Writer’s Block
Blank as a field of fresh snow, untouched by the tracks of wolves, or deer, or wooden sleds ridden by small children, their laughter echoing in the air. Blank as a wall before memories have time to accumulate in the form of photographs taken to preserve the past, and artwork lovingly drawn by the clumsy hands of a child, and awards and diplomas received before final goodbyes are said and another being is released into the world. Blank as my mind as I tried to find words, words that made sense, words that sounded like the memory of a child’s laughter, like tinkling bells, like a symphony. But the words wouldn’t come. I stared at the blank sheet of paper, and the paper stared back behind black lines like shades, its white, taunting glare searing my eyes. I blinked, losing to staring contest. I blinked again, hoping that some change would occur, some flash of inspiration, colorful against the glaring white. But the page (and my mind) remained the same.
Completely.
Utterly.
Blank.
I glanced around me, searching for inspiration, or at least a sentence, a foundation on which I could build something grand, something beautiful. Instead, I found discouragement. Around me people were writing furiously, some with noses less than half an inch from their papers, most with more than half a page completed. I looked back at my own empty paper and sighed. Write about anything, Mr. Smith had said. Anything at all. But ‘anything at all’ was a huge category—too huge for me to be able to catch one topic, one idea. We were fishing in a vast, colorful ocean, stocked with all manner of sea creatures. But while everyone around me was catching wild tuna and mackerel and lionfish and goblin sharks and octopuses, I caught nothing.
I closed my eyes, trying to clear my head of the wheezing breath from the person in front of me, of the sound of twenty-four pens racing across twenty-four pieces of paper, of the panic rising within me as slowly and inevitably as the clock counting down the seconds to the end of the hour. There was absolutely nothing, nothing to grab hold of, nothing to start any decent story—
But wait. A nibble. Something stirred in the back of my mind, far enough for me to almost miss it, small enough for me to let it go under different circumstances. I didn’t think fishing laws applied to my head, so I reeled the thought in slowly, carefully, hardly daring to breathe as hope rose within me, as I tried to keep the line (such a thin, delicate line) unsevered. The thought struggled weakly, then emerged from the dark recesses of my mind, defined by a single image: a young boy feeding a goldfish.
I clasped my hands over a hysteric giggle that tried to escape from my throat. Almost half an hour of wringing my brain out for an idea, any idea, and this is what I got. A sardine of a story, puny and grey, fit only for cat food and pizza. Around me I imagined there to be amazing, exotic, beautiful stories, some spiky and brittle, some flowing and delicate, all vibrantly colored, none seen before by human eyes, and I was sorely tempted to toss my tiny sardine back and go fishing for something a little more, well, more. But a glance at the clock told me that I couldn’t do that. With only an hour left, I began to depict my sardine: Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Billy....
*~*~*
“Time. Everyone turn in your stories.”
I had just finished underlining “The End,” and I quickly gave the story a title: “A Boy and His Goldfish.” Walking slowly toward the desk, I critically glanced over my paper and sighed. This’ll probably only get me a B if I’m lucky. Stapling the pages together, I dropped it onto the desk before returning to my seat and packing my stuff. Pulling my backpack onto my shoulders, I joined the crowd by the door, absorbing the nervous conversation.
“What did you write about?”
“Man, I couldn’t think of anything! I just wrote about a guy and his dog.”
“Me too! I hope he doesn’t take off for that…”
“I wrote about taking a test.”
“Mine was just an argument between a mom and a daughter.”
A small bubble of hope appeared in my chest. The more I heard, the larger it grew. With a few exceptions, the stories I was hearing were sardines. All of them were unique, but all of them were simple, the small things and the ordinary things in life. The things that made every life unique, that made every life worth living. I remembered the acronym Mr. Smith had pounded into our heads: K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid. Well, I had kept it simple stupid. And so had everyone else, it seemed. Maybe my little sardine could be a match for the lionfish and octopuses. Maybe my story could get an A.