Midnight Musings: A Writer’s Dilemma

All through the day of Sunday, my mind had been fixated on adding more words to the story I only started on Sunday’s eve, an intended romance story, but like most days, I fool myself with series of alarm set clocks that are to intend when my writing shall commence while staying preoccupied with chores, sleep and Twitter.

I might like to add reading to the list, but that would mean perjury or something of it sort, for I barely keep focus an hour long to go through three chapters of a book. Though the stories intrigue me, I rest as day after a chapter.

And wallow in gossip with my sister, entreating her, or she, me, in the latest with acquaintances we both know nothing of but their names.

The day bids farewell to us earthlings, as a dark boring sky takes over, not a star nor the moon in sight, and because the land has become arid, the trees barely have music to dance to and when they do, they do so in slow rhythm, doing nothing for the heavy beads of sweat I’ve been cursed with.

My mind still leaping in excitement to let out words for my story, keeps buzzing its alarm, and though I stay aware of what time tells, 11:11, I snooze and tell myself to go off Twitter after thirty minutes.

But I do not count the minute hand of the clock to know when thirty minutes will be, so I let the blinding light of my phone shine black ink of people’s thoughts and opinions, and I laugh, and roll my eyes, and shrug, and sneer as I keep scrolling through million tweets, making none of my own or even opening the laptop I had brought to bed with me.

I think of turning it on, perhaps I might find the will to oblige my mind and begin to write, but thought otherwise, logically thinking that should I still be more inclined to laziness than will, then I shall only end up running the laptop out of bars for no work done, and with the poor system of light supply which keeps me fanning my body manually with a wood-like stitched hand fan, I could never approximately predict when next I will hear the soft shrill that comes from the transformer, predicting the flow of electricity through connecting wires.

I eventually fast pace my healing process from denial, skipping all the in-betweens and landing face flat on acceptance, as I carried the laptop I never even opened, returning it to where it had been, on the small side stool by my bedside. I shut off the buzzing alarm in my mind, also killing the excitement it had disturbed me with for 24 hours.

The hand of time had traveled into a new day, and I heard the seductive voice of sleep on my bed, asking me to come make love to him. I smiled, but like my mind, I wouldn’t give in easily. I ask him to stay patient while I round up reading my last tweet.

Honest as I was, though my last tweet was indeed my last tweet, it wasn't however, my last read, for my last tweet had by some blue link transported me to a literary magazine "for new writers” it said.

Intrigued by the knowledge of how people who weren’t me wrote and how their minds worked, I downloaded a copy for myself and went through the first story.

Pardonable it must be that I had forgotten the story’s title, but not the plot, for it was about a thirty-three-year-old single Ruth who by unpleasant chance discovered on New Year’s Eve that she had not shared sperm from the same donor as her sister, Ruby. So she confines herself to the bathroom in the soothing words of Ruby until Ruby leaves the room and she seeks solace in sniffing a powdery white substance.

Sleep, bored of keeping wake of me, lays in his slumber, while my mind, already at piss with me, remains attentive, nonetheless, as I pile on my wishlist, thinking “I want to write a thing like what I just read. A short, and very telling story”.

Finally, I look to my side at Sleep, though in slumber, his charismatic body and the soft air oozing from his nostril entices me, so I plant a kiss on his cheek and lock my naked body with his, hoping the sea breeze comes with some weight tonight.

But my mind curses me for not keeping my word, so instead of a dream, I drift into words. Unconsciously I lay, with my mind awake, making a mockery of me as it plays with words, picking them to make meaning of a poem it tries to write.

It was either the torment of my mind, the beads of sweat that rolled down my body or the assumed sting of an insect that awoken me at 12:46.

I know for I had reached for my phone from beneath my pillow after I flinched from the curse my mind had prisoned me to, and there the time told was 12:46.

“I hadn't been well seduced by Sleep,” I thought.

I felt on my right thigh, a strange feeling that neither itched nor burned. Upon looking, with the aid of a flashlight, I see a raised portion of my skin, resembling at first, a rash, for my eyes were yet to be accommodated to my reality, and when I scratched, I realized it wasn’t a rash, but now looked to me more like hives.

But I wouldn’t know for sure, for I have yet to see what a hive looks like in real-time, and have only seen it on Wikipedia, and I have no allergy that should warrant its appearance.

I tried to blow on it, perhaps it may disappear, but it remained, so I concluded that I may have been marked by the Keeper, for it looked like the mark on Richard Cipher’s chest, though nor as large, nor in the shape of a hand.

Making light the situation and hoping to have answers when the sun dances out from darkness, I then focused on what had happened in my mind’s curse.

“My only comfort, I find in the arms of a pillow” I recalled from its failed attempt at poetry, and out of pity, I tried to make sense of it and to the line, add a couple more, but instead, find myself writing this piece, and I can say “My wish has been granted”.

For is this not a story short, yet telling?

Of what, I do not know, yet I appreciate its details and swiftness as it flowed easily out of the well of my mind, easing it, and restoring peace to me so I may rest well in the strong arms of Sleep, breathing its aroma till I find a dream.