My Clockwork Muse Read Online Free

brain and supposed
that if I could reach inside my cranium and pluck it out, all would
be well.
    Alas, apart from being an impossible fancy,
such ruminations were themselves more symptom than cure.
    "Whatever the cause, these musings of yours
over slights and insults..." Briggs paused, shaking his head. "They
are affecting your work, Edgar. You must see that they are
affecting your life."
    But what of the murdered Burton? I
wanted to shout, but had not the strength. I merely slumped in my
chair instead.
    "You make them sound trivial," I began, but
lost heart before I could begin to make my case. In truth, I would
have been afraid to calculate the number of hours in a day I
devoted to the contemplation of my many injuries. Regrettably, I
had spent a year working with the villain Billy Burton—until his
slanders became intolerable and his magazine an embarrassment to my
reputation. I secretly knew he was the author of the anonymous
review and I seethed about it still.
    I began to fear Briggs was right, and the
budding certainty of it seemed to drain the life out of me.
    "You have produced very little fresh material
for the Journal ," Briggs continued in a stern, but
sympathetic, tone. "We have promised our readers only original
work, but have delivered nothing but reprints—dozens of your tales
reprinted for the third, fourth and even fifth time."
    I would have reminded him of the reviews and
the myriad short articles, book reviews and squibs I had written;
of my 16-hour days; and of spending my nights in this very room and
not seeing home for days or a week at a time. Who could work up
fresh tales under conditions like these, conditions of
near-slavery? I would have, but my strength to argue was as feeble
as my capacity to produce literature.
    "Burton..." was the only word that could
escape my lips.
    "Stop it!" Briggs cried. "This talk of Burton
is madness!"
    I bolted from my chair, crying, "Madness?" I
told him of Gessler and the corpse in the cellar. I told him of
Fortunato and the jingling of his fool's cap. "You call that
madness?" I asked when I had finished, my chest heaving.
    Briggs made no reply. He merely stared at me.
In the silence, I heard the ticking of a clock, loud as church
bells.
    "It is your delirium, Edgar," Briggs said
gently at last. I tried to argue, but he quieted me with an
upraised hand. "It is your delirium that puts the faces of your
enemies on the dead. Do you remember the man run over by the milk
wagon?"
    The man who had heckled me during my lecture
at the New York University. Did I remember him? He had come
by the office the next day to deride me further when he was struck
down right outside my very door. "Oh, poetic justice!" I had
cried when I saw who it was. And I made some remark of a similar
vein to Briggs now. Did I remember him ? I considered it a
great triumph!
    Again, the ticking of the clock...
    "Edgar, you need rest," Briggs said after a
moment. He grasped me by the shoulders, steadying me. "You're
tired. You've been working too hard. And now this business with the
police! It has you on edge. I beg you, Edgar, go home. Get some
sleep, eat well, rest... Perhaps you can write a new tale! Bring it
in fresh when it is done..."
    As he went on in this manner, I allowed him
to lead me out of my room and through the office toward the front
door. Briggs wasn't often right about much, but I would give him
this: I was tired.
    "Yes...Yes..." I nodded. "Perhaps you are
right..."
    I assured him that I would go home and
rest.
    And I would.
    Just not right away.
     
    ~ * * * ~
     
    I walked along the sidewalk a few steps
before looking back. Briggs was still watching. I gave him a wave,
and he waved in return. When next I looked, he was gone. So I
immediately turned and dashed into the street. Burton's office was
no more than three city blocks from where I stood. I stopped to let
a cab pass, dodged another, and then scampered through the throngs
that crowded the pavement on the opposite side of