The Perpetuating Notebook

William gently laid the nib of his quill in the top, left-hand corner of the blank, virgin page. He closed his eyes, and began writing.

At least, his hand did.

The rest of him did nothing. Certainly nothing that could - with any degree of accuracy - be described as writing.

As was normally the case when he undertook this activity, his mind was in no way wrestling with the demands of narrative structure, nor focused on whether or not the protagonist the notebook was busily creating would undergo any sort of development.

William didn't need to worry about such issues.

The fact was the notebook would ensure that the plot would be rigorously constructed, and that the hero would - indeed - finish the story much changed from the person who undertook the journey at the outset.

William did not need to - consciously - consider any of that. The notebook would do it all.

Just as it always had done.

He could hear the nib scratching on the paper, setting down words he was unaware of. As ever, the sound soothed him, and he sensed his limbs relaxing. It was like he was floating in honey. Gently cocooned in the spongy amber...

What title would be selected this time? The names of his pieces were the one point of consternation. Bland. Safe. He always thought it odd that such wonderful content was uniformly given such pedestrian titles. He hoped - just once - that the Creator (whoever - or whatever - that was) bestowed a fraction of their genius on the name.

Especially as he knew...

The more the nib scratched away, the greater his body relaxed. The shouting, and screeching from the street below grew quieter the tighter the meditative cloak wrapped itself around him. In a few minutes he wouldn't even be aware of the delicate scratches of the quill at all.

A gentle rapture? A comforting void? As ever, he was at a loss to describe the state the notebook wrought upon him. The only thing he could say with any certainty was that...

The end was approaching.

He knew it. Could feel it.

Whilst under the notebook's spell, William experienced little - if any - physical sensation. However, once the piece had been written, the quill would be laid down on the pitted surface of his desk, and he would - slowly - regain control of his corporeal and emotional faculties.

But, the effects of the blackouts were increasing in severity.

A decade earlier, when he had first acquiesced to the notebook's thrall, he had emerged from those 'lost' days vibrant, vital. Now, those spells left him drained. He may be little more than a conduit, but the channeling of those ideas, of that power, had - over time - aged him.

Exhausted him.

He was not a young man anymore - middle-aged had descended upon him with a ferocity that had surprised even him. A state of being, unquestionably, hastened by the demands of the notebook. William explicitly knew that he would not be able to continue indefinitely. In fact, if he did so for a just a few more years, he would be a husk, a living-dead assemblage of sagging-skin, and decaying bones.

However, he also knew that the notebook would not permit this happen.

It needed life, vibrancy.

The manner in which it incorporated elements of his own life into the pieces themselves was simply another of its enigmatic mysteries. A passing reference to his father's trade; the name of a character bearing a similarity to his son; real-life descriptions of Arden being woven into an exiled duke's words about the fictional forest he was marooned within...

On such meager crumbs, the notebook build worlds of breathtaking majesty. Indeed, it was almost as if the notebook needed such raw materials to weave its magic.

But it also needed a vessel with enough life-force to endure the channeling.

And William knew that the end of those days were dawning upon him. He could feel the weak, metaphoric sunrise slowly begin to warm his cheeks.

However, it was not simply his own age; it was also that of the literary protagonists. They had grown progressively older. Youthful courtiers, star-crossed lovers, and ambitious princes, had been supplanted by aged monarchs. The plays were about people confronting the end of their lives - about death. Whatever stories the notebook needed him to tell were nearly all written.

The seven ages had been explored: Soon the notebook would need to repeat that cycle with someone else.

There was also the irrefutable evidence that the notebook itself was aging. Like him, the ravages of time had imprinted their indelible mark.

Once the actors had their lines, the words written in the notebook would disappear. However, every time they did, the blank pages left behind grew a fraction more worn. When the notebook was first given to him, the pages were soft, and as white as snow - with each successive masterpiece they had grown more yellow, more fragile. They were now the colour of gold, and brittle.

It would soon require new... blood? That didn't seem right. The metaphor was clumsy, and clanged like a errant church-bell.

Energy. The book needed a new energy. It needed to replenish itself. Become young more once.

It would soon be time for someone else, someone younger, to be given the responsibility. But how...? Unbidden, the answer arrived in his mind, unfurling over his brain like a soft wave breaking upon a sandy shoreline. The note-book would tell him. There would be a location. When William's guardianship of the notebook was at an end, it would tell him what he needed to do to ensure it could be found by whoever was next in line for the honor.

An honor that brought with it fame. And money.

Twenty thousand.

That's how much whatever play the notebook was currently crafting would earn him. Twenty. Thousand.

The shareholders hadn't balked at his demands. They had barely flinched. William wasn't a poor-man; he owned a portion of the theatre itself, and - therefore - a cut of the ticket sales. However, plague, and political upheaval, had always meant a fluctuation in profits.

Such an arrangement was obviously not to the liking of the notebook.

This time, instead of sharing in the takings, the notebook had written that he should demand one payment upon completion.

The figure, when he first saw it written, shocked him. No writer had ever before requested such a fortune. However, whatever impulse lay behind the notebook financial reckonings was a true one: The players agreed to it without dissent.

For twenty thousand, the play would be theirs. A king's ransom, but it would also make them each a hundred times that in their life-times...

Another wave unfurled on his mental shoreline: Goodbye.

The money was the notebook's farewell gift.

It was its way of saying 'adieu.'

The pay-out was so large because it would be the final one.

This play was to be his last.

"We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded by a sleep..."

Artistically, it would soon be time to sleep.

Home. He would return home. To his quiet, unassuming market-town. To his family. London would no longer need him, nor him it. Retirement. His time was over...

William could feel a vague prickling in his hand. The weak rays of the dawn caressed his face. Slowly, he blinked his rheumy eyes. The notebook had been kind: His last meeting had been ended with the daybreak.

These first glimpses of morning were one of the many reasons why he'd miss this small room, perched atop of this rambling house on Silver Street. He had been one of the first people in the City who, everyday, saw the sun rise. He'd miss that.

He'd miss it all.

Everything.

At present, he did not know how long his extended reverie had lasted. He'd find out soon enough, when he went down to speak to his landlord. However, his body was sore - which meant he'd been sitting here, probably, for days. Careful not to inflame his stiff neck, he looked down.

The notebook lay open, its first page bathed in morning sun. At the top of the sheet, standing at the head of the army of ink, were two words:

'The Tempest.'

He smiled. The name was simple but... apt. Ever since the notebook had come into his possession, his life had been a storm. A hurly-burly collection of years filled with intrigue, love, and loss. Of fame. A tempest was the perfect metaphor.

Delicately turning the brittle pages, he flicked them until he arrived at the end of the notebook. Despite the demands the book inflicted upon him, he found himself suddenly melancholic. He didn't want to cease being the notebook's custodian...

A city.

Scribbled in his handwriting, the word 'Paris' was unmistakable.

That was where the notebook had to be next. Once his actors had their lines, the words would, as ever, vanish. And, after they had, William's last task was to ensure the notebook made its way to Paris. That would be his final job as guardian; to ensure the notebook was in the right place.

There it would wait, until found by the next person who - over their lifetime - would help fill its pages.

With wondrous, beautiful words.

William Shakespeare gently closed the notebook, and, raising his head to look out of his chamber's window, gazed out upon the waking London.

As the city below became to life, his retirement - not yet publicly unannounced, but cosmically-ordained - began.

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