Chapter 27: Chapter 27: Writer’s Block

There are a few moments that people in their specific career can define as the hardest, yet most important part of their jobs. For a construction worker, it would be coming up with the schematic of the building they’re paid to erect. With a single miscalculation, the entire thing could crumble, so their measurements need to be on point. For a teacher, it would be coming up with the lessons. A bad lesson schedule can get their students behind and enter the next grade woefully unprepared. 

For an author, it’s coming up with the first line that starts their entire story. What a daunting task it is. For some authors, it comes so naturally that it’s like writing normally. For others, it’s so stressful that they never even get around to writing a book. The first line of a story can set up the tone, themes, characters, setting, and so much more. With a single powerful starting sentence, it can become a classic.

I sit at my computer, my hands hanging above the keyboard. I type a letter, doubt enters my mind, and I delete it. Every line that comes to mind just isn’t good enough. It’s strange too. With my last two stories, the first lines came to me so quickly. The first line of Loving Gates being, “To my waning memory far past, nothing remains but you,” I came up with on spot.

However, the first line for this story isn’t coming to mind. How could I have entered writer’s block when I haven’t even written yet? I’ve heard that was a thing, but never knew what it felt like till now. It’s rather infuriating, to say the least. 

What made it even more infuriating than that, however, is that my mind can barely focus on what I should be typing on the page. So much shit has happened recently that I just can’t help but think more about that than my actual job. Every time I type a letter, the thought that someone might break into my home clouds my eyes. Do I want to start grim or hopeful? Well, it’s hard to think about that when I don’t even know where Harmony is and the fact there’s a new murder victim is haunting my brain.

Jessica’s going to ask me about this again. I just know it. What am I supposed to say to her when she does? I don’t know. She wasn’t here at the moment? That just makes her sound even more guilty. I can just lie and say that she was home, but what if Jessica questions her too? Then our stories wouldn’t match and we’d be in even bigger trouble. I don’t want to bring this up with Harmony because I don’t want her to think I don’t trust her, but what else am I supposed to do? I have another night out with Jessica tomorrow, so I need to be prepared for everything.

But first, what words go on this page? But what about the potential break in? Goddammit brain, now’s not the time for this. I need to get this shit done, one way or another. So, in order to get the ball rolling, I type the very first thing that comes to mind. It was almost like I wrote on instinct alone. I typed word after word without even bothering to look at what was appearing on screen.

When my fingers stopped and the clacking of the keys ceased, I looked up at the monitor. On the screen was the phrase: Has anyone heard the saying, you don’t have to be perfect, you just need to be you? 

I stare at the monitor, unmoving, like a man that painted himself gray and performs as a statue at Juxten Park for money. I could just say still as a statue, but that’s so cliche nowadays. Let’s be original here despite the concept of originality dying a sad, painful death thousands of years ago. 

Then another thing came to mind. How do I even follow up on that? Not to mention, how does that line say anything about the story ahead? Am I just thinking too much? Is that it? But if I don’t do this, then how am I expected to get big like those people I’ve idealized since I learned how to read? 

What am I supposed to do now? I still don’t know how I’m going to end this shit, either. Yeah, he gets to the top of the mountain, but how and what’s waiting for him there? Maybe, just maybe, is there nothing up there to begin with?

Yeah, let’s go with that. He climbs up a mountain that reaches into the high heavens, just to find nothing. That wouldn’t make sense from a storytelling perspective because that revelation would have just wasted everyone’s time. What would be the point of reading about a man overcoming obstacles, jumping over crevices, and finding the willpower deep within himself to continue the journey, just to find nothing? 

It wouldn’t even make that much sense symbolically either, since what would nothing being up there even mean? No matter how much I try to justify it, there’s no symbolic value in having nothing there, so something needs to be there. But what? What would justify the time the reader wastes to read my shit in the first place, while also holding so much symbolic value that it becomes an instant classic? 

Not only that, but what am I supposed to say to Jessica tomorrow? A fly’s buzzing next to me, irritating me even further. Everything going on around and inside me irritated me so much all I want to do is scream. 

Suddenly, I hear a knock at the front door. I raise my head and get up immediately. As much as I don’t want to say it, I would rather do anything else than stay by myself. Zihao’s question at the bar and store continues to ring in my mind. I still know the excuse, but it buries itself further and further into the back of my mind.

I head into the living room and open the door and find Harmony standing on the porch. She was about to knock on the door again, but when I opened it, she hit my chest. I shout and clutch my chest as she apologizes over and over again. For a simple knock, she put a lot of power into it.

“Are you okay?”

First the thorns and now this. It seems I’ve become a magnet for pain recently and I do not enjoy it one bit. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” 

I stand up and wipe the pain off my chest. I did not succeed in doing so cause it’s not like a person can just wipe pain away. It would be very convenient if that was the case, but I just have to live with that dull aching for now.

“I’m guessing you’re off work?” I ask.

“Why else would I be here?”

I stand still, looking down at her while she looks up at me with an odd look on her face. Should I just ask her? What would she say? How should I react if I hear the worst from her? 

“Do you mind?” Harmony speaks up.

I come back to reality and move out of her way. She walks inside and I close the door behind her. It’s now or never. I just got to ask and deal with the consequences as they come. 

“Hey Harmony.”

“Wassup.” She waves at me while collapsing on the couch.

“Do you go anywhere after work?”

Please say no. Please say no. For the love of God, say no. I cross my fingers and bet a hundred dollars that you didn’t go anywhere. 

“No.” Thank God. “But I usually do go out.” Fuck you God. “It’s raining like crazy, so Miranda brought me home today. This is why we need a car.”

I can work with this. I just need to ask a few more questions. “Where do you go exactly?”

