Writer’s Block

I’m sure that you know the feeling. You get excited to put pen to paper and once again surprise yourself with your almost unexpected creativity. You take your time getting ready. Making sure that you take care of all of your needs beforehand. Go to the bathroom, grab coffee, maybe flick your bean or do the old knuckle shuffle on your piss-pal. Turn the ringer off on your cell phone, clear possible distractions away from your workspace, and take your seat. Waiting, with blissful anticipation…

It had been nearly an hour. An hour of sitting at his desk, knuckles turning white, fingers gripped around his pen, as if he were trying to choke the ink out of it and onto the page. An hour there, dragging this pen across the page, doodling circles over and over again. An hour, yet still, the words would not come. With each passing minute his anticipation turned more and more into desperation. Finally, once the page was full of circles [to the point where there was now more black than white on the page] he reluctantly threw the ink-stick down. The desk let out a tiny echo when met with the pen. An echo that turned into a piercing ring as it crept it’s way into his ear.

Defeated, he cupped his face with his hands as if hiding from the shameful piece of work (or lack there of) that lay in front of him. The ringing bounced it’s way through his ear canal and seemingly solidified as it met his ear drum. The pain spread, circled his skull, then crashed to the other ear drum. It continued to ping-pong it’s way around his head, and with each change of direction it grew louder, bigger, stronger, and faster. Here it comes. It took every ounce of strength that he could muster into his now trembling hands to resecure the pen back in between his finger tips.

He wrote as fast as he could, trying to outwrite the ideas flooding his brain. It wasn’t fast enough. His head swelled. The pain, so disorienting. At times he would even mistakenly write “Aaahhh” and “pain” on the page. His eyes watered, tears leapt from his lashes, and seemed to purposely plant themselves directly in the way of his penstroke. He couldn’t stop in time. Picking the pen up out of the puddle, flicking the teardrop off of it, and returning it to rewrite the previous word or words that he had just glided through… Just in time to run it into another teardrop.

He had to get these thoughts out of his head, he had to… Before they killed him.

His head continued to swell as ideas burst in, faster than he could extract them. His skin stretch to it’s limit, pulled tightly against his skull. His face and cheeks began to rip away from his ears as his head grew. Don’t stop writing, just don’t stop writing. Bits of pink bone uprooted itself through his skin as the bone cracked.

“Ahhh“, another typo that would require a strike-through. Another millisecond, in this race against time, that could have been used to dry his eyes that were quickly filling with more blood than tears. Another rogue penstroke that could have been dedicated to jotting down an idea, possibly slowing this swelling, and ending this suffering. Another moment, lost.

Lost. Lost is this battle. Lost is this war. His brain now prolapsing it’s way through the gaping holes in his… Well, what used to be his head. His cramping hand emptying ink from the pen almost as fast as the blood spilled from his top.

And as the pen let out its last drop of ink he welcomed the release of his last breath.

The En

Thank you Brodey for letting me use this amazing picture!