something about war that makes it easy to glance over in the media and in historical studies. Growing up we learn about wars in social studies classes. We learn that the War of 1812 was fought between the United States and Great Britain. We learn the political reasons behind the conflict, and the outcomes for the nations that participated. We learn history on a grand scale, nation versus nation, leader versus leader. The history of war many times leaves out the truth, that wars are not fought by nations, they are fought by people. These People are just trying to survive, trying to live fulfilling lives with their family and friends, and end up caught in the middle of political and ideological conflicts that are way greater than any one of them.
Ernest Hemingway covered many conflicts in Europe during World War II. He wrote two pieces for the Toronto Daily Star in 1923 called: “Mussolini: Biggest Bluff in Europe” and “A Russian Toy Soldier.” In these articles, Hemingway seems somewhat distant from the action of war, from the dying and suffering. He does however give his reader an interesting look into the worlds of the men who make the decisions that lead to war. Benito Mussolini, the feared and respected Italian fascist dictator of the day, is called a coward by Hemingway. “Really brave men do not fight duels, and many cowards duel constantly to make themselves believe they are brave.” He does not only succeed in making Mussolini into a coward and a “bluff,” but he also succeeds in making him undeniably human. We look back on dictators like Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini as statuesque figures of hate and greed, and sometimes we forget that they are human just like anyone else. The very important characteristic of successful war reporting through the ages is in integration of the human element into politics and warfare.
Martha Gellhorn, a war reporter who was actually married to Hemingway during World War II, also wrote very intimately about the human experience during wartime. In her article, “Dachau: 1945, The Face of War,” Gellhorn described in great detail the brutal horrors from within the Dachau concentration camp. At the time, many people did not fully believe the rumors of European death camps, and could not even imagine some of the things that went on there. Gellhorn’s story is disgusting and haunting, vividly describing the living skeletons that the prisoners had become, and the millions of faceless, nameless dead that were carelessly thrown aside to rot in the sun. She told the story of a Polish surgeon who was forced to carry out savage experiments on living subjects. Gellhorn’s story shows us the scale of human suffering that can be the result of political decisions that were backed by an ideology of prejudice and hate.
War reporting today is not just for the few brave souls who want to make a difference, but rather a profession of journalists who do their work abroad. Every major media outlet in America has correspondents in the warring regions of the Middle East. For the most part, newspaper stories about these wars, such as the Iraq War, read like textbooks. They tell of military invasions, give quotes from world leaders, and the human lives lost are limited to a number, the number of “casualties.” The way that war is covered in the American media aids the American tendency to keep distant from conflict, and leaves them with the freedom to be able to flip the paper over and read about really pressing issues, like the lives of Alex Rodriguez and Britney Spears.
One reporter has taken war reporting to a whole new level. Kevin Sites, the war correspondent for Yahoo, leaves the politics back home and reports on the horrible things he sees and the people he encounters along the way. The way that Sites does his reporting is very different than the reporting done by Ernest Hemingway. The big difference comes because of great advances in technology. Hemingway had an amazing gift of vivid description in his writing and was able to give his readers an image of the way war affected people. Sites does not need such a gift, because he has a camera crew at his disposal. In his Hot Zone videos on Yahoo, the viewer can now be brought directly to the war zone, seeing the destruction with their own eyes. Although Hemingway had a great gift for storytelling, there is nothing more effective in media than visual images. Today’s world is so dependent on visual images to tell stories, that the great storytellers like Hemingway may become a dying breed.
War correspondents in today’s visual culture have to be careful to not include personal bias into their reporting. The coverage of America’s wars is very closely monitored, and reporting that questions the motivations and actions of the American government is not taken lightly. NBC correspondent Peter Arnett was fired because he went on Iraqi television and made questionable remarks about the US plan that was “failing” in Iraq. Arnett’s intentions were probably not to criticize the American government or to give Iraqis more reason to resist the American occupancy of Iraq. Arnett should have known what the consequences of his actions would be. A war reporter should always be able to report freely and honestly, but it is always dangerous to give personal opinions, this is true for any journalist. To make remarks like he did, and where he did it, was career suicide. Arnett may have just been trying to create an open discussion between two nations at war, but he only succeeded in losing his job.
Our visual culture has had an impact on how war is being reported. There was nothing stopping Hemingway from reporting every single thing exactly how he saw it. His work would only be noticed and criticized by the few in the world who choose to read it. Today, pictures and videos fly around the world in seconds, which leads to a culture where everything is under the microscope. In one of the Hot Zone videos, Sites tells a story of an Iraqi man who had been shot and bleeding out on the sidewalk. Site was embedded with Marine forces at the time, and one of the marines said he was going to kill the man. The marine asked Sites if he was going to videotape him shooting the dying man. When Sites replied that he felt that he had to, the marine chose not to go through with it. This marine was scared that a video of him taking that shot would be all over the news, and would tarnish his reputation.
