When the hour ticks, the demon comes visiting. It doesn’t give a fuck where you are: in the church, in the toilet, in the train, in the café. It walks in slowly and takes control. It comes with a lot of skill, mastery and seduction that you can’t resist. The urge kicks in; the demon takes your thoughts for a walk. The demon knows no time or rules. It just visits as it wishes. Sometimes, it visits in the silence of the night. It slowly wakes you up and leads you to your table. It poses every nerve of your body. You hold the pen, but you are not the one writing. The demon does it. It is commanding and it writes until it is satisfied that everything it wants written is written. It doesn’t matter how busy your day is, if the story is long, you will write, write and write.

When you lift your head, you are welcomed by the beautiful rays of sunlight that come in through the window. You are late for work and you haven’t slept. You rush to work. You can’t help but look like a battered avocado. You tell your co-workers about the demon, but they don’t believe you. They tell your boss it seems you are on hard drugs lately. The boss summons you, listens to the demon narrative and brushes it off. She believes the spirits of your ancestors don’t want to set you free. She calls the man of God. The man of God walks in with more gusto and demeanour than the son of God himself could. On his right hand, he has the usual white handkerchief that wipes off the sweat that usually trickles down his cheeks. On his left hand, he tightly clutches a gigantic bible that only God knows how it is read. He is well prepared and determined to drive out the demon from you.

He places his right hand on your head, mumbles jumbles as spits of saliva escape his mouth and land on your face. He pushes you as if you are the demon he is fighting. The man of God finishes praying after what seems like an eternity. You feel relieved, not because the demon has been cast out of you, but because the man of God has finished the longest prayer on earth. You promise yourself not to allow such shenanigans next time. After all, you say, you can pray for yourself.

When you get home, the demon invites you to look at what you wrote yesterday. You read the first page. It’s fucking amazing. The demon opens a floodgate of thoughts. You continue writing the story. Today, you write without blinking. You are writing while playing soft music. Later, you realise the music stopped playing hours ago. During the four hours it played, you did not hear a single word because the demon is selfish; it wants you whole for itself. You realise that the music stopped playing because the demon just deserted you. You are now staring at the screen with no idea what to write. You have typed 7,000 words. You can’t believe it. You smile, close the laptop, go to bed, and cover yourself, but the alarm rings before you close your eyes. You take a shower, dress and go to work. You curse adulting.

Today, you strive to play it cool because you don’t want problems with your boss, but it is written all over your face. You look like a man who has given up on life. Your boss warns you. She strongly believes the nuts that hold things together in your head are getting loose.

That night, the demon visits again. As usual, it holds your hand and writes. It leads you to new places. Strange places. Places you have never been to before. You are enjoying it so far. You are few pages away from concluding your book. You realise it is 6 in the morning. You go to work. Your boss is not happy at all. You are now torn between your work and your creative expression. The demon comes. It whispers in your ear, “An artist needs to be courageous.” Your boss gives you the second warning.

That evening, you go back home. The demon doesn’t visit. It is now a year since the demon last visited. Your boss believes you healed because of the prayers of the man of God.

One year goes by. Then another six months. Then two years.

You have never completed the book. You had buried the book in the graves of memory. One day, you decide to rummage through your laptop. You accidentally stumble upon that file. You have it well secured with passwords. You hope the password you have in mind is correct. Otherwise, you will lose your creative property. You try the first password, it fails. The second one, the file opens. You breathe a sigh of relief as you read the book. You can’t stop reading. You wonder what kind of genius you are. You see yourself as the next Ngugi or Achebe. You see the millions you will make. You wonder what you have been doing all these years instead of finishing the book. You could be a millionaire by now.

That night, the old friend visits, but this mazafaka does not help you finish writing the book. It begins another one, and because it won’t set you free, you abandon the first book and grapple on the new book before the demon leaves. It takes you a month to write the new book. The demon leaves again. The book is complete except for chapter two. The demon gave you more of how the book ends than it begins. So, you started with the last chapters, finished, wrote the first chapter, and got stuck when you wanted to connect the first chapter with the rest of the book. It is sad. You can’t imagine that the demon left when you wanted it most.

You try to finish the second chapter but you can’t. The demon is nowhere. Just then, you remember you have another book, a mere few pages away from the end. You abandon the second book and go back to the first. You read it. You are shocked at the kind of yokel you are. The book is not interesting at all. It is plain. It has no taste nor sense of direction. It is just a mass of words brought together to form a book. You wonder if you are an artist at all. You feel that you have been committing an artistic sin. The book is devoid of artistic creativity. You conclude that artists are born, not made, and you are not either. You see your creative star dying. All the dreams you had vanish. You abandon both books for a year.

One day, as usual, while using your laptop, you stumble upon the files and decide to have a look. This time, the first book is interesting. You wonder why it was boring the last time you read it. You tell yourself, “If Charles Dickens gave up when his books were rejected, he couldn’t have been one of the greatest.” That night, you finish writing the first book. You can’t believe it; you have never. Your grandfather and friends of friends and enemies know that soon you will be a published author because your mouth can’t keep quiet.

