Writer's Block

Sitting in his office all day and night He patiently waits for the words to flow from his fingers, but no such luck. Those words are no longer in his recollection. Sweat now starts to form on his forehead, and his brain begins to ache, as it refuses to let go of its knowledge.

“Maybe someday, it will return.” He desperately hopes that it’s a minor thing, a temporary lapse of the cerebrum preventing him from passing the sentences he was proud of from his brain to his fingers and out on the paper in front of him.

It’s been more than a day, and nothing has come to fruit. He is still sitting there, just waiting for that power to return, and the dexterity of free hand typing comes again to bear. “I am going soon to a doctor, and lay on him the issues I am having. I hope all works out well in the end.”

His hands poised a 1/2 inch away, waiting for that signal to transcribe what passed through his mind and down the nerves to his digits, waiting patiently for the signal that never comes.

Stepping away to pick some tunes seems a good way to get the mind off of not being able to write. At least then all you have to do is point and click. All the words are there, and the sounds sway you off to places far away. Try to relate where they are to bring you, but don’t be stifled by lack of selfwill.

He doesn’t move though. Patience is a skill hard learned, but well worth the anger held back. Without it man would have been wiped off the earth eons ago. Patience teaches you when to strike, and when to back away. His hands though are now beginning to tremble, and the sweat from his forehead is now leaving huge drops of water on the keyboard, slowly shorting it out. ‘

His room, a small closet lit by monitor, and hazed red by an oozing “Groovy Lamp”. The smell of burnt circuitry, and sweat, layers itself over the light, and hunched over the small table sits the patient young Writer, fingers painfully extended, wrists locked at the joint unable to move, waiting…

Waiting.

His wife quietly steals her way into the room and behind the table now known as the desk. Her looks, accusatory, her manner threatening. She waits also. I guess she feels that she’ll get something out of him, even if it’s just a defensive yelp, and not the magical lexicon that had once sustained them both. “I’m on my way to a doctor, maybe he’ll know what’s wrong.” He had to tell her something; he couldn’t tell her was now a useless body, with nothing left, but fading memories of grand literature, and satisfying prose. “Did you know there is a group of writers who do nothing but write about how to write? Theri references are really nothing more than some obscure university, or small town press ” She lets out a disgusted sigh. “I’m leaving you.” She walks out of the room.

He sits alone again.

Minutes pass, he hears things moving in the other room, and then the front door slam. Outside he hears her car start, and pull out of the driveway. His eyes fill with tears as they stare blankly at the screen in front of him

“Don’t go”

She knew there was something wrong, and she couldn’t stand to watch him this way anymore, so she left. It’s for the better.

In Public Broadcasting, competition for sponsorship is the driving force in getting the show on the air. It almost seems a mockery of what it is trying to achieve. The only truly free source of information in the world seems to be short-wave radio, but sadly, it’s following is limited, and quite often isolated from the world at large. The writer is still sitting there, not really thinking much about anything anymore.

It’s been three days now, and his fingers now locked and looking arthritic, the keyboard, a puddle of sweat, and blood. The house is silent except for the faint buzz in the computer speaker due to the burnt out keyboard. He is no longer getting up to urinate, but no matter, he hasn’t had anything to drink, leaving his bladder no more, than a deflated balloon, cracking and bloody. He hasn’t spoken a word in forty eight hours, not since she left.

His eyes locked in demonic rage, unblinking, dry, with blood draining from the tear ducts, his skin white,*and pulse slowly fading a beat every hour. His throat parched, tongue swollen, forcing its way through his lips. His body numb from not moving, while his mind roams the universe, and begs for his fingers to listen, and type the words he needs the world to see. Unfortunately his fingers are no longer able to move, and even if they could they weren’t going to type anything.

Another two days have gone by. The keyboard has dried out for there is no more fluid left in him. His once Dark brown hair, white, while the stink of death fills the room. His skin now cracked, and scabbed, slowly bleeds at the joint creases. He starts thinking about Public Television, the changes his species has been through, and the changes that will inevitably come. He wonders why people care more about the clarity of sound through the speaker, than the content it is trying to disseminate. He sees children laughing in the park, and sees them crying over their parent’s graves. He pictures lovers in passion, and witnesses the horror of rape. His mind sings, as he views the big bang, and it sobs with the universe’s last flicker of light. His mind was free, but his body was dying quickly. He realizes that this is it; his muscles have atrophied to the point of rigor mortis. His heart beats one last time.

The world, no longer visible, he feels himself in the sway of death, flowing down, rushing up, and in the light he sees the words…

The End.