Writer’s Block by Matteo Pontonutti

Can’t think of a damn thing to write, he mourned. The smooth sheet became a rugged ball of parchment in the blink of an eye, in the curling of a fist. He threw it against the wall, where it rebounded like an echo of words, and fell into the abyss of air until it crackled upon the floor.

His eyes roved around the room. The mountains of books and papers and typewriters and writing utensils that had once helped him devour ideas and spew them out to the world in letters—all these were beginning to loom above his head, although he could have sworn that he had not grown even one inch taller since he’d set his rear on this chair. He licked his lips. He knew the soft mental rustling of claustrophobia’s oncoming onslaught—deep and darkly within his mind—when he felt it. It was just such a situation, and it was just such a day.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to tame his feelings for long. In a few moments he’d push himself off the chair, away from the table, placing a good few yards between himself and his typewriter, for his typewriter’s sake. When the mood set in, he could be a dangerous fellow. He could throw a chair as easily as he could throw a wad of paper. Sometimes it didn’t help having more brute strength than strength of mind.

What he didn’t know was that in few days the mountain of parchments would fall apart in his absence. When he died, his paper kingdom would crumble with him. But a descendant would find the writings, would iron out the viciously chiseled paper, would publish some of the nonsense he had left behind. One of the greatest novelists in the world would then be born, a literary ghost resurrected from the corpse of an incredibly gifted ordinary human being who sometimes suffered from writer’s block.

~Angreek87