Dry

Elson was dry. A week ago she had managed to turn all her frustration and energy, her kaleidoscope of raving emotions, into a relatively decent piece of prose for her magazine column. After this burst of creativity, she’d experienced a relief and resurgence of hope that perhaps her career was not over. In her first twenty some odd years of life she had been driven, writing on a daily basis, effortlessly producing pages and pages of raw and moving work. She was so certain then that she was destined to be great. Then, at thirty-four, it had all seemed to come to a screeching halt.

No more was she awakened from a sound sleep, drawn to her desk to spend hours extracting another piece of work filled with potential. The writing no longer flowed from her with the same honest abandon. It had become hard. Elson began pieces feebily and they died shortly thereafter. Those pieces she managed to finish were sent back for multiple revisions. They sounded forced, contrived and amateurish. The rejection letters littered the counter, the notebooks collected thin, defeating layers of dust. The piece last week had been good, not great, but better than anything for some time. A few days before her stomach had begun to roll with the old familiar mixture, anxiety and restlessness. Her sleep was interrupted by strange, incoherent dreams. She felt her moods shifting and changing. This is how it was when she had something to write, and she had done just that. Elson remembered now how it had felt to start something with that kind of energy, like she was starting her life over again. That was a week ago, seven days and since then,nothing. She felt empty. She had gone dry.

She sat pondering this, watching the wide ceiling fan rotating above her head. She thought about masturbating, she thought about suicide, she though both required too much energy. Lying prostrate on her unmade bed, she keenly felt depression tugging at her, trying to lay claim to her. In another day or two her phone would start to ring and she’d need to begin to formulate the excuses. She need to buy time. As if on cue, her cell chirped to life on the nightstand next to her. She picked it up and without looking at it, heaved it across the room away from her. She was satisfied by the hollow thud it made when it hit the floor. The chirping abruptly stopped.