Oh, Fleeting Muse
by Sean P. Fodera
"Smiling Tony" Talliano was the first to quit laughing. That was only about an hour before he committed the murder. A murder of cold-blooded horror. A murder which had less than one slow second of premeditation.
Sean yanked the barely begun contest entry from the already much-abused roller of his father’s ancient Smith Corona typewriter. He swore stridently as he mangled the formerly crisp white bond paper. "How can I ever expect to make it as a writer if I can’t even write something I would want to read! Every single word I put on paper is nothing more than landfill waiting to happen!"
He flung the offending creation from him with monstrous force. That most-sorry medium took its revenge upon him by diverting in mid-air, and knocking a precariously-balanced Nebula award from the antique bureau to the ground. The mark of his father’s achievement bounced but one time from the lovingly refinished oaken planks of the floor before bursting into shards as sharp and painful as Sean’s own smashed writerly dreams.
He barely had time to react to this new horror impacting on an already depressing day when the eerily creakless door opened, revealing his curious father. That most worthy pater looked from the ruins of his literary accomplishment to his no longer aggravated, but now clearly nervous son.
"Having excess trouble with your latest work of fiction?" Dad inquired firmly but lovingly.
Sean’s eyes remained downcast, though perhaps only half as much so as a second before. "As always, just getting started is often the hardest part."
"I can completely commiserate with you on that, my boy. But, I’m sure you can find it within you to generate the creativity that is your birthright. But, clean up that mess before you try again." Dad beamed his most reassuring smile across the room to the crestfallen young man who slumped at the desk which had inspired his own voyages into the ethers of outer space. His father strolled from the room in a misleadingly calm fashion, leaving Sean to consider that final view he’d had of his notoriously mercurial father’s face.
Ignoring the prize lying kaput across the floor, Sean briskly rolled a fresh sheet of vellum into his ancestral word machine. His hitherto AWOL muse had returned with a vengeance to inspire his finest creation to date.
For the famous smile of Smiling Tony had suddenly become a grin. It was a fixed and frozen expression. It gave him suddenly the appearance of a death's-head. Then it became a horrible, vacant leer.
