One
Clarissa Williams was comfortable with her adverbs and adjectives, thank you very much. She loved lovingly, laughed wonderfully, enjoyed herself thoroughly and smiled prettily. She liked wearing dramatically bright clothes and playing horrifyingly gory video games. Her workouts were painfully thorough and quite strictly planned.
What she was uncomfortable with though, were self-sufficient nouns and verbs. She hated motioning and pointing, and couldn't idle on a chair. She couldn't stand being engrossed in a book or engorged on food, and would table any discourse, diatribe, dialogue or discussion. It maddened and aggravated her to saunter into such conversation, and, finding herself rightfully pissed off at the sheer indignity of it all, she would prefer to storm off, but only if she could manage to do so angrily.
As a writer of sorts, she liked to imagine a stark blank canvas that she filled in with colours. The nouns were important, they were the dark blacks and the light whites and the subtle greys that gave depth and definition to her art, but the true colours - the bright, expressive, and delightful ones - were the descriptives - the adjectives and adverbs. With those she could paint angry reds and sultry maroons, aloof blues and cool teals. She could portray envious greens and greedy emeralds, while sneaking in some silly yellows and lustrous golds.
She liked to be sparing with her time, and didn't have much patience for pleasantries and droll formalities. She wanted to be productive and enterprising, and as such she decided to approach a publisher with an idea. Now this publisher was a character of his own sort, and his muted eccentricities and unyielding approach made him a trouble to work with. But he was a legend in the business, so Clarissa decided to try her luck, and scheduled an appointment.
Two
The Publisher was a creature of habit. He'd often be deemed boring by others. There was nothing untoward about him. A set of principles kept him disciplined and tart. He preferred his arms crossed behind him. He was lean, tall, and greying. He wore rectangular, rimless glasses.
His office was an expanse of brown. His chair had a straight wooden back, and a large table in front was neatly organized. Calendar, scheduler, telephone, casual notepad, pencils, pens, all sat neatly within the semi-circle of arm's reach. Erasers in the stationary box lay unused.
The Publisher was used to uncomfortable people. Years of experience let him ignore unpleasantness. Despite being a family man, he needed no one. He took his company to new heights, with a knack for identifying successes and trailblazers.
He was crisp and precise. He knew who would succeed. He denied those who wouldn't. It was cold and calculated. His ruthlessness led to success. He didn't write anything himself. That part of him died long ago.
Just today, he'd spoken with fifteen hopefuls, all of them pitching their worthless millennial prose and grade school poetry. None passed. He didn't hire a junior editor to wade through the riff-raff - one never knew what would bring in more money for the company. His instinct in all pitches was necessary for continued success. As such, he felt no disdain for the unworthy, although he beleaguered them until cracks and strains and plot-holes revealed themselves, and always left the young writer wondering whether he had been helped or hindered.
This was what he did. He was disciplined, not callous. Giving advice and tough love to writers was standard fare. That is how successes are made. However, his altruism generated no pride in him. It was just another day to the Publisher.
Three
Clarissa bounded lightly forward as she smiled wide to herself. Her meeting request with the publisher had been approved handily. She was to go in tomorrow with a presentation and pitch for her book. Today was free though - she decided to freely enjoy herself in the park. Armed with piping hot coffee and her trusty brown jacket, she sat on a park bench enjoying the cool breeze, watching a couple of children playing with sticks, having a good time.
The boys had been whittling away at their sticks with pebbles, removing offshoots and nubs till the sticks became quite smooth. They seemed really happy with their own skill, and tossed one in between each other, as Clarissa looked on. Catching successfully time and again, they stood and started increasing the distance in between them, becoming more confident and tossing the stick harder. One got thrown too hard, and it was far above the reach of the receiver, flying across the field with force, only to meet the face of a man passing by.
The man, in crisp office-wear, was in a hurry to get to his workplace, when the stick hit him and knocked his glasses off, disorienting him. He looked around for the perpetrator as one ran up to him, clearly concerned and ashamed.
As he apologized humbly, he looked up to check and was stopped abruptly by a stinging sensation on his cheek as the man slapped him across his face. A tear forming in his eye, he watched as the man took the stick in both hands and displayed it for him to see, and applying force on it.The stick, unable to go anywhere, gave way easily and snapped in two.
"Hey!", Clarissa shouted, and the man turned to her, one eyebrow raised at this intruder.
Four
Clarissa was shocked to see this brusque, burly neanderthal who hit children for mere slights. She wasn't about to bear silent witness to that. Calling out to him, she stormed over to give this modern-day ogre a piece of her mind. He didn't look very intimidating physically, but she was sure to the child, he was a monstrous, mountain of a man.
"Just what in the blue hell do you think you're doing?" she declared loudly, clearly trying to catch the attention of passersby to help her out in the situation.
"I'm disciplining a delinquent, obviously," the man simpered. Clarissa immediately disliked this man. He appeared slimy and snake-y in his mannerism. She decided his name is Sidewinder. "What business is it of yours?" he continued.
"It was obviously an accident. Don't you have any self-control? Hitting a child, honestly! What is wrong with you?!"
"He hit me. I disciplined him. Stop trying to mollycoddle a criminal."
"Criminal? Criminal?! You sir, are a deeply unhappy man. Don't you dare take out your frustrations on a child, who obviously made a mistake. Leave or I'll have you arrested for assaulting juveniles."
"I don't see how this is any of your concern," Sidewinder hissed, "This is the problem with your generation. You interfere in things that don't concern you. You have an opinion of everything and you'll force your worldview on everybody else." He wasn't making any sense. Clarissa got increasingly flustered as she learnt that this man is way too intense for his own good. She wanted to end this any way she could.
"Get out of here before I call the police," she said. Sidewinder looked ready to retaliate, but thought better of it and left, cursing her as he went.
"What a thoroughly unpleasant man," Clarissa thought to herself.
Note: This story was originally written in 4 parts in 2016 and was intended to be a 12-part story. I’ll revisit and actually give it a plot and conclusion at some point.