Vincent was alone in his study. A lamp hung in the corner, casting light onto the floorboards. It was raining.
His paper-strewn desk, stoic and heavy in the cold room, caught only a glimpse of the lamp’s glow. Vincent paced restlessly. The night had grown so long already and he had come up with nothing. He scratched his head and then his neck, as though to jolt some idea to life. He poured wine, his hand shaking so much that he spilled large drops onto his serving tray.
With a clumsy hand, he drank, and he prayed that when he sat down with his pen, the ink would begin a story.
It had been seven hours at least and his mind was as blank as a clean canvas. The wine had warmed him some but he shuddered in his gray study and the windows mimicked him, creaking from the rain.
Until he completed a manuscript there would be no morning; the day would not break open as it should. It would simply stay a dark, unending, stormy night and he would remain a frenzied, lonely, dreamless man.
Now he paced the room, frantically, and cursed the bleakness of the world. He cursed the bleakness of his mind. There were no more stories to tell.
It was still dark when he finally sat at his desk. It would remain this way. He gathered his papers and then stacked them, beginning to read the defeat of each page. Each one began with a heartbeat and then, after only a flutter, died in his hands. The words hadn’t even had a chance to take a breath before they just extinguished into dust.
“So this is who I am,” he loudly proclaimed to himself. “I am the great murderer of stories.”
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