Trying to Kill the Polar Bears

He sat at the typewriter, not moving. The things that came into his head, that he had supposedly been waiting for, all this time, were not fit for the page. He thought of the death of himself and his loved ones. He thought of burning buildings and crashing planes. He thought of despair and gloom, of rain and natural disasters. The words flowed into his head as imagery and were gone just the same, never revealing themselves as anything but horrible ideas and bad things to come.

He told himself that he knew that nothing bad was happening, and that nothing bad was on its way. He repeated this to himself but still felt the same. A numbness settled over his body.

When nothing comes, nothing comes. He dropped his eyes from the empty page and started banging away at the old machine, his old friend, trying to beat it into submission, to punish it for its demands and to bring out some feeling in himself, even if it was from pain in his fingers. Something to know that he was real and not just a bad breathing omen.

He laughed derisively at himself as he thought about how terrible he was making everything to be, even though he couldn’t help it. He hit the keys harder. He repeated the d-key over and over, filling half the page, then pounded the right side of the keyboard with the flesh of his fist. He started crying and he tore the page out and burned it, letting it turn from flame to ash on his floor.

- posted by seanmh @ 11:45 AM