The brown wood of the desk gives calm. My hands lie awkward beside the white paper. The pens are picked. Everything is ready for a compelling story or a kink of thought no one can follow. The A4 sheets do not frighten me.

That hand only has to pick up the pen. Put the pen to the paper. Words will appear. A story will form. Dim light pours from the red lamp, pressing shadows into the wood. I feel its warmth on my face. It shines as far as the mind.

I take the lamp in both hands and set it so the beam falls exactly in the middle of the paper. Not easy. It is a metal thing: two hinged tubes, a trapezoid shade. All the screws are stripped so the contraption keeps sinking, almost invisibly, until the cap touches brown wood or white paper. Good thing it wasn’t expensive.

I roll a cigarette. The matchbox is empty; the ashtray is not. Damn, again not prepared. This way nothing good will reach the paper. Why do this at all—stake your life on calling yourself a writer? There is hardly a sillier trick. I sigh, get up for matches, and dump the ash into the bucket on the balcony. The wind blows the ash back in my face. Why, as an ex-sailor, don’t I mind the wind?

My thoughts push me onto the deck of the training ship *Prinses Irene*, anchored on the Veerse Meer. One of those mist-still mornings that only exist on water. Sounds arrive hollow, as if from another room in the world. I drop the bucket on its line over the side, pull it up, and throw the contents across the deck—against the wind. From the wheelhouse the captain laughs, hard and mocking. I stand there drenched, staring at the flag.

Life was uncomplicated. I was not a writer yet. My hands return to the desktop. Smoke drifts through the cone of light. The lamp has already sunk a few centimeters.

Back then I did not feel required to do anything about the world’s wrongs. Now it is the only way to justify my life. Years ago I wrote a small poem, a trifle—not so bad—and found that it was a way to speak, a way to be honest. The idea of being a writer took hold. I declared myself one to anyone I met and started to write for real.

Now being a writer is not important. It is not the end; it lies further on. Somewhere in the corners of my mind there is a book that will change things. In that book is a city where people can live honestly and free. That is my end.

My hands tremble a little. A bead of sweat falls onto the white paper. Fear-sweat? There is so much to learn and to lay aside. So much still to live through.

For the sake of that book and that city I sit at this desk. Not to write it now—the knowledge is not large enough. Everything thought or written now is practice for that book. Stones for the city.

My hand takes the pen. The lamp has sunk to five centimeters above the paper. I should have spent more money on it. Why is it that I always do things halfway? Well then—back then the lamp hung crooked.

I get up and go to the bookcase. I take Sartre’s *The Age of Reason*. *The Roads to Freedom*—a road toward my book. I set the arm right again and know that nothing will appear on the paper today.