I wasn’t sure if I was in a writing mood.
To be honest, it’d been months since I last did the thing. Months since I sat in front the familiar blank page and colored a story on it’s wanting emptiness. Yet, lately I found my tales a bit empty themselves. Devoid of color, black and white.
Plain.
So I stopped. I built a wall around the creative part of my mind and tried to navigate through my mundane life without so much as a brainstorm. Yet some nights I’d listen to the thunder and rain outside my window, and scratch at that wall. Quite frankly I’d tamper with it on a daily basis. I would press my ear to it’s cold, unforgiving surface, and listen for signs of inspiration that may be screaming for liberation. They were always silent.
Tonight, however, was different. Sleep was evading me as she usually did on nights like these, when my mind wanders too far and becomes lost in a cloud of thoughts – some intrusive, others existential; mostly perplexing and often obscure.
I digress.
My distractive thoughts themselves seem to “speak” - shouting useless chatter across the vastness of my mind, creating a tormenting noise; the source of my sleeplessness. Yet, it was through all this chaos that I heard it. A sound that hadn’t bestowed it’s presence to me in what seemed like ages. More interestingly enough, it came from beyond the wall.
The anxious cries of this idea I had, was faint and barely detectable.
But detectable, she most certainly was.
I sprinted towards her with everything I could conjure. The useless chatter became louder, and increasingly unbearable. Still, her screams to be freed did just the same. The wall was ahead of me, I could see it within my grasp. Her protests roared fiercely, drowning out the chatter and rendering them powerless to stop my rampage across the colossal emptiness.
I reached the wall and began to beat at its jagged face with my bare fists. My hands bruised, broke and bled but I did not care. She needed to be freed. She needed to tell her story. My hands threw themselves at the wall with rage. I could feel my bones snap and twist, breaking skin but not my will.
The chatter returned. I could hear them advancing towards me. She cried again. My arms perspired heavily and my perseverance felt exhausted.
The wall did not budge.
Neither did I.
I continued my fight against the thing that stood between her and me. The chatter was closer now, their angry shouts were relentless. I ignored them and focused on her. I listened to her pleas to be saved and used it to fuel my undertaking.
She was scared.
I couldn’t blame her, for I’d given up before. There was a time she called out to me, and I tried to save her. But that time was taken from me by the chatter.
Her trust in me was as frail as my fists had become. The chatter scurried towards me and I became terrified. I could not see them, for they were behind me and I dared not look.
The wall began to break.
My heart raced faster as I saw my efforts were not in vain. She called to me, she cheered my named in blissful optimism. The wall began to crumble. It fell under the weight of my anguish and determination.
Using the last of my strength, I ran into her arms before the chatter could consume me.