Writer's Conundrum

There never was anything to win in the first place.

It was an ungodly hour to be awake at, much less staring at a bright screen in a pitch black room. The time was somewhere in the muddled hours between morning and night, the objects in the room basked in a soft, yet harsh glare of pale blue, grey and ghostly to glance at. The cursor kept blinking, blinking, blinking.

Her head hurt.

The pattern repeated itself once more. Type, type, type a few words. Words dry like the desert, stale like old musty bread long forgotten in the back of the refrigerator. Emotionless, feeling less, and utterly revolting to read. Delete. Delete. Delete. No, this would do nothing for her.

Each thought and word was like a feather on a songbird's wing. You could see, and you could reach for it, but the moment you almost touch it, it takes flight, leaving you with nothing but empty air and a chilling breeze.

Outside, a nightingale croaked.

She looked up from the millions of pixels that made up her blank page, a glance that only took her a split second, but a second too much, for she lost her train of thought once more in the land of pounding heads and dry eyes.

She switched screens to her social media site. No living soul was online. But of course, who was she fooling, as if anyone would be online at this time in the day. Or was it the night? Was time even relevant to one who lived in a fictional world full of fictional lies to blind oneself to the cruel, bitter, biting cold of reality? Why did she still feel that pang, that tiny hit of a rusted bell echo in her chest, radiating loneliness throughout her body?

She turned back to her writing piece and gave a soft sigh. Months had already passed and still no progress on her project. Nothing had come out but disgusting pieces that were filled of false plastic emotions and a sticky layer of cliché plot-lines. And to think that this was the life she had chosen. Oh well, it’s not like happiness was achievable anyways.

The word want, in the phrase “I want happiness”, implies that one would never be satisfied with what you have, thus one would never achieve happiness.

A sudden growl of self-hatred tore up her heart, gripped her by the shoulders and ripped at her hair. 

Anger seared her from the inside out, but it wasn't frustration at her lack of process, no. Rather, it was anger over the fact that she knew she would never be the heroes in her stories, or the saved in the finales, nor would she be the loved one, or the successful one, or rich one, or the happy one, anyone in any of these millions upon millions of alternate universes and different realities that she ever made up since childhood because those weren't this reality, or this time, or this life, and everything, everything was fictional and impossible to achieve in the end. It was sad. Oh, it was very, very sad.

Sad is such a vague word. Sad. But what does one really mean when they use the word sad? Was it depressing or were you merely sympathetic? Were you struck by the cold metal bat that is the truth, or were you simply just, lightly tapped? Such a vague word indeed.

She shakily took in a breath (when did she stop?) and rubbed her must-be-red eyes. She had spent too long dawdling and pondering over useless philosophies again. It was time to get back to work. The pattern continued on, long past when the sun woke up to grace the world of its beauty, and long before the moon could say hello again.

Time is irrelevant to any situation where you do not need a number to measure how you feel. Thus, time is irrelevant to one’s life.