Writer's Block

Writer’s Block

Charlie Thompson was expected to turn in a story to his ninth grade English teacher on Tuesday morning. He sat staring at the blank screen before him, in a panic. It was 7:42 p.m. on Monday night.

“It’s okay,” he thought to himself. “I’ll be able to do this, no problem.” Chuckling nervously, he attempted to calm himself down with a self-motivational prep talk. “You can do this, man. Don’t worry. You’ve got time.” It was working. Rubbing his eyes tiredly, he began keying a few introductory lines. Charlie Thompson had no idea of what he would write, but he began experimenting with several opening paragraphs and ideas. He was unsatisfied with all of them. Panic returned.

Checking the clock on his computer, he noted it was now 7:49 p.m. on Monday night. That left him two hours and eleven minutes to write a story. For writers of most skill this should be easy enough, and Charlie fancied himself to be a fairly good writer, but there was one problem: writer’s block. He had had it for a fairly long time now, and it became painfully obviously to him how serious it was in one of his recent English classes.

Charlie’s English teacher (Mrs. Hall-Thomas) had been kind enough to get laptops for the students in his class during a 3-hour block, exclusively to work on their short stories. During the entire class, he sat staring at a blank screen (much as he was now), desperately wanting to write but lacking the inspiration or so much as a mental outline of what he wished to write. For an hour and a half he sat there, staring at nothing. What a sweet relief it was when the teacher informed the class that their time to write was up, and to return the laptops to the cart.
Snapping back to reality, Charlie reprimanded himself for daydreaming while he should at least be attempting to write something. He desperately sought direction from as many friends as he could, but to no avail. Friends being of little use to him, he resumed staring at the blank screen before him, desperately rattling his brain for inspiration. What he expected to find in his head he did not know, but whatever it was it did not come. He cursed, and continued staring. It was 8:12 p.m. on Monday night.

“You have to write this,” he screamed in his head. “It’s worth 25% of your first quarter grade. If you can’t do it, you’re going to fail.” This realization badly frightened him, and his growing panic became a mounting terror.

“This is entirely my teacher’s fault. If she had given us more time to write our stories, I’d be able to hand something in.” He thought not of his procrastination, waiting until the night before the story was due. Charlie thought only of the unfairness of his teacher, Mrs. Hall-Thomas, whom he believed to hold standards far too high for a ninth grade class. In his anger, Charlie slammed closed fists on the desk, which he immediately regretted. His hands exploded in pain as he came to fully understand the stupidity of his rash outburst. It would now be difficult to type, and it would take far longer to write the story. He screamed. The clock showed 8:36 on Monday night.

His parents, hearing the scream from upstairs, rushed down, expecting their son to be badly hurt. They themselves were in a panic rivaling that of Charlie’s, though theirs was far more rational. Charlie’s father reached the office door first, and swung the door wide open and yelled out his son’s name.

“Charlie! Charlie are you okay?!”

“Yeah, Dad, I’m fine,” Charlie replied. “I just hurt my hand, is all.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Something in Charlie’s brain clicked, and he realized how he could get his story done. “Well now that you mention it, I don’t feel very good.” He coughed weakly. Though he felt perfectly all right, he tried his best to look like a very sickly child.

“Don’t pull that shit with me Charlie. You’re fine, and you’re going to school tomorrow.” He shut the door and trudged back upstairs, angry at his son for scaring him and then trying to play him for a fool.

Charlie’s panic (now terror, really) returned with his failed attempt of playing hooky. He checked the time. The clock seemed to glare back at him, announcing it was 8:53 p.m. on Monday night. Trying to think of ways to get out of the assignment, something in the back of his mind whispered a horrid, appalling suggestion.

“Suicide,” it said. He had never in his life considered this an option for anything, and wondered why he would think of something so ridiculous in a situation so trivial. And yet… he had thought of it, after all. Maybe it wasn’t so farfetched of an idea.

Now standing in his kitchen, he eyed a set of knives in a wooden block. They were always kept extremely sharp, and he had been cautioned multiple times never to try and use them for anything. Charlie had thus far heeded his parent’s warnings, but now walked slowly towards the knives. He felt as if he was not himself as he pulled out one of the smaller blades in the set. It felt like a movie to him, like a bad dream, and he realized he could no longer control what he would do.

Touching the cold, sharp edge to his wrist felt right. Gingerly, he sawed it back and forth, expecting pain. He felt none, and began to saw faster. Blood flowed down his arm in long rivulets – far back in his mind, he was thinking how warm it was. A chill was running through his body, out through his heart. Hazily, he thought the blood flowing down his arm and now pooling on the floor would warm him, and sawed faster. His hand fell off, and he watched it drop into a pool of blood; the ripples it made reminded him of the lake he had visited with his parents the prior summer. He believed he was going to die there; he had nearly drowned.

Charlie Thompson had killed himself; his last thought was of a lake, and the cool feeling of water. It was 9:19 p.m. on Monday night.