“Hello, Walter? You’ll never believe what’s happened. My Muse has left me!”
“What! How did you find out?”
“Well, I invoked her in the usual way, you know, ‘Sing in me, O Muse, Goddess-daughter of Zeus, and through me recount the tale,’ that sort of thing, but there was no answer, no divine inspiration, no feelings of some supernatural force enthusing my very soul with creative desire. No furor poeticus. Nothing. I just got her answering machine like last time.”
“What do you mean ‘like last time’?”
“Well, you know, last time when she just upped and left half-way though that alien invasion by space-spiders and went on a narrowboat cruise on the Norfolk Broads. Remember that?”
“No.”
“Well anyway, this time she’s only decided to go and get married.”
“Married! Who to?”
“I don’t know, but when I find out, I’ve got a few choice words to say to him …or her. In the message my Muse just said she’s going to get married in a dark, foreboding cathedral midst the walls accursed and afterwards she’ll be away on her honeymoon and therefore won’t be available for a few months, maybe longer.”
“Tough luck. What are you going to do?”
“Not sure. I suppose I’ll just have to churn out some drivel, drop in a few uncommon words and flowery language, and add some classical allusions.”
“Do you think you’ll manage 300?”
“Nah. I reckon I’ll only manage about 254. I just hope no one notices it’s not a story.”
My entry in the January 2022 300 Word Story Challenge at SFFChronicles
Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy, or other Speculative Fiction
M. Robert Gibson 