There is no way to hide from the public’s eye today, and it is affecting how war is waged. In World War II, Soviet troops raped and pillaged the countryside on the way to Berlin to cut off Hitler. They did this because nobody in the world knew it was happening, and there was no way to stop them. In today’s world, tragedies and horrors can be combated by one click of a button. A picture may be the most powerful weapon against oppression.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
A Bed of Clouds
In "Dreams," Jerome K. Jerome says, “It is only in sleep that true imagination ever stirs within us,” Was William Shakespeare sleeping when he penned Romeo and Juliet? Was Michelangelo asleep when he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? How can he make such an outrageous claim, that it is only in sleep that true imagination ever stirs? Jerome’s explanation goes as follows: “Awake, we never imagine anything; we merely alter, vary, or transpose. We give another twist to the kaleidoscope of the things we see around us, and obtain another pattern; but not one of us has ever added one tiniest piece of new glass to the toy.” Are Romeo and Juliet nothing more than a twist of the kaleidoscope? Shakespeare must not have been the first person in the history of humanity to think of "star-crossed" lovers. This brings up the haunting question: Is there anything in this world that is original? Is there anything that is unique? Or are we all just products of what has come before us, just alterations of a world that has already been created?
The most extraordinary dream I ever had was one in which I was experiencing the end of the world, while standing under purple skies with swirling clouds. In the essay, Jerome claims that one cannot be surprised in a dream. Dreams are in fact the ultimate surprise. In Dreamland you can think, feel and do things that you never thought possible. Jerome says that, “into Dreamland, Knowledge and Experience do not enter.” What is there to dream without your knowledge and experience? The real surprise in dreams comes when such knowledge and experience is challenged by the subconscious mind. Things that you think you know, things that you know and feel when you are awake, are constantly challenged by the deep recesses of your brain, by a whole different entity, the dream you.
Lying in bed after a long day at the office, the brain does not stop stirring, moving from place to place, idea to idea. Was the report thorough enough? Does Mr. Allen think that I am the right person for the promotion? If I don’t get it, I am going to have to search for another job. Karen looked really great today, I wonder if she would go out for drinks with me tomorrow after work. I hate my life, I wish I could do what I have really wanted to do all along, write a story that would change the world, something that would win awards, which would take me out of this humdrum existence into a world of literary imagination and fantasy…
I'm sleeping on a bed of clouds. You would never believe how itchy clouds can get. When they are high up in the sky they look so fluffy and nice, but they are nothing more than a thicker brand of wool, which can get very uncomfortable. I roll off the side of my cloud bed, and take a one thousand foot free fall to my closet to get dressed for work. My bedroom looks a little different to me now; someone must have rearranged my furniture last night. I see her sleeping on my bed. Karen, the love of my life, is fully nude staring right at me. “I have been waiting for you all night, please come make love to me I can’t stand being without you for another minute,” she says to me while rubbing her hands all over my body. “Sorry babe, I have to get to the office, I need to make sure Allen isn’t screwing up the Johnson account.” I turned from her, too bad I am a busy man. I turned from her and walked out the door. The sun is closer to the ground than usual, and when I look up at it, it looks like it is staring right back at me. “Can I help you?” I asked it, annoyed at its intrusion into my busy morning schedule. “You should quit your job Nathan, that life will lead you to nothing but boredom and disappointment, you have already been passed over for the promotion; Allen gave it to Johnson.”
“The last thing I need to be doing is listening to a big ball of gas; just stay out of my way alright?” I said back, now very annoyed. I kept walking and all of a sudden the world around me disappeared; now I'm in my office sitting behind a desk. The desk is monstrous, with stacks of papers reaching all the way to the ceiling. I try to sort some of the papers out, but they just keep on piling higher and higher. I can’t see where they are coming from, a stream of papers endlessly flying in my direction. They start to pile up on my chair, pushing me up towards the ceiling. The entire office is filling, papers rushing in like water into a punctured tunnel. There must be a way out, there has to be a way to get out. I am now shoved all the way to the top of the office, and all I see below me is paper, both yellow and white. The only thing I can read on any of the papers is “GET OUT” in huge block letters. I turn to face the ceiling that I am being pushed against, and I see a small opening in the center of the room. I slowly crawl towards it, the pressure of the paper almost getting too much to handle. When I reach the center of the room, I see the opening, which is only a few feet wide, but it looks just big enough to squeeze through. I reach my hand up and I feel something. It’s small, and I tightly grasp my whole hand around it. It seems to be very sturdy, so I start to pull myself out of the sea of paper. As my eyes emerge, I look up to see what I am holding onto. It’s a pen, one of those fancy ones you see at jewelry stores that are way too expensive to actually buy. In small script writing on the side of the pen it says: “This World Can Be Yours.”
