The intrepid young writer sits on a bench, in a grove of trees, in a park, in a stupor. His laptop glares impatiently at him, waiting for something to justify its being brought out into the wilderness and away from its comfortable carrying case. The writer, unfortunately, can give no answer to it. The only thing he has to show for his journey through the park is a blank Microsoft Word window, ready and willing to accept whatever words he feels like typing. But for the last two hours it has sat empty, unfulfilled in his lap, a testament to his complete and utter lack of ideas.
Looking up at the sky, he decides that it’s not his fault he can’t think of anything. It is obviously the fault of nature, some divine presence which made the day so bright and cheerful. Warm, gorgeous days always seem to carry the promise of good ideas, and he hates them for it. Maybe if it hadn’t been so damn nice out he wouldn’t have been compelled to grab his satchel and his hiking boots and hit the trails, leaving a perfectly good three-day old pizza and an afternoon’s worth of reruns in a desperate bid to find inspiration. If there had been just a bit of rain, or a distant rumble of thunder on the horizon, he never would have gotten himself into this mess, and would instead be enjoying that episode of Full House where Stephanie loses Mr. Bear and Bob Sagat has to make it all better.
But the sun was shining, and so he found himself bounding through the woods like he was fifteen again, up on his father’s country estate in Maine. It was there that, sitting on a rock looking out over a bay, he had written his first story, the one that won him the Young Writer’s contest and got his name published in the paper. It was then, sitting on that rock, that he had known he would be a writer, and in that single moment he had damned himself to an eternity of park benches and writer’s block. Because of that first triumph ten years ago, the correlation between warm summer days and inspiration has forever been burned into his mind. And today was no different, with its promise of fresh new ideas budding on the trees.
He realizes now that what he thought was inspiration was actually just ennui, cleverly disguising itself so as to put him through as much pain as possible. He silently makes a pledge to himself, never again to begin writing until he has an idea to work with. The Hell with random inspiration, he thinks. Sure, it sounds much better on book tours when the author, asked where he thought of such breathtaking ideas, nonchalantly replies that “It just came to me one day.” But it’s certainly not practical to get up and leave the house, laptop in hand, every time that he thinks an idea might be coming to him. He will instead wait until he’s positive that he has something good, and then begin the writing process. And if any interviewers ask him down the road where he gets his ideas from, he’ll lie.
The computer goes to sleep. He hates when it does that. As if sitting on a bench with nothing to write about isn’t bad enough, every fifteen minutes the computer goes into “power-save” mode, and the screen goes blank. Even the inanimate object thinks he’s boring. He moves the mouse around, waking it up again. We’re in this together, you little bastard, he thinks to it.
He looks up from the bench, out at the serene circle of trees that surround him. They wave calmly in the soft afternoon breeze, and the sound of their rustling leaves is quite calming to the nerves. There are worse places to be than here, he thinks. And I wasn’t doing anything important at home, anyway. A ruby red bird flies just a few feet over his head, soaring magnificently to the nearest branch and alighting on it. It is truly a thing of beauty; it puffs out its chest in an incredibly regal fashion and surveys its surroundings. The writer decides that yes, this entire experience was worth it, after all. It’s a good day to be alive.
The bird looks down at him and chirps sweetly. The writer smiles at it, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath of the sweet-smelling air around him. He opens his eyes. The bird is still looking at him. He smiles again, and looks down the path from whence he came. How young he was then, how innocent!
He looks back at the bird. It’s still staring at him. He begins to feel a creeping sensation of self-consciousness up the back of his neck. He tries to avoid eye contact with the bird. He feels its eyes on him, looking down from its evergreen throne. Looking back at it, he is happy to see that it has averted its gaze. Until he realizes that it is now staring intently at his computer. It examines the laptop for about five seconds, and then looks up at him. It begins to alternate glances, first looking at the computer, and then him. Computer. Him. Computer. Him.
The writer looks down once again at the blank, empty Word screen in front of him. He then looks back up at the bird, which chirps again, a questioning tone in its voice. He is suddenly gripped by an overwhelming sense of dread. Oh my God, he thinks. It knows.
The bird is now looking directly into his eyes, and he knows what he has to do. He can’t be shown up by this little red punk. He puts his hands on the keys and begins to type. He doesn’t look at his work, but instead maintains constant eye contact with the bird. This staring match goes on for about five minutes, until he is sure that he has fooled it. He stops typing, hits the period key emphatically, and smiles smugly up at the bird. It cocks its head at him, chirps once in what can only be defeat, and flies off to torment other writers in other parks. He watches it go. I showed you, you little son of a bitch, he thinks. Sitting up there telling me that I can’t write. Not so damn cocky now, are you?
He looks down at what he has typed, and realizes that in his desperate need to impress the bird, he has been typing with his hands completely out of alignment on the keyboard. Staring up at him from the screen is two and a half pages of “;won2uq5nq43 798ne98htn59h8ty5;ong84eg9?.”
He sighs, and clicks the “Save” button on his computer. Closing the program, he drags it into the “Works in Progress” folder, shuts down the computer, and walks as casually as possible down the path to his apartment.
Based on true events, unfortunately…
Started a bit slow, but got better in the end.
I’d put a parody of *The Raven here, but that’d just be too obvious.
If it was me, I’d write a perl script to translate the offset text. Could be gold there.
Luckily, I’ve never gotten more than the casual accolades of a bored english teacher, so I’ve been able to avoid feeling obligated to write.
That doesn’t mean I don’t have a sci-fi novel sitting in my computer, waiting to be finished…
This is “writer’s block” in your world?
Jester, I always enjoying reading your stuff. You never seem to disappoint. Just one of those days I guess, but hey, you showed that little bird who’s boss!
Hope things are going better for you today 
Huh. I thought the ending was going to be more like…
“He looks down at what he has typed, and realizes that in his desperate need to impress the bird, he has been typing on a laptop whose battery died five minutes ago…”