The Twin Horns of a Dilemma

 

Muser sat in front of his editor’s work station, trying to bottle up his impatience in the interest of a positive outcome. He, who could manage to characterize fictional emotions, was all at sea to figure out the thoughts raging in that one person’s mind, mattering the most at this time – the editor.

Off late, he noticed a steady decline in the good mannered banter exchanged - sometimes exceeding the length of the article under review- during the editing phase. Yet, nothing escaped the editor’s attention and the flab got clipped out, in sweet, salty, sour or bitter revenge.

Whether the editor had a devilish intent to dismember and assemble the whole topic anew – was his doubt. Though, he grudgingly admired the missives on errata, messed up presentation, asynchronous and hanging sentences or ideas that stood up like a bandaged finger.

The unbridled enthusiasm to pour out likes and dislikes caused him to develop in to a scare-crow writer, unwittingly. In his eagerness, he had acquired the misconception that a word or a sentence or a news caption only was needed to drive the devil of a writer in him. 

Powered by reasonable frustration, he released ideas like cattle from pens. The non-existent readership acted as a constraint, from the side lines, obeying Le Chatttlier’s principle - a vague recollection, from the pages of chemistry- ending in more and more frustration resulting in a spell of furious writing.

He wondered, “What is the point in blaming the   easy-to-trigger mind, now?” He cursed himself for forgetting to do a market research for acceptability as a writer. When this realization dawned up on him, it became clear - he was the root cause for the situation overwhelming him.

In the meanwhile, the editor was undergoing an emotional turmoil and disliked the way Muser encroached upon time, place and patience. Trying to be polite proved to be a disadvantage, in this case – and resulted in storing choice retorts for that one big bang?

This storm raging in the mind, forcefully reminded the editor of the law of karma and nemesis. “You shouldn’t have ventured in creating a brand without taking care of the marketing. You only know of Le Chatttlier’s principle or what?”

“You are a difficult author. Never write it plain & straight. Have this idiosyncrasy to transit from old to modern language and if stymied, resort to coining your own words at will!  My only error of judgment was a casual remark to acknowledge the beneficial improvement in our collective vocabulary”.

The editor wanted to shout from the desk top. But refrained from uttering these homilies - remembering, that a catalyst does not take part in chemical reaction, though it may undergo physical change – wondering why nobody thought about its’ mental change?

Not getting any reaction thus far left Muser with more time to run with his thoughts: “You had complaints about my circular or oblique references. Had we removed them, only a dry history lesson would have resulted, instead the article ended up with an imaginative & good narrative”.  Muser was silently defending, his way of writing.

The editor continued to twist and turn the mouse on the pad, thinking silently and ruing the time spent on the drafts.  “Your sentences took off at tangents, had circular references, made me to hop from Shakespeare, dash against Newton, draw swords with Sherlock Holmes, and crawl through WWII minefields. And what was my fault – admiring your skill in corralling facts to factor them in to narratives?”

"I know you had problems with my thought race. Hanging sentences were bothering you till such time I pointed out hanging comes after a sentence, in a legal sense”, the author recalled, lauding himself on the intended pun.

“Did you stop there? No. you harried me to race with squirrels, pant with dogs, walk with snails, sit with the spider and hum with the mosquito - quite an infectious observer that you are. I could have stopped there, but had no heart to stop a home grown Wikipedia and deep in the same heart it was kudos for your patience, perseverance and imagination to observe and describe a spider at work”, the editor fumed.

“Like a champion for Blue Cross, you went in to the lives of pet animals. Had I not saved some of your drafts like a Red Cross volunteer, imagine what would have happened?” was the thought of the exasperated editor.

Muser reflected, “Why this dilemma of to write or not to?”

The editor wondered, “Am I sailing in the same sea of dilemma - to edit or not to?”

Muser failed to understand, “Why the editor did not throw in the towel?”

“It helped in improving my patience & managing skill; acted as a good diversion from other humdrum activities”, the editor silently mouthed the reply with a touch of happiness.

The editor deliberated whether to ask, “Why the writer did not close up?”

“You laughed aloud and definitely enjoyed this twister of a pun”, Muser silently answered, with a wry smile playing on his face while trying to picture the consternation, which would have appeared on the editor’s face, at that time.

At the end of the long telepathic session, both of them switched over to the same frequency and thought, “Why are we riding on this twin Horns of dilemma – to write or not; to edit or not? Can we not simply let go?”

“Thank God for not endowing the animal kind with three horns. Then the readers will be forced to undergo this dilemma of to read or not to?”  They thought, silently laughing at themselves.

At the end they decided to spare the readers - for the moment and continue as if nothing had been said!