The Writers' Circle

It was a while before I saw him again. For the first couple of days, I waited outside on the fence to see if he'd come back and jump around excitedly again. He didn't though. He seemed to want to keep himself to himself. I, of course, got very annoyed and spent most of the week in a sulk which neither of my parents could figure out the cause of.
Finally, he came round to us.
It was the afternoon and I was sitting at the table drawing. I used to have a good drawing hand and I was trying to do a picture of Marie while she did her homework. She kept brushing her hair behind her ear or turning her head a different way so I would protest and then we'd argue. Finally she'd sigh and go back to writing and I'd try to repair the picture until she moved again.
There was a sudden loud knock. Or rather three knocks. I jumped up to answer the door. I always had to get to the door first. It was a race between me and whoever else was trying to get there.
This time I was the victor with nobody else in sight. Grinning, I pulled the latch and flung the door open.
He was standing with his back to the door. As I opened it, he swivelled to face me. I was frozen. I just stared and gaped at him.
"Ah, are your parents in, little one," he said, turning his head to one side and looking kindly at me. I didn't reply. He seemed different in some way from last time.
"Hello?" Mum came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a tea towel.
"Good day, madam, I was wondering if you could tell me what day it is?"
"It's Tuesday," Mum said, frowning. She came over to me and put her arm around my shoulders.
"What day of the month."
"Oh, I'm not sure." Mum faltered.
"It's the 7th," I said. I always knew the date. I liked our calendar of the country side and I was the one who marked off the days or wrote on important events.
"Ah, thank you. I apologise but I quite lost track of time. Thank you. Goodbye."
And he set off down the path. Before mum could shut the door, I raced out after him. I don't know to this day what made me do it. Mum called after me, but I didn't stop.
"Sir," I caught up with him. He turned around with a new look upon his face, a look of surprise.
"What seems to be the matter?"  he asked me.
I stood still for a moment, not entirely sure why I wanted to speak to him. Eventually I decided upon the main question that was niggling at my mind. "Why do you want to know what day it is?"
 "Oh, for many reasons," he laughed. "The main one being that I promised my publisher I would get something to him by Thursday. But I don't think I will have time." He looked at me curiously. "What's your name?"
"Jo," I said. "What's yours?"
"Henry," he said after a moment's hesitation."
"Don't you have a calendar or the newspaper or something?" I asked. It seemed strange not to have any of these things.
"Sorry? Oh, no. I don't. All I have is my books, my pen and my notes. Nothing with the date on at all."
"That's not very good," I said. "We have a calendar up on the back of our kitchen door."
"Indeed," he smiled kindly at me. "I suppose I'd rather forget the time. It does weigh so heavily upon us."
He was a decidedly funny kind of man. I realised what was different about him this time. He wasn't moving his hands around. Instead, they were enclosed around a shabby notebook. The pages of this notebook were almost falling out. It looked as though it had been mended with sellotape many times. "What's that?" I asked him.
"Oh this," he held up the notebook. He looked at it almost lovingly. "It's my ideas. All woven together."
"Ideas?"
"For stories."
I stared up at him with a new fascination. "You're a writer?"
"Yes, I suppose," he gazed up at the sky. "Can one really be called a writer if one has not written anything for so long as I?"
"Have you had a book published?" I said, horribly aware that mum was watching us like a hawk from the inside of the doorway.
"Once. Twice. A long time ago." He seemed to be drifting away from me. I didn't like it.
"What were they about?" I asked.
"Sorry?" He came out of his day dreaming and turned back to me. "You've just given me an idea. I must go."
And then he walked down the path and carefully closed the gate behind him, all the while muttering to himself. He held the notebook with one hand and waved the other about excitedly. I watched him go into his house. Mum came and brought me inside.
"What a strange man!" she said.
"I liked him," I replied. And it was true. It was the first time I had ever seen a writer. They were supposed to be strange. I found myself defending him against mum's comment in my head.
I saw no more of him that month.

Present day
I'm in my room. Mum laid out some dry clothes for me but I haven't changed. I sit on my bed, the raindrops dripping from my hair onto the floor. I feel cold. At least I can feel something. I'm terrified that the police are going to call my house at any moment. I've been terrified for so long I forgot to feel.
I pick myself off my bed, wrapping my arms around myself. I avoid looking in the mirror. On my old desk lies the pile of papers. Ever since I started writing, I kept them all in the same blue folder, until it ripped when I turned seventeen. After that, I held them together with string and kept them in bags, taking them with me almost everywhere. I'd never show anyone them. They were my secret writings. Now, I sit down and take each one in turn, making myself read them all. Each character speaks almost through the page. There were so many. After Jessica, I had kept on writing about people I saw on the streets, people that had stories I did not quite know. I described them all, here. I sealed their fate. And why? Why did I need to write them? Why did I have to keep going back and pouring their lives, their souls, into the paper.
I don't know, and I am tormented.

I keep going outside. It's winter and it rains often. Maybe if I become cold enough the pain will go away. Like when they numb your mouth before they pull out a tooth so you feel the pain less.
But it doesn't go away. Pain stays forever. Sometimes it suffocates me so much that I can't breathe. It wrenches at my very core. Go away, I tell it. Please, just go away. I can't escape though. I can't escape.
Can't escape.
Escape.
Escape.