I hold the pen tightly in my hand, and I can feel its energy permeating my body. Every second a new pulse, traveling through my bloodstream, down past my lungs, soars to the tips of my toes and back to the top of my head. I open my eyes and now I am in a dark room, lit only by a small oil lit lamp sitting in the on an old wooden desk. The pen in my hand is now a feather tip quill, and on the desk is a small container of ink, and a large piece of parchment. On the top of the parchment is a heading that says: “Nathan’s Masterpiece.” I sit down on the chair, dip the quill in the ink, and start writing. My hand is moving faster than I ever thought possible, completely filling the giant sheet with very tiny script letters. I wrote for days and days, year after year. When I was finally finished, I looked down to see a light gray beard resting on the edge of the desk. My hand did not feel weak; instead it felt more powerful than ever, fully ready to keep writing for all of eternity. There was one last step before finishing the masterpiece that I just completed. At the very top, where the words: “Nathan’s Masterpiece” once were years before, I titled my great piece: “Nathan and Karen.”
The second the pen left the paper, finishing the “n” in Karen, I look up to see the desk is turned around. I am now looking directly at the desk, and a different man is sitting behind it, with my masterpiece in his hand. He is leaning back, with one leg crossed over the other. The giant paper is blocking his face. I stand anxiously, waiting for some kind of response. When he eventually removes the paper from the front of his face, I see the man who will determine the fate of my masterpiece.
Mr. Allen stared at me through his black rimmed glasses, his bald head too bright to look directly into. “Nathan, this is an amazing story,” he said to me with a stoic and stern look on his face. “Your writing is fabulous; your imagery is vivid and haunting.” A feeling of pure elation started to fill my whole body. Finally my great abilities will be appreciated. “The only problem, son, is that your topic is a cliché, two lovers who are not meant for each other defying all odds to be together, it’s a story that has been written thousands of times, it’s just not original.”
The floor underneath me vanishes, and I start to fall. I am free falling through space and time, but all I can see is white. There is no sky; there is no ground, only white. After what seems like an eternity of falling, I gently land on the same bed of clouds that I awoke on. All of my hopes now sufficiently shattered, I dig my face into my cloud pillow, and start to weep uncontrollably. I turn onto my back, and there he is again, that damn Sun just won’t leave me alone. “Will you go away, I just want to be dark now; I will never come up with an original idea. Even a talking Sun is a cliché; so how about you just leave me alone.”
“Ideas are never unique Nathan; humans have been around for thousands of years. For any person to think that they are the first to think of anything is arrogant and unrealistic. It is you that is unique, Nathan, you have never been on this earth before, and anything that you write, anything that you feel, is original. Stories may stay the same, but the people who read and write them will always change. It is the human mind that is unique, every single one is the first of its kind. You need to wake up Nathan, wake up to a world that will set you free. You have to wake up Nathan; you need to be free to let your mind soar with new ideas. If you don’t, the paper will find you again, and this time it will not let you go. You will be suffocated by paper, consumed by it. You have to wake up Nathan, you have to wake up. You are a man of great talent Nathan, you have to wake up.”
“You have to wake up Nathan!” my roommate Ted screams into my ear while shaking my shoulders. “You’re going to be late for your meeting, aren’t you up for that big promotion?”
“I was just having the most ridiculous dream.” I said rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
“What was it about,” Ted asked.
“Something about a talking sun, I have no idea actually.”
I walked into my office, my tie perfectly tied and my pants pressed to perfection. This is my big day, the day that I have been waiting for. I take my final steps into Mr. Allen’s office, with a tightening feeling in my stomach.
“I’m giving the job to Johnson, I’m sorry Nathan, I know you have been looking forward to this opportunity. Trust me, more opportunities will arise in your future. If you continue to work hard for this company, Nathan, your hard work will pay off.”
I left Mr. Allen’s office walking quickly, feeling very light on my feet. I made my way to Karen’s desk. She looked up at me with her perfect blue eyes. “What’s up Nate?”
