Deadline

For the first time, I was unable to write. It was the first time since I had begun. Until then, writer’s block had belonged only to other people’s stories. I had known of it, but I had never faced it myself.

The reason it had passed me by for so long was easy enough to explain. I wrote only when inspiration came. Then I would not put down my pen until everything in my head had settled onto the page. More than a few of those pages later disappeared into a drawer, where they lay unread.

Before me was a white screen. A small cursor blinked upon it. Where had the thought gone, the one that had so clearly been there only moments before?

It had simply vanished.

In its place crouched a small black creature called Deadline. It did not speak. Still, it sat there, silent and watchful, waiting for me.

I tried to focus on the blinking cursor again. How could something so slender be so frightening? Was white not meant to be the colour of purity? Yet the pale screen before me felt like a threat. Perhaps I should change the display. Was that even possible? Black background, red letters. Hard to read, certainly, but many stories had been born that way.

Even the little creature, hazy as a wisp of fog, began to stir.

“All right, I know. I’m writing.”

But what had my subject been again? Ah, yes. And where were my notes?

At last, I found them. They had been buried beneath a pile of old printouts, two empty envelopes, and a book I had meant to read for months. For a moment, I felt relieved. But even after I had looked through the pages, I still did not know how to begin.

Perhaps I simply needed to go outside.

So I put on my shoes and went for a run. The air was cool, and after only a few minutes, my mind seemed to open a little. I listened to my breathing, to the steady fall of my feet on the sand, to the wind moving through the leaves.

And then I heard something else.

A soft patter of footsteps behind me.

I turned, but there was no one there. Only the path, the grass, the trees, and a small bird among the branches, looking down at me with what seemed like disapproval. Even so, I decided to head home as quickly as I could.

The mirror clouded over almost at once beneath the shower. The hot water carried away the heavy thoughts tangled around the white screen, the cursor, and the notes. Perhaps the block itself would dissolve in the steam and disappear.

When I opened my eyes, the little black creature was sitting on the laundry basket. Its golden-yellow eyes did not blink even once. I let out a long breath.

“All right. Really. I’ll write,” I thought.

Back at my desk, I remembered a piece of advice I had read somewhere before. Write freely for five minutes. Do not think, simply write. Surely I could manage that much. It did not have to be good. It did not even have to make sense. Only words. Only movement. Five minutes without lifting the pen from the paper.

So I took an envelope from the pile, picked up a pen, and looked down at the blank space. In the end, I spent five whole minutes drawing circles.

Had that helped at all?

I looked up and rested my fingers on the keyboard, waiting. The cursor blinked.

Could I turn that off somewhere? Why did it have to blink?

After a while, I got up and went into the kitchen.

Coffee, I thought. Perhaps coffee will help.

I did not usually drink coffee this late, I thought as I glanced at the clock. Oh, never mind. I was hardly going to finish otherwise.

While the water ran through the machine, I told myself that I would begin soon. As soon as the coffee was ready. After this warm, lovely cup. Soon. If only that little creature would stop staring at me.

It sat beside the coffee machine, watching.

“Yes, all right.”

It said nothing. It did not need to.

Before I knew it, the coffee had gone cold. Even that seemed suddenly remarkable. I swallowed the cold drink in one go and looked at the little creature, which was still sitting on my desk.

At last, I put on some music. Not loudly, only loud enough that the room no longer felt quite so silent. The first notes filled the space between me, the screen, and the small black animal. The cursor was still blinking.

I really ought to change that one day.

And then I wrote.

It was not the piece I had meant to write when I sat down at my desk. It was not anything particularly special. But I wrote about the vigilant golden-yellow eyes watching me, about the little shadow that followed me, and about its unpleasant habit of appearing whenever I least wanted to think of it. I wrote about the small creature called Deadline.

When I looked up, the screen was no longer white. The creature was still there. Nothing about it had changed, and yet it seemed, somehow, to have a face now.

It was not the piece I had been looking for. But perhaps it was the piece I had needed.

I smiled at the little being.

“You really are tiresome.”

At last, I knew again how I wanted to begin. Beside me, Deadline curled itself into a small ball and rested. It seemed that it, too, had grown tired of waiting.