Writer's Block

Plink, plink, plonk.

“Doe, ray, me, faaaa, damn, damn, damn!” Nothing! He felt discordant, or worse, ordinary. He wanted to scream but he was trapped in a little apartment: walls, wife, children, neighbors on all sides of him. He needed to get away. But what was the point? What was the point? Death was better than this. Writer’s block was killing him.

He went for a walk.

In the drizzle, at four in the morning, and under the streetlights through the fog of lights he only felt tired. There was nothing here, no story. And worse, he felt there would be no point if there was. He still wanted to scream, but was afraid to wake the sleeping street, so he walked on, past identical apartment buildings, empty balconies cluttered with garbage and dead flowers, under the black trees of the suburbs at night.

The past was baggage. The future meant nothing.

He walked until there was nothing but trees. Streetlights dissolved away and the shadows crisscrossed and folded around him until he stood in pitch black. No light, unable to see his feet, disembodied, unable to move.

Lost. Like a dead fish.

He heard music. A tin whistle, thin and fast like a beam of light. A tin whistle, sharp, angels dancing on pinpricks, sonics outlining him. A white beat, the colors of nothing. He vibrated in the night.

He vibrated in the blackness, all fluid now, like a river in the night. Rushing, trying to break its bonds.

And, like a fish, he broke the surface, swallowed air, and passed out.

*

He woke. The kettle blew in the kitchen, a thin tin whistle of steam. His wife kissed him.

“Tea, dear?”

He still had writer’s block.