Friday, May 23, 2008

Writer's block

When the computer gave the message telling me there was an error in the word document I ignored it and hit enter. The message came up again. Again I hit enter. The message popped up again, and I felt a small jab in the face. My finger smashed the enter key. There was a second of respite and I breathed out. Then the error message came up once more. My fingers hit the control alt delete buttons, and nothing happened, the error message stared at me, taunting me.

I started to curse. I'd gotten two paragraphs into my story. I'd had writer's block for the last four weeks and finally my hand was loosening up. I was inspired, I was on a roll, I had a beautiful momentum then my computer fucked up. I could feel my imaginative story about two punk rock kids growing up fading being replaced by a blinding, white, anger.

I got up out of my chair and walked into the living room.

"Bryan, have you been using my computer," I shouted into the air.

There was a moment of silence then Bryan replied with a grunt from his room. I walked to his door and flung it open. Bryan was sprawled out on his bed, blankets covering his head, while his legs were bare to the air.

"Were you using my computer," I said.

"uhhh, what," he replied.

I tried to enunciate my words for his retarded brain. "Have, you been using my computer?"

"I think yesterday or the day before I checked my email. Can we talk about this later? I'm trying to sleep."

"I don't give a fuck about your sleep. You were looking at internet porn. I know it because my computer shit the bed. You gave me computer digital AIDS you bastard!"

"uhh...."

"You fucking shit head!" In a further step down the road of cathartic rage I slammed his door shut as I stormed out. I marched back into my room and sat down. I pushed the enter button. The error message came back like a boomerang. I hit the button again, again the same reply. I breathed in deeply and decided that I would hit the button one hundred times. At ninety-nine I'd entered a state of zen. It didn't matter anymore, it doesn't matter, I kept telling myself. My finger hovered over the enter button and gingerly sank on the key.

"Fuck," I said aloud when the message repeared with its same mocking words.

I grabbed the keyboard and ripped it from the computer and threw it against the wall. The keyboard smashed into pieces. The small keys were spread across my floor. I kicked the box that contained the computer's hard drive then yanked the power cord from the socket.

"Fuck you, you fucking piece of shit machine," I screamed.

I punched the monitor flush on its screen. The impact caused nothing to happen to the monitor with its industrial strength. My knuckles were hurt, however.

"You motherfucking shit bag fucktard."

I grabbed the keyboard off the floor and smacked it against the wall. More keys flew across my room. With the third blow the keyboard broke in half. I flung the part left in my hand across the room making a small dent in my wall. I sighed and sat down on my bed.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Was that the computer I gave you that died of AIDS?

How sad. Maybe you could make a quilt for it...