Fall cleaning

I started a story a little over a year ago, but ten pages in I put it aside to work on the Effing Novel From Hell. The idea has wandered into my thoughts a handful of times since I put it away, but I've always managed to simply scrawl one or two brief notes on a post-it or the back of a grocery receipt and banish it to the shoe box of random ideas under the bed until I finish ENFH and can devote my undivided attention to it. That all changed Friday night.

I was watching Sex and the City on DVD - the episode where Big drives out to Aidan's house in the country to cry on Carrie's shoulder over some snooty actress who doesn't deserve him. Classic episode - moving on. I'm not sure what part of the show made my story pop into my head but it did. With a vengeance. I had to find it and reread it immediately and, with any luck, whip off ten more pages in an hour and a half then stand back in awe of my sudden bolt of inspiration.

I opened the file box marked, ever so originally, STORY IDEAS and opened the pink folder I had filed the story in. But it wasn't there. I scanned through the rest of the folders for the pages. No luck. I looked through all of them again but it was definitely not there. Somewhat perplexed, I opened the desk drawer, but all I found was a box of paper clips, two erasers, an exacto knife, a roll of Scotch tape, two keys that must open something, although what I have absolutely no idea, and half a box of Smarties that have been there so long that the packaging has since changed. No papers of any sort, unless you count the cardboard insert on the Scotch tape. I systematically went through the heap of yet-to-be-filed papers that have been piled on the second shelf of my bookcase since dinosaurs roamed the earth, but the story remained elusive.

It was about that time that all hell broke loose. We've all experienced it - the volatile cocktail of confusion, panic and sheer frustration that compels us to rip through an apartment like a category five hurricane, leaving untold chaos and destruction in our wake. I turned things over, emptied things out, pulled things down, strew things from one end of the flat to the other. Somewhere in this heap were ten pages I had a feeling I would never see again, no matter how hard I searched for them. I resigned myself to the fact, made tea and started on the Smarties, still delicious after all those years.

It took three days to sort through the wreckage. In the recesses of my brain I suppose I thought I might come across the pages during the clean up operation. But as I placed the last box on the shelf, I solemnly accepted the loss and vowed to move on.

Yesterday my earring rolled under the couch. I reached to retrieve it and my fingertips brushed across the dog-eared edges of what felt like ten sheets. I pulled the stack out and skimmed the first few pages. But the mood had passed. I filed them in the pink folder.