Making a writer
Bugger’s kitchen. Bugger is trying his hands at baked pasta. Goddie is playing with cheese.
Bugger: I want to be a writer.
Goddie: What do you mean you want to be a writer?
Bugger: Precisely that.
Goddie: Is that a wishing kind of wanting, or a decisive kind of wanting?
Bugger: Err, both I guess.
Goddie: What would you like to write?
Bugger: Why, anything. Anything at all. The world is full of writable things, my good man. From cabbages to kings. Didn’t you know? Sometimes I think every little thing – from bird-poop to retired bureaucrats – is just sitting there, rotting away while it awaits a writer.
He picks up a carrot and starts chopping it.
Goddie: Sadly, there are not many writers left who are versatile enough to cover such sheer variety. Everyone is out for quick money. It’s a sick world. What I don’t understand is why anyone would waste time writing about obvious things. Why, there are books like –
Bugger: Did you move my cheese?
He has a mad gleam in his eyes as he wields the knife. Goddie hastily puts back the cheese cube.
Goddie: Um, yeah. So my point is that there are too many writers writing unnecessary stuff.
Bugger: And I could make a difference? You think so? You are too kind.
Goddie: Uhm, no. I meant you shouldn’t spoil the broth further. It’s already stinking terribly.
Bugger (poking the pasta): It’s not even half-done.
Goddie: Besides, you just think you can write. It takes more than just words to write, you know.
Bugger: Yes, yes. I know well enough. Imagination, a keen eye for detail, sympathy, impeccable morals, money and lots of free time. But I think I’ll manage. I am quite an observant, imaginative, sensitive, rich and jobless saint. You know that.
Goddie: Can you write about mothballs?
Bugger: Eh?
Goddie: Or tiny, adamant tendrils of pubic hair that don’t wash away with the roaring torrents of sanitized water?
Bugger: You are ribbing me, aren’t you?
Goddie: My point, flushed away in that poetic overflow, is that you are not imaginative enough. Yet.
Bugger: Yet? You mean there’s still hope?
Goddie: Maybe. Maybe. You should always have a finger on the pulse of society.
Bugger (muttering): Last time I tried, they called me a pervert.
Goddie: What do your readers want? Think. Do they want morbid tales of lust and gore, or fictitious true accounts of psychopathic serial killers? Or would they prefer travelogues from
Bugger: There! It’s done. Want to try some?
Goddie (wrinking his nose): No thanks.
Bugger: I agree. It’s important to know what your readers want. But they are so bloody fickle. And there is so little time to give them all they want! What if I wrote a book with a bit of everything in it?
Goddie: I get the idea. A rapist who is murdered by a psychopath, who in turn is caught by a heroic rebel soldier of Alexander’s army. Except all this happens while he’s time traveling. He then marries the daughter of an Iraqi general, escapes with her to Krypton and sends in the sequels to the book in form of travelogues.
Bugger: Something more exotic, maybe. But you get the idea. Yes.
Goddie: Maybe you should just write greeting cards. They would really sell. And they are universal.
Bugger: “To the flower of my life: when I think of you/I long to feel your touch/When I’m with you/I wish the moments wouldn’t fly so fast…Can’t live a moment with you.”
Goddie: Without you, you mean.
Bugger: Yeah. The same.
Goddie: See? You lack the inherent expressiveness that makes a writer ‘click’. Maybe you could write screenplays for Hindi cinema.
Bugger: Look, I asked for a listening ear. You are getting on my nerves.
Goddie: A very poetic expression.
Bugger: If you don’t leave my ketchup and the kitchen in three seconds, I will drown you in…in…
Goddie: Lack of words. A writer’s block. I recommend an unmoved piece of cheese taken thrice a day with single malt whiskey.
Bugger: I don’t care what you say. I have all it takes to be successful in the writing business.
Goddie: I think –
Bugger: COOKIES!
Goddie: mmph hmmph…woof woof..!
He struggles a bit with himself, then runs away.
Bugger: Ha! That did it. Insufferable pest. I won’t let him get to me. Imagination? I’ll show him.
He starts singing softly
Never sinking, how brave thou art
Now the rivers of sorrow wash you clean
Splotchy and blotchy and gurgly-glug-glum"
(Dies down in whispers)
"They think you are pubic
But you are survivors.
Remnants of a long-forgotten war."
Goddie (from far-off): I could let you write my biography but you have a lousy sense of humor.
