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Artifex Ex Machina (or A Good Idea Is Hard To Find)
A Short Story by Adam Smith

It's no wonder I can't think of any original ideas. I'm a struggling writer living in New York. How clich� is that?

"'Police sirens, taxi cab engines, curb side slush. The sounds of city streets. The sun was setting on the day and on winter and slick melted snow shined the streets. Traffic lights and street side ambiance stretched on down 28th Street to the vanishing point, a warm luminescent nest for the harrowing stony buildings that flew into the skyline. The Empire State Building, a benevolent overlord, glowed a neon red, a strange juxtaposition against the cool blue evening haze that seemed to baste the city. Couples and tourists clung tight together along the sidewalks, sighing in hushed white noise chatter tones. For the first time in months the air was filled with scents that extended beyond the numbness of winter, and bouquets of pizza and cigarette smoke, car exhaust and sweet springtime blossomed in the streetwalkers' nostrils like May flowers.'"

I closed my copy of my book and placed it on my lap. "And there I was in the middle of it, just one of New York's millions of claimed lost souls, searching for something. Not anything existential or emotional or anything like that. All I needed was a good idea.

"I needed a good idea because rent in New York is expensive and writers can't really make money without one. That's the beauty of writing, you know? With just one good idea, one simple little thought, you could be set for life.

"And trust me, I've looked for that one thought in all the usual avenues. Every consciousness-altering, creativity-stimulating drug imaginable. Didn't help a thing. Half the time I couldn't even remember anything that had occurred to me in my stupor. Muses? Red-light street corner muses cost too much in New York, and usually you can't get much more out of them than a couple of paragraphs about supple breasts before you fall asleep."

"That's a lovely story, Mr. Clark," the reporter said, tossing a skirted leg over the other, adjusting her small, honed glasses, and flicking a long, wiry strand of damp, sweat-soaked hair off her stern face. "But you still haven't answered my question. Where did the idea for Velveteen Airport come about?"

"I was getting to that," I replied, grinding my teeth and pulling out and lighting a cigarette with practiced skill, "I was just setting the mood, is all. It's what good, New York Times bestselling writers like myself do."

"Yes, of course. Sorry. Please, continue."

"So, as I was saying, I needed this good idea, and nothing seemed to be helping me. In a moment of desperation, I decided to go for a walk. Someone had told me once that walking helps when you have writer's block, you see."

"Does it?"

"Not really, no. But...I'm sorry, can I stop there? A writer can't give away all his secrets. Gotta make sure the reading public can separate the artist from the art, you know? Let's just say that something happened to me that night, something terrible, strangely shocking, something that inspired the grand narrative of Velveteen Airport."

"I was actually hoping you could elaborate a little more. Some of your critics have noted the remarkable narrative similarity between your book and a recent novel by fellow New York author Rick Baer, Liquid Cold. Have you heard of him? Came up out of nowhere, book sold millions, and then he disappeared completely. Around a year ago."

The trials and tribulations of publicity. I had better things to do than defend my novel from baseless claims like this from 'critics'. "Listen, you can tell my critics that I've never heard of this Nick Blair fellow and I've certainly never read his book. Hell, I don't even read books! Any similarities are completely coincidental, the net result of pretentious criterati over-analyzing their own asses!"

"Alright then," little Ms. Journalist said, standing straight and sweeping scuttle off her skirt, "I think that's all my questions. Thank you for your time."

She held her hand out for me, and I grabbed it tight and shook it a bit too hard, slipping a small sheet of paper from my sleeve into her palm. "You're very welcome," I said, smiling.

She led me out of her office and into the mirror coated elevator. The doors had barely clunked shut before I let out a sigh of relief with a distinct 'Thank God that's over with' vibe. I had nothing against her or anything; I've just always hated press interviews. The mirrors made me wonder what she'd write about me, how she'd describe me: "Tall, dark, and handsome"? Or maybe "Lanky, sallow, and disheveled"? No, probably not that. Maybe she'll do it as a narrative: "Windsor E. Clark, New York Times bestselling author of Velveteen Airport walked into the room wearing a pair of faded workman jeans, a form-hugging charcoal shirt, and a long overcoat that could've been a dug-up prop from a 40s film noir. His long, greasy black hair down to the shoulders and gritty face stubble betrayed his charming, devil-may-care attitude throughout our interview, but his rigid face structure, hardened, high cheek bones, and intense gray eyes suggested something else entirely. Something deeper, something complex. Something brilliant." Something like that.