You start editing the book. The words therein wake up the demon. It completely changes the plot of one chapter and adds three more. It also changes the names of some characters. You even have a new title. You can’t believe how the editing has helped develop the book into a masterpiece. You now fall in love with the book more than your sweet-other.

In a week, you submit the book for publishing. The publisher shares the cover of the book. You love it. You can’t believe that is your name on the cover. You share the cover with all your friends and family. They promise they will buy the book once it is out.

Three months after, the book is out. You post it on all your social media platforms. The responses are overwhelming. Even your failed relationship congratulates you. You are happy. You go back home. You finish writing the second book because you need to tell people that you are not only an author of one published book but two.

One month after publication, you realise you have made no sales. Only your mother and a few friends bought the book. Your sweet-other doesn’t buy the book since you live in the same house. Your mother bought the book not because she loves reading but because she wants to save you from depression. She doesn’t tell you, but she believes the book might not give you a dime. She says people don’t read. You wish to tell her she is wrong, but you have never won a single argument against her, so you save your words for a better cause. Your brothers, sisters, cousins and most of your friends are no longer interested in the book. Their silence is deafening.

You decide to prepare a mega launch. Something that has never been seen before. From the noise on Facebook, you are sure a good number will attend. But again, you don’t have enough money. You resolve to hold a simple one that only your friends and some strangers attend. The launch was supposed to begin at noon but it starts at 4 pm because at noon, only you, the photographer and the emcee had arrived. You call all your friends who had promised to attend but they are now occupied with unavoidable circumstances. At 4 pm, because you have to launch the book, you lure the hotel staff with some snacks so that they can attend. The people are now 20: four friends, four strangers, the photographer, the emcee and the hotel staff.

The launch is boring. You feel like running away, but you can’t. It is time to autograph the book, but no one is moving forward. All the four strangers buy the book. You take pictures that you will use later to hype how big the event was. All your friends and people you lured to attend the launch don’t buy the book. They are just waiting for you to finish your speech so that they can take their snacks and leave. But because you don’t like the embarrassment, you send a message to your friends Clare, Caro, Karen and Ken to come and pretend they are buying the book to save the moment. They take the photos with you. You all have that plastic smile plastered on your faces. You don’t autograph the books because you need them back after the event.

The launch comes to an end. Your friends don’t return the books and because you can’t demand the books in front of everyone, they leave with them. You curse them, you curse their fathers, you curse their mothers, siblings, their grandparents and their entire generation. You curse the day they were born. You curse the day you knew them. You book a taxi to carry your 12 cartons home. During the ride, the taxi driver cannot turn his head towards your direction or start a conversation because you have been clicking since you stepped in. He can’t help but drive fast so that he can dump you at your destination.

You get home. You can’t talk to anyone. You can’t mask the disappointment. Your mother asks you what is wrong. You insist you are okay. Deep down, you are burning. You are stressed because you procured a loan to print the books and you don’t see the possibility of ever getting a coin from the books. Your dreams are shattered. For once you think your mother was right about people not reading books, but the thought of where the books in the bookshop go never leaves your mind. You remember the sleepless nights you spent writing. You conclude that farming is better than writing. Writing is a luxury, not a business.

Days later, you decide to publish the second book. You just concluded that even if people won’t buy your books, at least your children will read the books. At least you will have some books with your name on them. Just like the first book, it makes a few sales, but at least you sold more copies than the first.

You ditch writing but three years later, you are walking in town. A stranger rushes to you. She asks, “Are you JJ Nyamakima?” You say, “Yes. Why?” she tells you she has read both your books and she is a great fan. She requests a selfie. You consent. You are happy. You feel maybe more people out there might know you more than you think. That night, your spirit is ignited.

A week later, the demon is back. In the months that follow, you write your third, fourth and fifth book. One day, you realise the demon no longer leaves. The demon has taken permanent residence in you. You have become the demon and the demon has become you. You write seamlessly. You are now well-known as an author. You make sales for the next fifty years, and you are farther than you had anticipated at the beginning.

You die at 92 years. Your friends who never read your books post you and your books. They say how much they loved you and your writing. They say what a great author they have lost. You trend on Twitter, although people keep asking “who is this guy?” The book-nerds comment and retweet widely. You are now on the news. There is an uncertain spark. People want to know you and what you used to write about.
Your books start selling. They are actually out of print. People wonder why they never knew you all along. You are now selling like crazy. Publishers are asking for permission to republish your books. Some of your books are adopted as course books.

Ken, one of your friends from the launch was not aware you died. He sees you on TV, goes to his store, mysteriously finds the book he has been looking for, dusts it and reads it for the first time. He finishes reading the 201 page novel in a day. There is a smile on his face. He can’t imagine how great you were. He only wishes he read the book earlier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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