Letters from a Changing Window

Though many of you know me by name, I’ll provide a formal introduction for those who’ll read this letter and don’t know. My name is Franklin Wilson, respectfully known as F.C. Wilson. I am a world-renowned author and writer. I have published many works over the course of my twenty-seven-year career that have gained me a legion of supporters and a slew of awards and honors.

I write this letter to caution the aspiring writer, to urge the famed storyteller, and to ease the longing scribbler, a harsh truth of such desire. This morning I write to you in my small, sparsely furnished room with only a bed to sleep in, a bathroom to refresh, a window with an ever-changing view, a desk to write, and books to read. These few small comforts are all I require in my longing for peace.

There was a time when I begged for the inspiration that fueled the creativity behind some of the greatest stories I ever shared with the world. My life was filled with the wildest visions, vivid colors, and fleshed-out characters. I now seek a life with the simplicity of these beige stained walls.

Storytelling has afforded me a life of luxury and opulence that even in my wildest imagination I could have never fathomed. The halls of my Châteauesquestyle home became corridors that transported me between realms where I could watch my characters live out their lives. Behind every door, across the threshold of each room, I spent time immersed in conversations with my creations. While I spent time devoted to them, the world outside was left forgotten.

I found comfort with them, and they found the same in me. We comforted each other through our pains and struggles. My wants were few as I lived out my life in a fantasy world. A shoulder to cry on, friends to laugh with. Characters from every story joined me as I needed them, even for the most mundane reasons. When I sunk sullen into the black silk sheets of my king-sized bed, Layne rushed from the pages of A Lifetime with You and came to pull me up from the depths of myself, as he did for Shiloh, who stands by his side to this very day. Their story was one of love, the most cliché I've ever written, a happily ever after.

There was a time when madame Clementine, care keeper of the boarding house in Madama Clementine’s Home for Troubled Sisters journeyed to my side from her pages of one of my most famous novels, same as she did for the girls under her care. She dragged me from my bedridden slumps. She ensured I was cared for. While I sat at the table, she’d tell me the same stories she would tell her girls as she made my favorite foods, the same as my mother, just the way I had written her to. She moved around the kitchen with grace and ease. Her random print bohemian dress always seemed a size too big against the frame of the petite elderly women as she glided across the granite reaching into the cabinets, opening draws, and rummaging through the fridge. There was nothing she wouldn't do for me. She'd always leave me in better shape before disappearing back into the folds of her story. I'd miss her endlessly until the next visit.

When the confines of home became too much for me, I'd run out into the yard and step into the world of my great epics. On days I felt angered, the landscape would transform into The Valley of Kings, and I’d run the gauntlet of the hero's journey with Finn. The gardens would become thick forest where the sun’s rays never broke the canopy. The sheds turned into damp and dark caves where we'd shelter from the enemy for a night. Some became poorly lit, decrepit taverns that provided refuge for various characters of the book. We were all there to enjoy the fruity ales, bitterly brewed beers, or the occasional wine if they had it. We'd sing songs, play games, and engage in a scuffle or two from time to time. When our journey ended, Finn left me longing for more on the dampened evening grass.

Years had passed me by, and I hadn’t noticed. My sons called me a recluse; they were my only outside visitors. When I wasn't doing battle with myself in my room or with Finn out in the yard, it was my sons who became my greatest adversaries.

"It's all in your mind dad." they'd say.

How could it have been? I saw every moment, felt every encounter, heard the sounds and smelled the smells of my greatest stories told and untold. I wasn’t a recluse. I’m not crazy. I’m a prisoner.

I am gifted with fleeting moments of sanity before it comes and steals them away. A tactic that ensures I never forget the trap it had placed me in, that I unknowingly agreed to. There is no escape for me. When the sounds behind the doors start to fade, moments when I can see the world around me as it and not from the pages of my stories, it visits me. When I’m lucid enough in thought that I begin to question myself as my sons do, like the stories they write about me in the press, it visits. I’m reminded every time that I’m a prisoner of the gifts it offers.

The Keeper of Tales is who and what it is. It can take any form and no form at all whiles preying on the deepest desires of writers. It came to me when my desire for inspiration overwhelmed my love for story. Like a fool I agreed to tell the stories it filled my mind with until I could no longer. For it always has a story to tell and you a duty to tell it.

I’ve run out of time. The stars outside my window are shining exceptionally bright above the quaint little town tonight. Funny though, I could’ve sworn it was morning.

I must go now. Nurse clementine is calling me to breakfast.

Signed,

F.C. Wilson