“Nosy much?” Harmony asks, picking at her fingernails. 

“I’m just curious.” I sit on the seat opposite her and we look at each other from across the coffee table.

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“Well, because you won’t do it, I travel across Juxten. I go somewhere new every day, but because I can’t run everywhere, I’m running out of time most nights.”

“Wait, you normally get home before the sun sets. When do you get off work?”

“Around five-thirty or six. It depends on what Miranda feels like at the moment.”

Well, that sounds like an environment I wouldn’t want to work in. No wonder Harmony got in so easily. Anyone with a brain would see a job like that as not worth it. Too much randomness in schedule can lead to very unhappy people. 

“So you spend nearly an hour just walking around the city?” 

“Thats right.”

Well, spank my ass until it’s grass. How am I going to talk my way out of this one? I could just say that Harmony isn’t doing anything wrong, but I have no clue what she’s doing. Again, I could lie, but that’ll only delay the inevitable. What are the options that will put me on the route to the happy ending? 

“Do you have to do anything tomorrow?” Harmony asks.

“Yeah, why?” 

“Well, I was thinking that you could finally show me around. We could even go to this interesting place a few miles from here-”

“We’re not getting a car.” I interrupt her. I knew what she was about to bring up before she even said it. From the pout on her face, I must’ve hit the bullseyes at what she was aiming at. 

“Okay, whatever, but I do want to know what all this city has to offer.”

She lay further back in her chair, to the point that her ass was hanging off the seat. Why is she so relaxed despite having such an important job to do? I never really cared before, but a desire to know crept up in me recently and it nagged at my brain for quite a while.

“One more question.” 

“What?”

I take a deep breath and clasp my hands together. “Why are you relaxing?”

She sat back up in her chair as she looked at me like I was crazy. Who knows, maybe I am? That would probably explain all those dreams I’ve been having recently. The latest one was probably the most unique of them and I doubt that means I’m becoming more sane. There’s a ninety percent chance it’s the exact opposite.

“Why shouldn’t I relax?”

“Well, you want to achieve your dreams, right? Turning all of humanity’s perspective of cubbi being demons on its head? Doesn’t that take constant work and sacrifice?”

All of a sudden, Harmony’s eyes darkened. She returned to her past while her physical body remained in the present. I wanted to take back what I just asked, but unlike her, I was still very much in the present. 

“I’ve sacrificed a lot to even get here.” Harmony began. There was an unmistakable fragility in her voice. If I poked her even a tiny bit, her entire being will crumble into hundreds of tiny, irreparable shards. “You may not know it, but my life has been a living hell up till this point.” She looked at me, not even bothering avoiding eye contact. 

“My plan as soon as I arrived here was to find a place to live, then gain the necessary funds to make my dreams come true. If I tried to do everything I wanted as soon as I’d arrived, the worst that’d happen was I’d be sent back to my homeland. Worse, dead.”

Each word that exited her mouth froze the air so much that my spine shivered from the freezing temperatures. I really fucked up, didn’t I. Why did I even have to ask her this in the first place? Of course, she’d have to make sacrifices to get here. All a person has to do is use their brains and remember how horribly humans treat each other just for having different colored skin or being a different gender. Imagine how people would react to an entirely new species?

The simple idea of being human would shatter in the wake of such news. The idea of compassion, emotion, and empathy being something that only humans can have would be shattered completely. What’s the saying? We’re only human? Well, that saying would crumble into dust as soon as a new intelligent species breaks out of the ground. Despite everybody’s innate fascination with life on other planets, everyone knows deep down that if we somehow managed to find a shred of evidence of life, we’d deny it outright and even force ourselves to fear it.

I can see it now. If Harmony outed herself as a succubus right off the bat to the public, she wouldn’t survive a week. People think of her species as demons. In their eyes, they’re riding the world of unholy creatures that are unfit to live in the world they were born in. In turn, what would become of her species as soon as they were outed as being real? I don’t even want to imagine that possibility. 

Suddenly, Harmony stood up, and the coldness left her eyes. She managed to crawl her way back into the present and the temperature of the room rose again. 

“I do have a plan, and it’s already been put into action. It’ll take a long time, but I know it’s possible.” She began walking to her room, but before she disappeared down the hallway, she turned to me. “I’m starting small. I get a select group of people to recognize me as me, then expose who I really am. If they can accept me for what I am, then we have no problems and I can continue on. Once enough people have accepted me, I’m going to expose myself to larger and larger groups of people. Sooner or later, people will have their eyes on me, but since I’ll already have friends on my side, it’ll be easier to deal with the bigots.

“I’ve learned my lesson from long ago and I refuse to make the same mistake.”

She disappeared down the hallway, and I heard her bedroom door shut. I lay back in my seat as I went over her plan. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to someone not aware of humanity’s true malice. Her plan seems like a dream a kid would have when they want the world to accept imaginary money as the world currency. If I get enough people pretending they have money, sooner or later everyone will, would be the child’s reasoning. In some ways, Harmony’s plan is no different from that.

But look at me. True, I accepted her, but when I saw her tail for the first time, I didn’t know what to make of it. Because I didn’t know what to make of it, I responded with the first emotion that sprung forth. Fear. Fear is the emotion that’s used and abused to oppress groups of people for years. If you oppress your fears, then there would be no reason to fear them. With that line of thought, countless atrocities occurred within history and are still occurring today. 

It was only when that fear dissipated that I could think clearly, and even then I still kept up my guard around her for a brief period afterward. I’m just one person, though. She’s facing against the entire world’s beliefs and nature here. How could one lonely cubbi win against that?

I guess that’s a question for another day. I need to get back to my story. I can’t waste any more time than I already have. I sit up and walk back to my room, my writer’s block disappearing as soon as I close that door.

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