She was pretty cute, I mused. It was a shame that I couldn't tell her the whole truth, but mystery is important to a writer's image, and besides, at the time I wasn't even exactly sure what the whole truth was.

My memories of that walk are kind of fuzzy. I had been walking down some little side street in the East Village, on my way home, depressed that I'd been unable to really come up with anything to write about except my own dire predicament. It was starting to get chilly, so I pulled my coat tighter and pulled out my lighter, firing up a cigarette. When my eyes scanned around as I coaxed out a flame, an orange sheet of paper taped to the side of some underground fringe newspaper box caught my eye. And that's where my memory began to get a little hazy. The next thing I knew I was awake in my bed with an unbearable throbbing pain running through a turgid vein in my skull somewhere behind my left eye, pressing down on my brain, on my optic nerve, compressing them too tight. Like I said, the evening before was this Vaseline smudge on the lens in my mind. Nothing but blurry figures...the wind had suddenly picked up, I remember its whistling sound shaking my insides, sent me running for home. I tripped, fell to the slushy ground, in a daze saw a girl being harassed by huge, hulking shadows in the steel and cobalt darkness of an alleyway. I called them...I can't remember what I said, exactly, but it got their attention. They came over to me as I pushed myself up. One pulled out a switchblade from his pocket. There was a fight...and somehow I won? It didn't make sense, but they were running off and I only had a few bruises here and there, and small cut on my side. The girl ran over to me, hugged me tight. I recognized her. My high school crush. I don't remember how she looked; in my head, her face is nothing more than a fingerprint in black ink. We walked, we talked. She was married, but there was romance between us, I could tell. After a wonderful evening, she went to the airport, had to leave, I kissed her as we said goodbye...and that's it. Everything's a blank spot after that.

Even back then, I didn't think it was real. It couldn't have been. I had no scars, no bruises, no cracked ribs, nothing. Must have been some kind of incredibly vivid, textured, nuanced dream, which didn't explain how I got home. Still, I was compelled, inspired. I got up, and with that strange pseudo-memory in my mind, began pounding away on what would become the first draft of Velveteen Airport.

I didn't, in fact, stop writing for nearly four days. I sustained myself on my small supply of bottled water (so much more convenient than from the tap). I never once ate, never once slept. It was this kind of writing trance. Each sentence became filled with every small, subtle detail and every aching description imaginable. Words just came to me, an endless supply floating to the surface of my brain. Every time I thought I had drained it, the tank mysteriously refilled itself. It was a kind of perpetual motion; more energy exiting the system than entering.

The next few months were this kind of gorgeous blur. Off the manuscript went to every publisher in New York, Toronto, London. Offers came rolling in along with lots and lots of money. A downright bidding war, and the only victor was me. Publicity tours, interviews, New York Times bestseller. And best of all - writer's groupies. No one ever tells you about writer's groupies. Surprises are wonderful.

With success came press interviews, which leads me back to my interview with the glassed gal. The little paper I had handed the young journalist was nothing more than a torn edge of a page from Velveteen Airport with my phone number and a one word question: "coffee?"

It's not that I had any particular infatuation with her, but she was pretty cute, in a mousy sort of way, and it's my policy to be as friendly with the press as possible. My publishers would want it that way.

Anyways, as I expected, my cell phone buzzed, shook, and wailed a couple of hours later. Sitting in my plush and pleather writing chair, I checked the call display before hitting the green 'receive' button.

"You've reached the ear of New York Times bestselling author Windsor E. Clark. This is Mr. Clark speaking; how many I help you?"

"Um, hi. This is Teresa O'Neil. We talked earlier. I interviewed you."

"I'm a New York Times bestselling author. Many people have interviewed me today. I need more."

"You gave me your phone number and asked me out for coffee."

"Still need more."

A pause, then an agitated sigh. "I'm sorry, maybe I have the wrong number..."

I got up from my chair and sat down on the corner of my desk, laughing. "No, no, don't worry. I'm just kidding. Of course I remember you. Got more questions for me, or something?"

