The house is silent and still. I sit at my computer and stare at the gray light of the monitor, half expecting a burst of words to fill the screen like stars in the night.
But what will I write? Do I have anything worth saying?
I don't want to write about people I know, even if I fictionalize their situations. I've done too much of that, and it leaves me feeling like a vulture picking at the carcass of a friend. I'm equally tired of writing about myself.
I skim through a collection of modern poetry, hoping to glean an image or phrase that will spark a creative word storm.
No sparks, no stars, no storm, no story.
I blow the dust off an ancient turntable and put on a scratchy Miles Davis album. The music starts slowly, a muted trumpet calling softly into the night. I pour from a bottle of scotch.
A small sip is all I need to feel the pungent sweetness burn my tongue before it clears a path to my stomach. I hold the glass in both hands and imagine the contents as a magic potent, offering creative immortality.
The trumpet cries out into the void as a story about the loneliness of a writer plays in my mind. A woeful, pensive melody drifts by and disappears behind the trumpet's mournful wail. Words form on my screen, but I hit the delete button almost as quickly as I type. The jazzblues notes drift into silence. All that remains is the thump, thumping of a bass keeping time to a tune that no longer exists.
I ache to express the dreadful emptiness of the moment, but fear the words will never come. My heart pounds. I consider giving up and yielding to the silent suicide of the television. I take a deep breath as the pinging of a piano--Oscar Peterson fast--grows out of the silence, taking control of the moment the way a small child dominates a room. The wailing trumpet returns and gives way to a howling blast of energy.
My fingers come alive on the keyboard.
published 18 January 2012