The Word for Writers

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This week's topic is: No Topic This Week. It seems that inspiration can come from just about anywhere. Upon seeing this message, my mind instantly shouted out, "Hooray! A blank slate in which I can fill in my own topic!" For those of you who note such things, my essays and short stories are often a little dark by nature. There is no doubt in my mind that whatever I put forth during this week, with my hands untied as far as topic goes, that my entry might end up as my darkest ever. That is, if there was not an abundance of topics already waiting to be written about.

Of all weeks for the "No topic" message to pop up on my computer screen, none could possibly filled with more irony than this one. Scattered throughout the evening news we find anything but "No Topic." The Pope is sick. Michael Jackson is on trial. Gas prices are scraping my wallet dry. Easter is coming. Terry Schiavo is dying.

No topic, indeed.

Despite what I said about an blank slate and my darkest writing ever, nothing could possibly be more macabre than the inhumane treatment of Terri Schiavo. Or more unbelievable. If I wrote a story where one day, a person woke up to find themselves in a world where a living, breathing, vocalizing human being could be starved and dehydrated to death even though they did nothing wrong, no one would believe it. Or buy it. Critics would complain saying, "He paints this terrible world, but gives us no plausible scenario in which it could come about." And they would be right. Terri's plight is almost a product of spontaneous cruelty; a horror without visible cause or origin. Again, it is unbelievable, but worse, it is the truth.

"Truth is stranger than fiction," goes the old cliche and so it is. What I fear more, however, is that this particular tale may reach its conclusion without becoming a happy ending. Terri is running out of time as we are obviously well past the climax of this story.

I am not always up to date on the news and so I cannot even pretend to be an expert in this arena. What I am is this: a writer. Through writer's eyes I watch this tale unfold and as I do, I pray to God that there will not be a sequel. A writer I am, but this is a shallow assessment of what I am. There is another catagory in which I belong for I am also a human. And lest we forget, so is Terri.

Jeremy McNabb ([email protected]) is an amateur essayist and unpublished novelist. This is only one of many articles that he has published through FaithWriters.com. He is currently editing his latest novel; Cold, a techno-thriller. A second novel, Opaque, is in its beginning stages.

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