The Blank Page

I rummage through my desk drawers, looking for my journal.


My drawers are not organized in any sense of the word. Mostly they are just a place to
stuff crap: old essays, notes, pens, pencils, and anything else I don't have a use for
but don‘t feel like throwing away. It’s actually kind of interesting. Like an
archeologist at a dig site, I'm unearthing stuff that hadn’t seen daylight in a
loooong time. The deeper I dig, the older the stuff I find.

C'mon, its gotta be here somewhere. I think as I dig through stacks of dusty
paper. The papers have been in this drawer so long that they've practically  
fossilized. Old essays, stories, and thoughts fly through the air as I dig through the
drawer.

I come across a few sheets of very crumpled paper at the bottom of the stack. They’re  
held together with a lone staple
“What’s this?” I skim through the pages, trying my best to decipher the cuneiform-
like scratches.

Oh I remember this! It’s  a short story I had written almost four years ago, back when I was just getting in to writing. Back then, I had thought this the best thing I’d ever written. It had been my masterpiece, my opus. Now…

“I seriously used to write like this?” I slowly shake my head This story is crap: the
dialogue is stilted and wooden, the plot is clichéd, and the protagonist is an
obvious self-insert. “Man did I suck.”

I catch myself and stuff the pages back into the chaos of the drawer. This is no time to
get distracted. I need to find my journal soon. My muse is in rare form today;  I doubt
it will stay that way for long.

-

The day started out fairly normal. I woke up at 9, had a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios
and a Mountain Dew, then headed back to my room to waste some time on the 21st
century’s opiate of choice: the Internet. I’d logged onto deviantART and scrolled through
the newest deviations. Most of it was My Little Pony fan art, Sonic recolors, and
disturbing fetish art. You know, the usual stuff.

I had checked my own profile and sighed. I hadn’t posted anything in months. It wasn‘t
for a lack of creativity. I had tons of that in store. The problem was I just couldn‘t get those creative juices flowing.  I had the mental image of these massive tanks in my brain.Each one was filled to the brim with sparkling creativity, but their valves were rusted shut. Not a single drop flowed into my brain.

Bored, I was just about to log off and do something useful with my time when something
clicked in my head.  Like a bolt of lightening, the most wonderful story idea surged into
my brain. The valves to the creativity tanks opened, and sparkling fire surged through my
body.

I must have sat there for about 20 minutes, thinking over every little detail of my new
world. Scaffolding of thought arose in my head, forming characters and settings.An
entire world began to form in my head. Personalities were shaped from raw creativity. then poured into the characters like gelatin into a mold. Settings were sprinkled with little details; minor things that would add flavor to this wonderful story.  

My hands had trembled. This story would have everything; suspense, action, romance,
and maybe even a few philosophical elements. It would be a tale for the ages; a tome that
would make The Lord of the Rings look like The Cat in the Hat.
At the very least it would get me a Daily Deviation.


Now if only I could find my journal.

-

I plop my behind on my bed, frantically looking around the room.
While I could just start typing the story on my computer, I prefer to write these
stories down in my journal first. It helps me get my thoughts in order.

C’mon you little bastard. I curse. Where the hell are you?

Can’t think like this. Need to relax. I grab a pillow from under my bed and plop my head
on it. I take a deep breath. Ok, think: Where was the last place you…
I frown. The pillow feels surprisingly hard. It’s  like someone had replaced
the stuffing with bricks. Or a…

I snake a hand under the pillow cover.  I pull out a tattered little composition notebook  

“There you are!”. I give the little notebook a kiss; I have no idea how the little scamp got there in the first place, but when one is as disorganized as I am, you come to expect that.  

I reach for a mug of pens and fish out a slightly-chewed Bic. I run the nib against my
arm, leaving a thin black streak on my skin. Good enough.  When you have as many pens
as I do, you can never tell which ones were dry.

Quickly, I brush off a thin layer of dust off my writing desk and set my journal down.  I sit down, my body trembling with anticipation. My fingers twitch with creative energy. I can feel the story press against my skull, begging to be released.

I can’t wait any longer. I grab the imitation leather notebook and practically tear it open, I flip through pages of thoughts, stories, and rants I reached a blank page…and my train of thought is instantly derailed..

-

The blank page lays there, as barren and as empty as an arctic wasteland. Its college-ruled lines and borders blind me with their blankness.

I press the nib of my pen against the page, then lift it. I tap the ink-filled scepter against my desk, trying to get the creative juices flowing again.

I am at a loss. I don’t know what’s going on; a few seconds ago my idea was pounding at
my skull like a caged wolverine. Now it cowers in a corner of my mind, hiding itself in
my thoughts like a scared rabbit.

As I stare, I swear I can feel the pages mocking me. Every college-ruled line, every
margin, every space taunts me. “Well, what are you waiting for” they say in their cold,
mocking voices. “Start writing your masterpiece.”

I close my eyes and try my best to coax the story out. I visualize the characters in my
head. I imagine myself pouring my carefully constructed personalities into them like
molten bronze into a mold. I visualize their backgrounds, filling them in like shapes in a paint-by-colors drawing.

Yes, yes… I can feel it. I can feel the creative energy surge through me once again. Fire
surges through my consciousness. I press the nib against the page again. I open my eyes…and…I have nothing.

My pen falls to the floor with a thunderous clatter. I stare at the page, mesmerized by the sheer blankness. It’s like staring into some vast, intellectual singularity. All my thoughts, all my ideas are being swallowed up by that white void.
I swear I can feel something in that white nothingness. Something alien. Something
hungry. Like some wild beast, it stalks my mind, seeking prey.

With a shudder, I feel the beast track down my story. My fleshed out characters are
hunted down like rats. The beast traps them in a corner of my mind, savoring their fear. It leaps on them like a fury born of hunger, tearing their bodies into masses of shredded thought.

Once it has eaten its fill of my characters, the beast turns its attention to the setting. Its invisible fangs tear into my elaborately constructed worlds. My fanciful worlds, my exotic races and peoples and settings are chewed up into a foaming, chaotic  mush and swallowed. When the beast is done, all that is left is a few scraps of shattered dreams and decaying thoughts.


I slump back in my chair, feeling like a wrung-out washcloth.  The last reserves of my creativity are completely drained; drunk up like a beer keg at a frat party.
I close my notebook and slip it into a drawer. Frustration and dejection smother me like a toxic cloud.
Defeated, I plod out of my room head downstairs. I power up the 21st century’s second
opiate of choice- The Xbox 360.

Time to drown my sorrows in pixels.