I stare at it. And it stares back at me. I may look like an idiot for looking at this damned paper for two hours, crumpling and uncrumpling it, I just have a feeling that I shouldn’t throw it away. And so to no one’s surprise, I open the paper again. I stare at it, wishing that it would fill up by itself. I examine the yellow paper that has blue lines, but alas the only words written was the same thing I have written two hours ago.
“She ran through the corridor, her red dress torn..”
Ugh. What next? Damn this writer’s block! I crumple it again, this time like I was going to tear it apart. I put my head down on my desk, full on exhausted. I begin to play characters in my head. And one by one they come alive in my mind.
“She ran through the corridor, her red dress torn. He catches up to her, a knife behind his back. His face is calm, charming even..”
My head snaps up, and I look for my crumpled paper. I frantically search for it, almost flipping over the office. I mentally slap myself for throwing it away. I check my table and my chair but I never found it. I knew I shouldn’t have thrown it away. I peer into my trash can, separating the bond paper from my yellow paper. Good thing I never throw gross stuff in here.
“Hey you okay? You need anything? Your office is a mess.” Gaby suddenly says in one breath.
I struggle not to roll my eyes at him. He was still eye candy after all. I smile at him and say,
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
He then gives me a thumbs up, and walks out of my office. He was lucky to be an art specialist. He’d never experience writer’s block like I do. I suddenly remember what I was doing and I search my papers once again. When I had the yellow papers in one container, I began to open them one by one. Lo and behold, I discovered some old stories I tried to write earlier this week. My eyebrows scrunch together as I read them. I wrote stories that started great, then ended up with dot.dot.dot. Some had titles, some didn’t. Titles and endings were my kryptonite. I read on.
“You can do this. You can do this. You can do this. I repeated this mantra over and over again till I reached our apartment door. As it creaked open, Eric shouted..”
“A single heartbeat. A whisper. A moment that could never be repeated..”
“I stare at the man who is so called my husband. He’s ridiculously putting on his tie, his thumbs graciously moving. He looks at me with a small smile..”
Wow. I never thought that I wrote these. I look at all the crumpled paper around me, all with a story to share. I blink, and a ridiculous rush goes through me. I want to finish all of this! I suppressed a squeal, knowing fully that I was known around the office as the “weird writer”. I start up to my desk, and I do an eenie meenie miney mo on which story I should do first. That’s when I saw it.
Sam’s cat, the woman next to my office, was playing with one of my yellow papers. I stand up and try to grab the paper, but to my misfortune the cat ran. I sigh, running my fingers through my black hair. I put my hair into a messy bun and sat down. I look at the papers once again. All crumpled papers, each one with an amazing story.
The question is: What’s next? That’s for me to decide. 😀