It is 10:21. Not 10:20. Not 10:22. 10:21.
He slaves away at his laptop. Apart from the whir of the fan, the flickering of the lightbulb, the occasional clatter from the upstairs neighbour, nothing’s to be heard. Except the clacking of the keys.
He thinks, “it is surreal, isn’t it? How words come together from just random pressing of keys. How the string of letters “k e y s” spells a word, while “l f z l” doesn’t. Words are merely what the humans make of it; a meaningless string of letters, that to an indifferent alien species would be nothing but gibberish -”
“Argh!” He cries out in pain. The screen burns his eyes as he finds himself stumbling over a Writer’s Block. He struggles to commit another word, another phrase, another sentence to the Google Doc. He has been editing a sentence — the sentence, for the past 3 minutes. He avoids the caustic glare of the word count.
He yawns. He looks across the room. He sees his bookshelf. He walks across.
And he opens up a book. “Creative Writing for Dummies. By Maggie Hamand.” He flips a few pages, then puts it down.
Rustle and flip. Rustle and flip. At this hour, the words are no more than just walls of letters. Just endless hieroglyphics. Just random strings – no, chunks – of letters and periods and commas. Nothing makes sense…
His face falls flat on the book. A sharp wave of pain shoots up his nose and into his brain.
He glances at the clock again. It is currently 10:34. He’s spent 13 minutes so far, and hasn’t even started.
Then, as he shuts the book, he somehow makes out a string of words. It reads, “Writing can be abstract. It is an art. As long as the words are intentional, as long as there is a meaning behind each sentence, as long as there is something to get out of the story, every piece has its merits.”
Now, he smiles. He has an idea. Writing’s hard, but … does it have to be? Must he follow the story curve (the dreaded story curve!) and make his piece full of similes and metaphors and all sorts? Or… can he add a flair to it? A certain degree of abstract that takes some effort to truly appreciate?
He opens his laptop once more. It is 10:37.
And, with the clacking of the keys, he types the first sentence. “It is 10:21 PM”.
Cover image: stock image
By Gregory Ng and Ong Tsz Xiang
