The Adventures of a Procrastinator by Johanna Rosberg

”Next, we have the desk of the great Sir William Chamberlain, Nobel and multiple Pulitzer Prize winner. The table is mahogany with leather top. Handles of brass…”

Michael snuck away as everyone else were busy looking at the next auction item.

“Starting at five hundred dollars…”

The auctioneer’s voice became more distant as Michael climbed the stairs in the hallway.

For weeks he had suffered from severe writer’s block, caused by the stress of knowing that if only he could find a scoop to come up with a single, great story he would have a permanent job with the newspaper. The deadline was two days from now… But when procrastination amazingly enough brought him to this in-house auction of his most admired author of all times, he, of course, just had to have a look around. His curiosity was after all incurable. Maybe he would find something inspiring to help him through this rough patch? Sure, Chamberlain, too, had suffered from writer’s block the three last years of his life, but still… He was a genius.

He reached the upper level with a hallway full of thick dust and abandoned spider web from years gone. The bed in the first room was unmade, the bright red cover halfway fallen to the floor, and things had been thrown around as if someone had been in a hurry to leave not that long ago. And yet, everything was covered in years’ worth of dust.

Michael flipped the lace curtain and caused a large spider to fall down and quickly run across the floor. He followed its movements with his eyes until the spider ran passed a ripped piece of paper at the foot of the bed.

It was a piece of a letter, and as he bent down, he found the rest of the pieces scattered underneath the bed. Michael reached in to gather all pieces, puzzled them together. It read:

“They call me brilliant. A genius. So why is it, then, that I need you to write? And why is it that these walls won’t speak to me, the way they spoke to you? I’ve paced up and down, back and forth, but the voices have fled the house… Perhaps that secret notebook in the attic can help me? If I read through it all, will it give me the light I need?’”

Michael rubbed his chin as his brain started working.

“Secret notebook, ey?” he said as he started looking around the room, but it was only occupied by dark, heavy furniture and some photos on the wall. As he had a closer look at the photos, he noticed an oddity: Sir William Chamberlain was posing next to a man that looked strangely much like him. It must be his brother, even though Michael had never heard of anyone such. But the real oddity? It was the unknown man that sat by the desk, pen in hand, deeply fallen into thoughts. William was simply sorting the papers, it seemed.

Michael snapped a photo of it. This could become something interesting…

He snuck back into the dark hallway and followed a long, time-stained mat. In his rush, he failed to see exactly how torn the rug was. Suddenly he was on his belly and hit his face on the dirty, mold-smelling floor. He hit his elbow on the skirting between the floor and the wall, and with a crack, the skirting fell off and came down, stirring up a whirlwind of dust making Michael sneeze loudly.

He quickly got up and hurried into the next bedroom with a slight limp. Heavy, uneven footsteps were coming up the stairs.

Michael looked around in panic. He had to hide. Under the bed? No, too obvious. But the only other option was the large closet behind the door. A cat meowed at him at his feet, making him jump as he hadn’t noticed it before. He grabbed the cat and jumped into the closet. He put a hand on the cat’s mouth and held his own breath. Whoever had come up the stairs was now in the same room, stomping about. He could hear grunting and mumbling, but couldn’t make out any words.

Suddenly, it seemed as if the heavy steps were back on the staircase, and soon everything fell silent. Michael exhaled as he came out of the closet, letting go of the cat, which only kept staring at him, meowing once again with its head askew.

“Oh, go on now, I have important business,” Michael said shewing the cat.

There was a peculiar portrait on the wall – again of the two brothers. This time you could see that William’s brother was in a wheelchair, with a grumpy look on his face. William was standing next to him, with a sneaky-looking smile, holding his first Pulitzer award in his hands.

But the most peculiar thing was the carving into the canvas:

I did everything for you! If I can’t have your pieces anymore, no one can!

“What was going on in this house?” Michael whispered, and in the top drawer of the chest underneath, he found a folder named “Nathaniel Chamberlain”. Flipping through it, he found a birth certificate for William’s brother, some medical files and at last a piece of paper from a mental hospital, where William had signed for a restrained hospitalization for his brother. It was signed three years ago – suspiciously close to when William got his claimed writer’s block…

Michael snapped some more photos before he tip-toed back to the hallway, where he found a slim door at the end. Unlike the two bedroom doors, which were wide and of thick, heavy-looking wood, this door seemed fragile, covered in the same wallpaper as the walls, as if someone had tried to hide it. It was only the flaking wallpaper that gave it away, actually.

There was a key hole, but no key, and of course the door was locked. Michael slid a hand down his inside breast pocket and pulled out a toothpick. He fiddled with the lock for a short moment before it clicked and a wide smile spread across his face and in his eyes.

Behind the door was a very slim and steep staircase leading up to a small attic room. As he got up there, Michael drew the zipper of his jacket a bit further up to yield himself from the cold draft dancing and whining around the loft. He thought he heard a noise from downstairs, but then thought it must have been the window on the left wall that was being pounded by the heavy rain outside. Scattered across the floor were buckets and containers of different sizes and materials, catching the rain drops that found their way in.

There was a plastic outdoor table with a matching chair behind it. Thrown on the back of the chair was a moth-eaten wool cardigan. It looked to have been worn not long ago, though, as it had no dust or spider web on it. On the shoulder part of it, you could still see the fallen dandruff of its wearer.

Something underneath the table caught Michael’s eye. He got onto his knees and reached in. It was a notebook the same color as the floor boards. Someone’s bad eyes must’ve missed it. Michael let his fingers play along the back of the book, as he imagined himself to have found the secret to a major scandal…

“What on earth are you doing?!”

The shrill voice of a woman caught him by surprise him, but with nimble fingers he pocketed the book before he went to stand up, hitting his head on the edge of the table.

He gathered himself and straightened his hair. An old lady stood in front of him with her hands on her hips.

“Well?! Who are you? And what are you doing here?”

“Uh… I heard a cat meowing. Must’ve been trapped. I let it out.”

But the cat appeared from downstairs, squirming around the lady’s legs.

“Oh, get out of here, you scoundrel, before I call the police! I know your kind!” the lady called after Michael as he hurried down the two sets of steps.

 

When he reached the dryness of his own apartment, he pulled the notebook out of his pocket. He opened the first page with a heart almost beating through his chest.

The works of Nathaniel Chamberlain, it read in sloppy handwriting. And as Michael started reading, he realized that the text inside was William Chamberlain’s alleged debut novel from forty years ago.

“You stole from your genius, crippled brother…!” he exclaimed, and with eyes wide, he flew onto his desk and started typing.

That blank piece of paper was no longer so intimidating, with such a juicy story to tell.

“I’m sorry, my hero,” he said as he looked at the picture of Sir William Chamberlain that had always sat on his desk. “But I must do this. For the sake of the craft.”