"Well, um, no. I'm calling because, well, um..."

"You want to go out for coffee with me? I'd love to. Very flattered. Shall we say 8? How's Starbucks? You like Starbucks, don't you? Experience has taught me that all women like Starbucks."

"Sure, I guess. That'd be fine."

And so, later that night, I found myself sipping on a Venti-sized Caramel Green Tea Tazo Chai Mochafrappucino Latté while chatting up my little news writer.

"If you don't mind me asking," I asked, slurping down a beverage that was more sugar than coffee, "just what was it that made you say yes to my generous offer?"

"To be honest? I liked your book," she said. She was looking less mousy, more relaxed. Her hair, previously pulled back tight with loose locks hanging out had now been let down. Her fingernails were done up, and her loose white blouse of this morning had been replaced with a flattering vintage Sonic Youth t-shirt. Very cute.

"That's it? It wasn't my unwavering masculine charm?"

"As if, Windsor. Can I just call you Clark? Your 'masculine charm' is borderline ridiculous. It's practically unfathomable that a cocksure cad like you could write such beauty with such poetry. But in my experience, every male can be taken down a notch or two with the right woman."

"And you think you're the right woman."

"I've never been proven wrong."

"Did you say you read my book?"

"I did. I loved it. It's why I jumped at the opportunity to interview you. Velveteen Airport was the best thing I've read in years, Clark. I was sobbing at the end. Eliza and Paul's sad farewell? You captured the moment perfectly. I've never experienced anything like that, but I genuinely felt like I was there. It transported me. Your book really is awfully similar to Liquid Cold, but you capture the same themes so much better."

I looked down at the floor, aw-shucks-like. "You really think so? I dunno about this other book, though. Like I said, never read it."

"Which reminds me. Is it true what you said? You don't read books?"

"Why should I let other authors tell me how to write? Literature is something universal. Anyone can pick up a pen or grab a keyboard and express themselves. Everytime you read someone else's sentence, you're just letting that writer's feelings, style, art influence your own. Tabula Rasa, and all that."

The two of us continued talking for hours after our drinks were gone. People came and went, the sun went down. I asked her what her favourite books were. Gatsby, Wuthering Heights, Breakfast at Tiffany's. She was a romantic. When it fell upon me to walk her home, I noticed the evening ambiance and weather was curiously like they were during that desperate search for an idea, maybe a year to that day. If I wanted to, I could've used that exact same description of the city streets. Maybe this time around, though, the diction would be happier, brighter. Amazing what a good idea can do to change your mood.

Unfortunately, as we turned the corner of St. Mark's Place, we were both rather unexpectedly clubbed over the head and knocked out.

When I came to, my hands and feet were bound and twisted around a stiff wooden chair. Teresa was no where to be found. Above me a thick metal disc spun slowly, humming. Even though my vision was blurry, I could still tell that the room I was in was a dungeon - dark, dank, and derelict. My first thought was that it might've been a morgue, even: there was a wall of small steel drawers directly across from me that certainly resembled the ones used to store bodies in a typical mortuary. Out of each, however, came a wire; they all seemed to link together to a small computer terminal sitting in the shadows of the corner. Along the wall to my left were rows of filing cabinets, marked from A to Z. The walls were dark gray and black stone, coated with moisture and humidity. Sweat rolled down my face and past my nose and mouth, which were filled with the taste and scent of blood and mold. Before I had time for it to even occur to me to struggle, a stocky, austere man with long hippie-hair and a mangy beard walked down a set of stairs and into this basement. "Glad to see you're awake, Mr. Clark," he said, in a slight Bohemia-French accent. "It is nice to see you again."

"Again? Where am I? Where's Teresa? What the hell is this?!"

He walked over to the computer and tapped a few keys as he spoke. "I apologize for the methods we've had to take to get you here. You must understand, you are under certain contractual obligations, and there are various reasons why we felt the precautions we took were necessary to ensure that said obligations were fulfilled."

"What contract? What are you talking about? Untie me, dammit!"

"You do not remember, of course, Mr. Clark. You do not remember me (my name is Philipe Encre, by the way), you do not remember my contract. Such is the way memories are, such is the way life is. A series of fallible memories."