“Will you go out to dinner with me tonight?” I finally asked the question I have been dying to ask for months.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea Nathan, what would Mr. Allen say? You do remember the memo about inter-office relationships, don’t you?” she said.
“Well it’s a good thing I don’t work here anymore, I’ll pick you up at 8,” I said to her as I walked through that office for the very last time. When I reached the street, I looked up at the sky, at the beautiful fluffy clouds that were over my head. I always wondered what it would be like to sleep on a bed of clouds. I bet it would be perfect. I reach into my pocket and grab the little black notebook my mother gave me for Christmas ten years ago, the day I told her I wanted to be a writer. The very next week I got a job interview here, and never wrote a single word in it. I opened the book and cracked the binding for the very first time. I took out my pen, and wrote something down.
“I"'m sleeping on a bed of clouds...”
The most extraordinary dream I ever had was one in which I was experiencing the end of the world, while standing under purple skies with swirling clouds. In the essay, Jerome claims that one cannot be surprised in a dream. Dreams are in fact the ultimate surprise. In Dreamland you can think, feel and do things that you never thought possible. Jerome says that, “into Dreamland, Knowledge and Experience do not enter.” What is there to dream without your knowledge and experience? The real surprise in dreams comes when such knowledge and experience is challenged by the subconscious mind. Things that you think you know, things that you know and feel when you are awake, are constantly challenged by the deep recesses of your brain, by a whole different entity, the dream you.
Lying in bed after a long day at the office, the brain does not stop stirring, moving from place to place, idea to idea. Was the report thorough enough? Does Mr. Allen think that I am the right person for the promotion? If I don’t get it, I am going to have to search for another job. Karen looked really great today, I wonder if she would go out for drinks with me tomorrow after work. I hate my life, I wish I could do what I have really wanted to do all along, write a story that would change the world, something that would win awards, which would take me out of this humdrum existence into a world of literary imagination and fantasy…
I'm sleeping on a bed of clouds. You would never believe how itchy clouds can get. When they are high up in the sky they look so fluffy and nice, but they are nothing more than a thicker brand of wool, which can get very uncomfortable. I roll off the side of my cloud bed, and take a one thousand foot free fall to my closet to get dressed for work. My bedroom looks a little different to me now; someone must have rearranged my furniture last night. I see her sleeping on my bed. Karen, the love of my life, is fully nude staring right at me. “I have been waiting for you all night, please come make love to me I can’t stand being without you for another minute,” she says to me while rubbing her hands all over my body. “Sorry babe, I have to get to the office, I need to make sure Allen isn’t screwing up the Johnson account.” I turned from her, too bad I am a busy man. I turned from her and walked out the door. The sun is closer to the ground than usual, and when I look up at it, it looks like it is staring right back at me. “Can I help you?” I asked it, annoyed at its intrusion into my busy morning schedule. “You should quit your job Nathan, that life will lead you to nothing but boredom and disappointment, you have already been passed over for the promotion; Allen gave it to Johnson.”
“The last thing I need to be doing is listening to a big ball of gas; just stay out of my way alright?” I said back, now very annoyed. I kept walking and all of a sudden the world around me disappeared; now I'm in my office sitting behind a desk. The desk is monstrous, with stacks of papers reaching all the way to the ceiling. I try to sort some of the papers out, but they just keep on piling higher and higher. I can’t see where they are coming from, a stream of papers endlessly flying in my direction. They start to pile up on my chair, pushing me up towards the ceiling. The entire office is filling, papers rushing in like water into a punctured tunnel. There must be a way out, there has to be a way to get out. I am now shoved all the way to the top of the office, and all I see below me is paper, both yellow and white. The only thing I can read on any of the papers is “GET OUT” in huge block letters. I turn to face the ceiling that I am being pushed against, and I see a small opening in the center of the room. I slowly crawl towards it, the pressure of the paper almost getting too much to handle. When I reach the center of the room, I see the opening, which is only a few feet wide, but it looks just big enough to squeeze through. I reach my hand up and I feel something. It’s small, and I tightly grasp my whole hand around it. It seems to be very sturdy, so I start to pull myself out of the sea of paper. As my eyes emerge, I look up to see what I am holding onto. It’s a pen, one of those fancy ones you see at jewelry stores that are way too expensive to actually buy. In small script writing on the side of the pen it says: “This World Can Be Yours.”
