Stuck
By: Dale E. Lehman
Tags: Short Story, Short Fiction, Trains, Fiction, Writers Block

It was pitch black and raining and they were stuck somewhere in the West Virginia Appalachians, not moving, when Connor closed his laptop in disgust because his story, set during a rainy, pitch black night in the West Virginia Appalachians, wasn’t at all moving.

He pushed his head against the headrest, closed his eyes, and insulted himself in a mumble so as not to wake the elderly gentleman in the aisle seat. Gentleman, he generously styled the fellow, although the guy looked borderline bum: tattered jeans and a wrinkled red plaid button-down shirt; a two day growth of stubble on his face; thin, gray hair in disarray; mouth hanging slightly open as he gently snored.

Outside, Connor saw only blackness spotted by dark raindrops trickling down the window. Whatever the holdup was, they’d been stuck here for over an hour. The lights in the train had dimmed long ago. According to his cell phone, which sat charging on the tray alongside his laptop, it was nearly midnight.

Midnight, the witching hour for writers, the hour when ghosts and demons, ancestors and angels came out to play. For him, anyway. Nothing written after midnight, he’d heard another writer say, ever had to be rewritten, and he believed it, in spirit if not always literally.

But tonight shades and specters abandoned him, off haunting some other writer, stranding him in the graveyard, chilled, soaked, with no open grave into which to fall and write.

The elderly gentleman snuffled and shifted position.

Connor shifted, too, and reopened his laptop. On the screen, a blank word processor page taunted him. He set fingers to keyboard and sat, waiting, mind similarly blank. He typed a word.

It

He typed another

It was

How could he say what it was? He didn’t even know what “it” was.

Fed up, he typed the obvious.

It was a dark and stormy night.

He deleted that and reset his fingers to home position.

The elderly gentleman snuffled again. “Never start with ‘it,’” he said.

Connor looked at him and found him wide awake, deep blue eyes searching Connor’s face, thin lips stretched in a thin smile. His skin looked pale, almost translucent, in the light from the monitor.

“That’s my personal rule. Never start with ‘it.’ Start with pain or pleasure, excitement or boredom, danger or . . .” He looked at the extinguished overhead lights.

“Safety?” Connor suggested.

“Nope. Never, ever start with safety. That’s even worse than some amorphous ‘it.’”

“You’re a writer?”

The elderly gentleman took a moment to push himself up and right his seat. He wiggled about to get comfortable, then lowered his tray and set his folded hands upon it. “I, young man? A writer? Do I look like a writer?”

Connor started to wish the guy hadn’t wakened. “Writers come in all shapes and sizes and — “

“And states of decay. Right. No, I’m not a writer. I just read a lot. Or used to. It’s hard to find anything new that’s worthwhile.”

“That,” Connor said, closing his laptop, “is because all the good stories are taken.”

The other looked skeptical.

“It’s true. What’s your name?”

“What’s yours?”

“Connor.”

“Frank.” Frank stuck out his hand.

Connor reluctantly shook. Frank’s fingers were thin, skeletal, cool. “Okay, Frank. You read, so you know there are only seven plots, right?”

“I know no such thing.”

“Well it’s true. Look.” Connor opened his laptop to do an internet search, but there was no WiFi on the train and no cellular signal at midnight in the rainy Appalachians of West Virginia. “Trust me on this,” he said, closing the computer in disgust. “Seven or three or five or nine, depending on who you ask. The point is, every story has already been told ten million times before. So unless you’re Shakespeare or Poe or Steinbeck or Bradbury, unless you’re a genius, you don’t stand a chance of even sounding new and worthwhile.”

Frank scratched his cheek.

“Damn straight,” Connor concluded and opened his laptop. That blank page was still there. He set his fingers to the keyboard and waited. Nothing happened, but at least the conversation was over.

Or not, as it happened. “Then why sit at a keyboard waiting for inspiration? Think you’re a genius, do you?”

Of course he did, sometimes. “Of course not,” he said.

“Huh. Well. Nobody’s ever written my story, anyway.” Frank pushed the release and leaned his seat back. He wiggled about to get comfortable in his new position.

“Your story?” Connor didn’t imagine he had much of one, but he couldn’t resist asking. “What’s your story?”

Frank closed his eyes. “Not sure, but I’ll know it when I read it.”

In the distance, the train’s horn sounded, muffled by the mountains and trees, and with a slight lurch they began to move. Frank’s jaw slid open two finger-widths, and he snored gently.

Never start with ‘it,’ Connor grumbled to himself. Hell with you, old man. I’ll start however I like. And so he began to type:

It was pitch black and raining and they were stuck somewhere in the West Virginia Appalachians, not moving, when…