Chapter 1
Snodgrass snivelled away to himself, muttering with a scowl, bent over his typewriter. He has a perfectly good computer but he likes the theatrical punching of the keys, and the dramatic DING! Of the bell every time he completes a sentence. For what is the point of writing if people don’t KNOW you’re writing?? The whole world shall hear Snoddy creating his next masterpiece!!!
The rough tweed of his three piece aggravates his sensitive skin, but he wears the blemishes with pride. Snoddy doesn’t wear normal clothes for normal people - certainly not! The plebeians and proletarians of this pathetic world can go about with their slack jaws and idiotically casual clothing, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before Snodgrass Filcham is stripped of his plumage!
“Snodddyyyyy dearest!” cries a floral voice from below. “Should I bring you your sandwiches now? Are you in flow or is it safe?” The quavering voice queries. Snodgrass emits an audible wheeze of irritation and licks his thin lips like a hungry lizard. “Mother! What have i told you about interrupting my work!! An artist needs his space to CREAAATE! Even ASKING if i’m in flow is you RISKING me depriving the world of another Magnum Opus!!”
“Oh, sorry Snoddy! Would you… would you not like the sandwiches?? I may have already made them...” The voice had now travelled up the stairs and was floating guiltily somewhere on the other side of the closed wooden door that separated Snoddy from the rest of the forsaken universe.
Snoddy suddenly sprang up from his chair - the legs screeching against the hardwood floor - and in two stomps reached the door and wrenched it open.
“What kind of sandwiches?” His narrowed eyes peered down upon his elderly mother and she seemed engulfed by his presence, his hunched back curved over and above her, like a backwards question mark. His mouth had settled back into its natural state - a deep set frown, thin lipped with each corner dragged down, as though unluckily hooked by two opposing fisherman.
“If you bring me egg mayonnaise one more time so help me GOD, mother” Snoddy’s puckered eyelids crease tightly around his grey eyeballs with a bitter vengeance.
His mother withdrew slightly, before timidly announcing “Oh erm, well they ARE egg in fact…” Snoddy breathed in sharply, his angular eyebrows shot up in theatrical disbelief. “But before you snap at me” continued his poor mother, “you told me yesterday to only bring you egg sandwiches - don’t you remember Snoddy dearest? You said if I brought anything other than egg, you would take it as a direct insult on your writing and needs as a writer, and that any other food is garbage.”
Snoddy pondered this for a moment, through narrowed eyelids and with a furrowed brow. A vague memory appeared before him, and he cleared his throat, before resuming a more neutral though still unforgiving demeanor. “Yes well, things change mother! You can’t expect me to keep up with everything I say, I can’t help it if my inspirational needs are shifting!! I have travelled through galaxies of my own mind since then, yesterday is but a shadow of a penny of a thought, a blip in my extensive mindverse! But I wouldn’t expect you to understand THAT.”
Snoddy let out a sigh that was not unlike the sound a hurt deer may make. “I suppose I will take them. But not because I’m happy, but because I am hungry. The hunger of my mind must be satiated. - but tomorrow, NO. EGG.” He snatched the plate with spindly fingers, fixed his mother a final accusing stare, then slammed the door. Her muffled voice floated through the pine “Ok Snoddy dearest! You enjoy those sandwiches darling!” and she began humming a cheerful tune to herself as she shuffled down the stairs, before once again disappearing entirely from Snoddy’s senses.
Snoddy collapsed moodily back in front of the typewriter, plonking the plate down with a trembling clatter on the worn wooden desk. His chair creaked like a feeble child, resigned to a life of servitude, the objectification of a 5 year old Victorian chimney sweep.
Ignorant to his chair’s ongoing suffering, the ever stricken writer resentfully snatched up a sandwich and ripped into it with stained (though unusually large and strong) teeth. His mouth seemed to take up the majority of his long, stately face and his bristly moustache swept up stray breadcrumbs with every enormous bite.
As he ate his despised snack, Snoddy looked over the page he had been working on, still stuck upright in his antique typewriter. A half smile crawled up his face, competing with the vigorous mastication, and his eyelids sunk down slightly in the cool, vainglorious manner often adopted by self-assured cats. “Snoddy, you absolute genius.” He congratulated himself through mouthfuls of egg and cress.