Fingers were typing. They were rushing and stumbling over each other as if competing which one is will succeed to write the most. A story that hasn't been told before was rising to the surface, building itself brick by brick till completion. It needed to be voiced by words which were clashed into reality by the competitive fingers that could barely follow the trail of the commander.

Sometimes they would stop and rest but as itchy as they were, they couldn't stay still for long. They wanted and needed to repetitively press the keyboard.

It wasn't raining. At least not rain. The only sound giving life to the silent place was the raining of words which were becoming real as soon as they were written. Not even a clock's ticking sound dared to sing in unity and remained in the background. No background music to build the atmosphere, no TV show to fill the emptiness of the place, no maids cleaning the kitchen counters, nothing. Just the keyboard.

Every now and then a murmur would retrace the steps the fingers took to split the paragraphs, to write down thoughts of fiction in italics, to describe the manner of speaking or body language or height of the voice, and to give words space so letters could breathe.

The skyscraper's apartment was empty. Sounds of the keyboard may have resonated in the living room, but they couldn't do more beyond it. The kitchen walls felt lonely with no delicious smell dragging itself across them, and the office missed a challenge of the business world. Whatever happened, happened in the living room, in an embrace of a comfy couch and the warmth of a laptop.

The apparent silence had become so familiar, a fly accidentally roaming in by accident could be detected. Though, it wasn't an ant or a fly whose pressure was acknowledged but a blonde, tall simply due to her killer heels. The disrupting of silence forced the eager fingers to stop and rest stretched out over the keyboard.

Cloudy eyes, slightly puffy and red, rose above the level of the monitor to meet the intruder who suddenly made this place seem overcrowded. Under her arm, he spied a bunch of envelopes, newspapers, and ads that were in the next minute laid down before him on a coffee table.

"This week's mail. I will never understand why you never get it," the blonde complained as she rushed to the kitchen to fetch herself a drink.

"So what if I'm going to miss out on a grand cheese sale at the market."

Her heels were clinking against the floor, the echo of it making the apartment seem bigger than it actually was. Within a minute of standing in the kitchen, she prepared herself a light martini and then dropped on the couch next to the man. His fingers were becoming restless with every minute they were kept away from typing.

"What are you working on? Something I could sell?" She asked and squinted her eyes at the laptop in his lap.

Before she could read at least a sentence, he closed his laptop and mentally distanced himself from what he was about to write. "A book."

The blonde smiled and if he hadn't known her, he would mistake it for a smile of pity "So determined to succeed. If people had one per cent of your drive, being a celebrity would become nothing special."

With a sigh, he nicely expressed he would rather not talk about any ambitions or talents while there were others more prolific authors out there. "What brought you here, Ashley?"

She steadied herself up straight on the couch, a secretive smile on her face was more than revealing she had juicy news for him "Something big happened that could help you build your career."

He lifted a brow as if not interested in this at all. A part of him really wasn't. "And that being?"

"I received news producing studios are looking into," she spoke with a voice that speakers use at the parades "Michael Stone's Nightingale."

He steadied himself up as she has before but as if he were in trance "They're interested in making a movie?"

"Oh, honey!" She exclaimed and laughed "Some say a movie, others a short series. But that's not even important." Scooting closer to the man who was still obviously in shock, she continued with the idea she had cobwebbed on her way here "I could get you into the screenwriter's business. You always complained about the - how did you put it - disgraceful book-into-movie adaptations."

It was as if the news of becoming a screenwriter went past him. Entered through one ear, exited through the other. It took him a minute to contemplate the meaning of her words.

"Could this be for real? Can you even do that?"

"I'm your agent, which means your own personal magician. Let me work my magic and you'll get an Academy Award in no time!"

He snorted at the thought, eying her with disbelief in his pupils.

Ashley bumped his arm with her fist and desperately tried to pout. Sadly, he knew she was too worried about the wrinkles. She loved being beautiful. "I've read your works and I know you're capable of writing a killer script. Isn't romance your speciality?"

"I try to make it that. It's a tough competition, though."

She smiled and fixed the collar of his shirt as she always did when she wanted to encourage him. It always reminded him of his mother, she did the same thing whenever they went for lunch together or she needed to be rushed to a coffee meeting with her co-workers. "Remember, Michael Stone's novel is getting turned into a moving picture, one way or another. No denying that."

He suspected something more was to follow but he said it, nonetheless "What a lucky man."

"Lucky? Maybe a bit. Talented? Oh, very much!" A devilish smile she liked to wear when she was planning any new gigs for him, was present as always. It's why he would sometimes call her Cruella.

"Not all talents are recognised. And sometimes the society demonises them because of something the vessel has done wrong." He smiled at Ashley.

She gave him a pointed look "Again with this? You can't help yourself but provoke me, can you?"

"It's hard not to. You are triggered by almost everything I say," he mocked her out of his own entertainment. Through the years they've built this kind of relationship and when they appeared in public together, people would easily mistake them for a married couple.

She had learnt that sometimes it's just not worth it, so she decided to leave. With the big news announced there was probably nothing more of her interest here, and he knew she needed him to write, write, write and write.

Ashley tipped the glass and emptied the contents, it was a way she always drank her martini.

With a glass in the sink, she looked over at him "Have you figured out a new title?"

He cringed at the title he has picked so far. He didn't like it but so far it was the only thing he had. "For now I call it I Promise, I Vow."

Ashley tipped her head to the side and smiled with genuine cuteness "That's such a lovely title. You should use it."

As unsatisfied as he was, he knew it was most probably he's either gonna delete it, use something else and never think of this possibility again even when writing the next book. "Maybe."

She was halfway out the door when she called back to him "Stay tuned, my brave writer! I'm going to work my magic!"

He smiled at her choice of words and a try at being dramatic. However, as soon as she was gone, his smile faded and the shock from the news returned. It was a moment of an unsteady mind that could work on different images all in tune with anxiety unless it was occupied with someone like Ashley or something similar.

He couldn't remember what was he writing and what his fingers were trying to say. Now that she had told him the news, he couldn't even remember what happened in the last paragraph.

He stood up. As if he were sleepwalking, he dragged himself to the bathroom. 

Whatever happened, it was automatic. A movement someone develops after repeating it time over time until it becomes a part of subconsciousness.

Lift the seat.

Unzip your pants.

Don't miss.

Flush the toilet.

One thought that echoed in his head was: I should probably wash my hands. It was unusual since he always did that and having to think about it consciously worked as a reminder he was still quite in shock.

As he walked to the sink, he thought his legs were going to fail them, bump him over which will lead to hitting his head on the sink and die before he could even see the development of the movie become an official thing.

Thankfully, that didn't happen and as far as washing his hands was concerned, he survived and was left unharmed.

He washed his face just to bring freshness to his mind, though he believed it was only a placebo of calmness that could work only if you really, really believed a splash of water was magical.

Nothing in his life was magical, he believed. He was just a man with many thoughts that were hard to contain. So what better thing to do than to let them out and lock them with ink in the paper.

He said out loud as the drops of water were trickling down his face and falling into the sink "A lucky man."

Tired of being bent down, he straightened his neck and armoured his voice with a refreshing breath as he gazed into the reflection that looked back at him with anything but calmness in its eyes "Michael Stone, I'm such a lucky man."