Encre walked over to the filing cabinets beside me and flipped through C as I contorted my hands in a futile effort to free them. Within a moment, he pulled out a small manila file from the cabinet and removed a sheet of paper. "Here we are, Mr. Clark. You can see your signature right here."

And there it was, at the bottom of a long, technical contract. That was my 'X', alright. "What does the contract say? I can't read it. Everything's blurry."

"Do you remember, Mr. Clark, your search for an idea for your novel? It couldn't have been more than a year ago." "Of course I remember."

My kidnapper, my business partner, Mr. Philipe Encre put the contract away and went back to playing with the computer. "One evening, in a moment of desperation, you came to me for inspiration. I promised you fame, wealth, critical and commercial success for one year. All it required was one session. I'd hook you up to a little machine, the very chair you are sitting in. That disc above you would use some fancy electromagnetism, stimulate the creative side of your brain. You'd have a novel novel in no time.

"There were a few minor stipulations to our agreement, however. One was that we would modify your memory using that very same technology, eliminate any recollection of your little therapy. Advertising would be bad business for us, yes?"

"And why is that, exactly?"

"I am getting to that, Mr. Clark. You see, that was the other important element of our contract. After your wonderful year of freedom, we'd get your mind."

"What? My mind?"

"Yes, yes. It is amazing how desperate you writers can be. The only payment we require is the bioelectric signals that flow through your gray matter. Of course, that means we'll also need your body as well in order to preserve it. But don't worry, we will take good care of everything."

I gulped. "Is that what the drawers are for?"

"Precisely, indeed. Do you see then why we had to erase your memory? We couldn't have you telling people about all of this. Technically speaking, it skirts on the sides of illegality."

"Are you crazy? What do you plan on doing with my mind?"

"I'll keep this short," he said, opening a small panel on one of the drawers and flicking some dials. "As a writer, I'm sure you're aware that long exposition is never a good idea.

"We provide a service to budding authors such as yourself. We offer you good ideas when you need them. But where do these ideas come from? Indeed, where do all ideas come from? Well?"

"If I knew," I sneered darkly, "I would never have come to you, right?"

"That is true. Now, I have a theory, and it is only a theory, but it has proven successful in your case and in others, too. I believe that ideas, they come from experience. They come from life, you see. Every novel, every poem, every movie and every song ever written, they all come from life, they are all reflections of our lives, of the human condition. That is what can give mere words artistic merit. If they can cast light onto life.

"But, the problem is, every person's experiences are finite. The artist can only write about what they know, what they've read, what they've seen. Exclusively anything that they have been exposed to, but that is all. Not necessarily literally, mind you, but all these ideas will come together, will stimulate the imagination in unique and fascinating ways.

"So that is where I come in. I place you in my machine and suddenly your creativity is stimulated, stimulated by exposing your muse to the ideas and experiences of other authors like yourself. It is like reading a thousand of the world's best novels. Your old high school girlfriend, one author's fight in an alleyway, another's sad farewell at an airport. They all get mixed together in your mind, and, suddenly, out pops a novel like a golden egg. And then, once you have enjoyed your success, your newly invigorated imagination can join my system, to help inspire another author, to allow him to realize his dreams."

"But to what end?" I asked him. "To make money?"

"Money? Ha! I am an artist, Mr. Clark. Artists do not do what they do to make money."

"An artist? What art do you create? The novels of the writers you use?"

"There is that, yes. But no, I am speaking of something bigger. Look at the macro picture. Think philosophically. A network of ideas describing the human experience. Isn't that what art is? I'm just...automating the process, a little."

"You're crazy," I spat.

"Maybe so," he replied as he grabbed me and hoisted me over his shoulder with a burly strength, "But they say that all great artists are a little."

I struggled as hard as I could, but my bound limbs prevented my efforts from making any difference. The world shook and twirled around me, a Coney Island roller coaster gone mad. Holding me in place with one arm, he opened a drawer on the wall with his free appendage. Tossing me inside with a loud clank, he laughed and said, "Thank you Mr. Clark for helping the cause. Good night."

The drawer slammed shut and I was trapped in darkness. I heard the gentle hum of one of those spinning discs behind me, reading my brain waves. I cried for help, but it was futile, just a loud metal echo ringing in my ears. I tossed, turned, did everything that I could, but it was all just a waste of energy. All that I could do was sit there and think about my life.

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