ESCnCTRL – Steve Hollyman

I’m resting the paper on top of a copy of the Wall Street Journal, for extra padding. I’m trying to ‘free write’ – the point being that you’re not meant to think about the words you’re committing to the page. You’re meant to just pour them out. It’s a subconscious exercise, but it isn’t working. The sheet of paper is still blank; perhaps as blank as my subconscious. I think my original intention, when I sat down, was to write some kind of letter to Emily.

There’s no way for me to show the letter to her, but it doesn’t matter. It’s more important for me to write the letter than it is for her to ever see it. I shut my eyes. Move the pen across the paper. Repeat for thirty seconds. Open my eyes and try to decipher the hieroglyphs in front of me.

My handwriting is bad at the best of times. Writing with my eyes closed makes it even worse, but I can make out some of the words I’ve written: Monday morning. Sunshine. Herald Tribune. Art Bar. Johnny’s Bar. Perry Street. As I look at the words, I notice the fine blond hairs on my arms are standing on end.60 I use my mobile phone to take a photograph of the page. The word in my head is ‘negatives’.

I turn the piece of paper over and begin writing on the reverse side. This time I keep my eyes open as I write, but I try not to read what I’ve written, or even think about it. I write for around twenty minutes, barely pausing at all.

When I’ve finished, I quickly fold the piece of paper and put it in my pocket. My words are addressed to Emily. It seems unfair that I should know what they say before she does – and it is an injustice that she never will. Next thing I know, I’m lying on the floor in my hotel room and trying to sleep, but I can’t stop thinking about the argument Emily and I had over the video. I don’t know why I’m lying on the floor. It seems a few hours have passed and I might have been to a bar.

I might be drunk and maybe I tried to get onto the bed but didn’t make it. I don’t remember exactly how the argument started, but she probably said something like, ‘Vee, I need to talk to you,’ or, ‘Vee, I need to tell you something.’ That’s what she used to call me sometimes. Vee. And when she wrote it, she’d use a single letter. Anyway, I probably said something like, ‘Why, what’s wrong?’ And she probably told me to sit down. Bad news is always worse when someone prefaces it with ‘I need to tell you something’, or ‘sit down’.

But I probably sat down anyway. And she probably said something like, ‘Do you remember the video we made?’

Crimson red horrorbath, tickertape parade, print-dust, white-suit rustle, click click click. This is a Crime Scene. Do Not Enter. Trevor V. Méndéthi The Ruse Exists: Envision, Enact, Inflict OceanofPDF.com Foreword (or The Importance of the Carbon Copy) On 29 August 2012, at around seven thirty in the evening, someone broke into my flat. I’d gone to the mini-supermarket at the train station round the corner to get more beer, and when I arrived home something felt different. It was as though an invisible force was tugging at my sleeve, trying to tell me someone had been there.

Actually, ‘broke into’ is a misnomer. I’d left the door unlocked while I was out, a bad habit but I always did it. Now I felt uneasy. I checked the bathroom, behind the bedroom door, even inside the wardrobe, expecting to find someone hiding. There was no one there now, thankfully, but there definitely had been. A manuscript I’d been working on was missing and my laptop, which was on the coffee table, had been vandalised.

As far as I could see, nothing else had been touched. As for the manuscript: for several years, I’d been trying to be a writer. It wasn’t going well. Multiple rejections had locked me into a serious case of writer’s block, to the point where I was pretty much ready to give up. But suddenly, from somewhere, a new idea had arrived, and I’d been working on it in a state of hypermania. In just over a week, I’d written almost 14,000 words, and I had no idea where the fuck it was all coming from.

My intention was just to get it all out and then refine it afterwards – I’d even shown some of it to a writer friend for feedback. But there was a big problem: in the latest of my many attempts to ‘get back into’ writing, I’d decided that my process would somehow be ‘purer’ and ‘more organic’ if I used a typewriter. I’d bought a vintage one – an Olivetti Lettera 22 – online for £50. Ribbons were readily available, so I’d ordered enough to last me several years.

I’d written the whole story on that machine but – and I’m utterly ashamed to admit this – I hadn’t made a carbon copy of any of it. I called the police and explained what had happened. The next day, they visited me. They asked why I’d left the door unlocked. They took notes. They asked if there was any chance I’d simply misplaced my manuscript – which they referred to as ‘the document’.

If there really had been a burglary, they reasoned, then why had the intruder left my guitars, my TV, my DVD player, my mobile phone untouched, yet taken an apparently worthless stack of paper? There were no fingerprints. They didn’t hold out much hope of catching anyone.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: b3bbd212d423d9c2
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,035,570 bytes (1.941 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 218
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 320.4 minutes
• Total Words: 64,080
• Total Characters: 351,701
• Average Words per Page: 293.94
• Average Characters per Page: 1613.31

Most Frequent Words

it’s (315), i’m (301), says (287), like (275), know (222), say (215), one (187), emily (183), back (174), look (173), don’t (170), see (148), new (146), something (144), davison (136), time (133), voice (126), think (123), phone (117), you’re (111), there’s (109), now (107), two (100), jadee (93), get (92), i’ve (92), york (91), take (90), he’s (88), really (87), she’s (86), fucking (85), online (84), want (84), com (83), way (82), people (81), looks (79), room (78), ask (78), someone (77), that’s (77), still (77), bar (76), ike (75), remember (75), first (74), said (74), words (73), right (73), door (72), find (69), word (69), never (69), tell (68), going (68), guy (68), even (67), oceanofpdf (66), head (64), apartment (64), end (63), whether (63), read (62), nothing (61), make (61), real (61), eyes (61), another (60), between (60), doesn’t (60), can’t (59), steve (58), point (58), isn’t (58), computer (57), hand (57), text (56), fact (56), much (55), story (55), work (55), open (55), i’d (54), got (54), video (54), street (53), email (51), man (51), mafar (51), asks (51), laptop (50), vincent (50), girl (50), name (48), told (48), person (48), face (48), looking (48), thing (47).

PDF Download