Night Challenge

NIGHT CHALLENGE


It’s night outside. The room is dark, except for the solitary lamp hanging over the desk and the dreadful blinking lights of the computer.

The writer is at work.

He, the one that was given the power to create life, ideas, emotions. He’s there, sitting at the desk, deeply immerse into the creative challenge of writing.

In his imagination he’s God and under the command of his fingers a whole new world will be created, rising from the clay of his willingness. His mind wanders as he revels in the idea of being the Master of Creation.
Let there be light and light will be created. Let there be words and words will magically rise from the depths of his mind.

But the computer screen keeps blank and those green and red lights are still blinking at the rhythm of his despair. God had seven days to build the Universe out of the Chaos but he doesn’t have such a time. The editor wants the world ready tomorrow morning.

It’s better to come back to the human side of life and concentrate on work. Hard work to be accomplished fast.

Bowing his head, humbled by the belittling feeling of loss of power the writer goes back to the staring of the computer screen, knowing he’s nothing but a man.

Deep in his mind he anticipates the moment his fingers will wander over the keyboard. The moment the equipment will surrender to the loving touch of his fingers, flickering over the keys, hitting one after the other, making the characters burn the white sheet of the word processor, one after the other. A long string of characters being woven into words, sentences, paragraphs, ideas.

He sees himself as a jeweler that puts together a long string of pearls, attempting to create beauty. But like pearls the words he needs are difficult to get. He struggles opening oyster after oyster, looking for those words that will build the necklace of his imagination.

Looking sadly to the keyboard, the writer runs his fingers softly over the keys, like a lover wanting to caress his love but feeling afraid to wake her up. His heart is heavy with thoughts of lost hopes. With memories of old times when he was young and things were hard, but there was always a smile to share and a story to tell.

Now he asks himself where did the stories go?
Hitting a key he lets his finger linger there, forgetting the night and the urge of getting work done. Giving wings to his empty mind, forgetting himself and mingling in the sounds of the dark room.

Suddenly, on the screen a long line of XXXXXX responded to his touch. A smile bloomed into writer´s eyes.

The magic is there.

It´s night outside. The room is dark, except for the solitary lamp hanging over the desk and the friendly blinking lights of the computer.

The writer is at work.