How I would like to have something to share at writers group tonight. Here it is 6:58am and I’m sifting through stale, moldy files. Nothing. There are no rants on my political dissonance. I open the poetry stove and feel the broiled heat sear my eyes, but no half-baked couplets. Foraging the fridge there were no words to nibble on. I check the hall closet–There has to be some epiphany hanging in there. Nope. Just coats crammed in there inviting me to squeeze through to Narnia.

I placed my butt in the chair as every writing guru suggests… I was flat bottomed, and flat lined. Nothing. The groove has disappeared. I think maybe a walk around writer’s block is in order. Fresh air and nature sounds will help search for a pulse.

Humph. Seven tours around the block and zero, zilch. I even shouted on the last lap and the wall just wouldn’t tumble down.

Oh great, now comes the voice.

“What do you have to say that hasn’t been said already? Get up off your duff and do something of substance! You’re all dried up, go read the obituaries and look for your name again.”

I plugged my ears. “La la la la. Oh shut up!” I pulled out my sharpest pencil and pressed it against his jugular. “What have you done to my Muse? Where is she?”

“Oh, yeah, pretty John-boy, now you want her when the pressure’s on to impress your writing buddies eh? Well, why don’t you go downtown and have a plastic surgeon remove that mole once and for all?”

I increased the pencil pressure. “The mole has nothing to do with me or her.”

“Oh really? Then why does it remind you of the last decent sentence you laid down…six months ago, huh? It’s the lingering period.”

“Kill the attitude before I break off a piece of graphite into your carotid artery.”

“I don’t have an artery. I have no heart. I am the resistance Stephen Pressfield alluded to. Don’t worry, your Muse is safe. I left her strapped to a chair at Starbucks.”

“Which one? I mean… Right.”

“Listen, just ease up. Killing me won’t solve your problem anyway. You’re just jealous that Sally can sit down with her Muse for afternoon tea the day of and throw down a thousand words of Dickensonian prose.”

“Hey now, I am not…”

“Yes, Yes you are. You have DeHaan envy too.”

“You don’t know my heart. You don’t know.”

I slouched down in front of my laptop. My belly flopped over my waist and I couldn’t catch a decent breath. My eyes drilled a hole through the screen as the prompter throbbed like a clenched-fist heart. I think I might be having a key stroke.