I hold the pen tightly in my hand, and I can feel its energy permeating my body. Every second a new pulse, traveling through my bloodstream, down past my lungs, soars to the tips of my toes and back to the top of my head. I open my eyes and now I am in a dark room, lit only by a small oil lit lamp sitting in the on an old wooden desk. The pen in my hand is now a feather tip quill, and on the desk is a small container of ink, and a large piece of parchment. On the top of the parchment is a heading that says: “Nathan’s Masterpiece.” I sit down on the chair, dip the quill in the ink, and start writing. My hand is moving faster than I ever thought possible, completely filling the giant sheet with very tiny script letters. I wrote for days and days, year after year. When I was finally finished, I looked down to see a light gray beard resting on the edge of the desk. My hand did not feel weak; instead it felt more powerful than ever, fully ready to keep writing for all of eternity. There was one last step before finishing the masterpiece that I just completed. At the very top, where the words: “Nathan’s Masterpiece” once were years before, I titled my great piece: “Nathan and Karen.”
The second the pen left the paper, finishing the “n” in Karen, I look up to see the desk is turned around. I am now looking directly at the desk, and a different man is sitting behind it, with my masterpiece in his hand. He is leaning back, with one leg crossed over the other. The giant paper is blocking his face. I stand anxiously, waiting for some kind of response. When he eventually removes the paper from the front of his face, I see the man who will determine the fate of my masterpiece.
Mr. Allen stared at me through his black rimmed glasses, his bald head too bright to look directly into. “Nathan, this is an amazing story,” he said to me with a stoic and stern look on his face. “Your writing is fabulous; your imagery is vivid and haunting.” A feeling of pure elation started to fill my whole body. Finally my great abilities will be appreciated. “The only problem, son, is that your topic is a cliché, two lovers who are not meant for each other defying all odds to be together, it’s a story that has been written thousands of times, it’s just not original.”
The floor underneath me vanishes, and I start to fall. I am free falling through space and time, but all I can see is white. There is no sky; there is no ground, only white. After what seems like an eternity of falling, I gently land on the same bed of clouds that I awoke on. All of my hopes now sufficiently shattered, I dig my face into my cloud pillow, and start to weep uncontrollably. I turn onto my back, and there he is again, that damn Sun just won’t leave me alone. “Will you go away, I just want to be dark now; I will never come up with an original idea. Even a talking Sun is a cliché; so how about you just leave me alone.”
“Ideas are never unique Nathan; humans have been around for thousands of years. For any person to think that they are the first to think of anything is arrogant and unrealistic. It is you that is unique, Nathan, you have never been on this earth before, and anything that you write, anything that you feel, is original. Stories may stay the same, but the people who read and write them will always change. It is the human mind that is unique, every single one is the first of its kind. You need to wake up Nathan, wake up to a world that will set you free. You have to wake up Nathan; you need to be free to let your mind soar with new ideas. If you don’t, the paper will find you again, and this time it will not let you go. You will be suffocated by paper, consumed by it. You have to wake up Nathan, you have to wake up. You are a man of great talent Nathan, you have to wake up.”
“You have to wake up Nathan!” my roommate Ted screams into my ear while shaking my shoulders. “You’re going to be late for your meeting, aren’t you up for that big promotion?”
“I was just having the most ridiculous dream.” I said rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
“What was it about,” Ted asked.
“Something about a talking sun, I have no idea actually.”
I walked into my office, my tie perfectly tied and my pants pressed to perfection. This is my big day, the day that I have been waiting for. I take my final steps into Mr. Allen’s office, with a tightening feeling in my stomach.
“I’m giving the job to Johnson, I’m sorry Nathan, I know you have been looking forward to this opportunity. Trust me, more opportunities will arise in your future. If you continue to work hard for this company, Nathan, your hard work will pay off.”
I left Mr. Allen’s office walking quickly, feeling very light on my feet. I made my way to Karen’s desk. She looked up at me with her perfect blue eyes. “What’s up Nate?”
“Will you go out to dinner with me tonight?” I finally asked the question I have been dying to ask for months.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea Nathan, what would Mr. Allen say? You do remember the memo about inter-office relationships, don’t you?” she said.
“Well it’s a good thing I don’t work here anymore, I’ll pick you up at 8,” I said to her as I walked through that office for the very last time. When I reached the street, I looked up at the sky, at the beautiful fluffy clouds that were over my head. I always wondered what it would be like to sleep on a bed of clouds. I bet it would be perfect. I reach into my pocket and grab the little black notebook my mother gave me for Christmas ten years ago, the day I told her I wanted to be a writer. The very next week I got a job interview here, and never wrote a single word in it. I opened the book and cracked the binding for the very first time. I took out my pen, and wrote something down.
“I"'m sleeping on a bed of clouds...”
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