Word quota

Piite woke up in a state of panic. His dream of having reached the word quota was terrifying. Forget ‘mystifying’ or ‘queer’, or ‘the lady in a slinky negligee in cold sweat and distress, evoked by vampires’. I will have you believe that Piite’s nightmare about the word quota is very realistic indeed. But though vivid, it is also the kind of dream that you forget right away. For as soon as Piite realized that it was rightly time to get up, did a double leap off bed and started dressing. He’s had the same dream over three days but day one being Friday, was not a worry over the weekend when Piite doesn’t work. Over his fry-up and coffee, the dream still hardly reared its ugly head, not till Piite finished his trot to the train station, that the fear lurged and made his heart do a double beat. This persisted in rhythm with the automated voice system sounding over the train station. “Please do not leave your bags unattended… if you see any suspicious articles…” Piite thought the voice added,

“Word quota reached.”
… for Stateland station”

He got on the train and drew out his apple notebook. Pitte is a first generation registered train writer. There are the food writers and fashion writers, comic book writers and travel bloggers. Train writers are people who develop their craft and gain inspiration onboard “The Thomas”. They clock their hours as they come on and stop earning as soon as they “log off” and alight at a station. Just as in any ordinary workplace where one’s day may be fruitful or not, a train writer’s inspiration may be a dark tunnel-full one or a passing scene of the Yorkshire country-side. These writers usually have the freedom of where they want to end up physically but for the number of hours you clock on the track, your work has to, naturally, show for it. Being “registered” indicates showing up at the Stateland office at the end of the passage no matter where you stay. Conversely, you are not obligated to any office if unregistered. This liberty of submitting your piece to any department in any part of the world may ironically turn the resume out to be a messy piece of work.

Piite lives at Old York place that is a four hour travel to Stateland. This means that Piite is a rather proficient writer if he has to finish an article by the time he reaches the office everyday for five days of the week. To add to his accreditation, it’s the same scenery he passes everyday of the week. Piite has done all kinds of writing. In fact, he recently received the “pulsating award” for the fifth critique he did on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The office of Stateland has been thinking of promoting him with an apartment on Fourth Avenue, a two- and- a- half hour journey away from the office. But with great power comes great responsibility. Having been “first generation writer” uncomplainingly for fifteen years without taking leave off work, Piite is long overdue for this kind of power.

To therefore attempt to make recall of the nightmare Pitte just had some six hours ago is not at all a pleasant or kind thing to do. Reaching the word quota (by writers, for writers) has been liken to the below three experiences:
i. The ice-cream seller having stacks of wafer cones left but no more ice-cream.
ii. A whole block of five-room apartments having only one occupant in each.
iii. Possessing a thought at the back of your mind but the word not finding way to the tip of your tongue.

In a nutshell, it suggests all the potential in the world but not being able to utilize it due to a missing one, two or half of an element. Piite was worried. He has not to lose this/these/th element or it would be hell for him. A hell he cannot anticipate to be ten minutes or the next ten years. More than losing a passion, it is a livelihood gone, for as soon as Stateland gets wind of this and advertises for a replacement in “Mobile Times”, the number of trained delinquents (pun not intended) would be queuing up for it.

So “What’s in a dream?” we may rightly ask. The same dream over three days may hint of preoccupation, conjure up pictures that remain in the mind’s eye, but not necessarily becoming a reality. Some experts have said that dreaming of something prophesizes the opposite coming true, and yet others have explained it to be the repressed desire of the individual. So Piite secretly desires to be obsolete? What’s Piite to do? While you can sleep on a problem, you can’t possibly sleep on a bad dream. He feels that this fear is not unwarranted, but these fifteen years have been kind to him and isn’t it always better to err on the cautious side?
With a degree of anxiety in his heart, but also being a writer at heart (Piite never uses the same word twice in a sentence), opened a blank word document. At first and very uncertainly; hesitantly, a word appeared on the screen.


“And”


The thing is, a writer never starts a sentence much less a story with an ‘And’. But grant it that Piite was nervous. He continued.

And fear makes us do interesting things. Dear Merry,

I don’t know if it may be impolite to address you by your first name,
though you’ve always asked me to do so.
And I’ve wanted to- for fifteen years it seems.
That was day one of my job when you addressed the new staff

And then the day of my ‘pulsating’ award.

And although we all may call ourselves writers,
What we lack is courage.
Only when fear strikes us
That we dare inscribe what’s on our hearts

My dear Merry now that my word quota may be reached
May my last words be my best
Only you my boss can now approve
When I say I love only you.

Yours truly,
Piite Blight.

“Word Quota reached, for Stateland station.”
Piite got off at his stop to submit his work.
We wish him the best.