I Choose to Write

A struggling writer confronts his own fear when his unfinished story comes alive.

The cursor on my computer raced across the screen as my mind wandered. Why can’t I just think? One idea would be enough. The white page of my Google Doc begged to be filled by a vast imagination, though nothing came but clouds of brain fog. I forced my fingers to write:
The gray sky stood above a lonely city. Terrible. I deleted it, just like all the other opening sentences that I had deleted in the past two hours.
“You're right, that was terrible.”
My head spun around the room, searching for whoever said it, though I was completely alone. The computer glowed in my dark room, making my eyes glimmer with weariness.
“You’re going insane,” I muttered to myself, preparing to write another sentence, though I knew it would be hopeless. But as I began to write once more, the sentence I had just deleted crept back onto the screen letter by letter, as if an invisible hand typed it in. Surely I was going insane.
The gray sky stood above a lonely city.
This time, when I mashed the backspace, the words stayed. Instead, from the words appeared a figure, illuminated by the screen light.
A king, standing in lavish clothes, materialized in the empty room. His eyes glared at me with disgust.
“How dare you erase me!” he boomed from my desk, shaking the room. “Stories are not to be thrown away in an instant.”
My chair toppled over backwards and I jumped up as bewilderment flooded my thoughts. Though before I could even process the chaos, a second figure stepped through the computer. In a dark, consuming shadow, the figure cackled with a sinister laugh, sending a shiver down my spine.
“You sure are crazy!” he guffawed under a disgusting black cloak. “It really was terrible, though. Come on. Gray skies and lonely cities, every horrific beginner writer uses that junk.” He then deleted the whole document with a swipe of his hand and laughed hysterically, ignoring my many attempts at muttering questions.
I backed away cautiously as my mind raced and my fists clenched. “Who are you and what do you want from me?”
The shady figure leaned in close and grinned too widely, revealing his disgusting, yellowish teeth. “We are only what you have written us to be, and right now, you are full of doubts. Oh, and dreadful writing of course,” he remarked with a threatening smile.
Behind both figures stepped out a small child with dark brown hair and a wholesome smile. It was me, as a child. “I thought it was great! It is better than what I could do,” he said with a wink.
The king slammed his decorative staff against my desk, rattling the keyboard. “This child speaks of nonsense. Writing is an art of perfection, not to be played with!” The cloaked figure jeered in response, “He’ll never reach perfection. It’s better to quit now than to write such an awful story.” The child stood up boldly and pronounced to me, “You don’t have to be perfect, just write with passion.”
Arguments broke out like thunder, shaking the walls of my room. Each side defended itself emphatically. The king’s might, the shadow’s taunts, and the child’s desperate rebuttals; it was so loud I couldn’t think, standing frozen in the glowing monitor light.
Then, the cursor blinked. One word, in bright bold letters, crossed the screen:
Choose.
All the figures froze, my eyes darted frantically between each one. The king held out his staff proudly. “Choose me,” he commanded. “Choose to the side of elegance and discipline. Together, we can craft a story worthy of royalty itself.” The cloaked figure’s laughter scraped against my ears harshly. “No, choose me. Don’t allow your failure to spark embarrassment.” Then, my younger self looked at me with wide, wholesome eyes. “I think you already know who to choose.”
My hands froze standing over the keyboard. The room seemed on edge, waiting for a decision.
“I choose to write, to not ignore you, but to embrace it.” The bright gems on the king’s staff seemed to dim. The cloaked figure snarled and dissolved into a black smoke. The child began to fade away too, giving me a soft smirk.
The cursor blinked again, but this time, I wrote. My fingers slid along the keys, writing faster than I could even think. Along the top of the page, a new opening line appeared:
The gray sky stood above a lonely city, though it wasn’t really empty. But the figures were not gone, they never would be.
The king appeared on my desk once again, though smaller this time. “Your passion is not skill. Never mistake them for each other.” The cloaked figure’s shadow reappeared out of the new words, though smaller as well. “It may not be empty, but the shadows will consume your light,” he hissed as the shadow loomed over my walls. My younger self tugged on my arm and whispered, “Keep going, and don’t stop until you fill your city.”
Then, I typed. The words flew onto the page as my fingers cramped under the keys. Sentences were created faster than I could decide them, as if the story was waiting for my commands. The city came alive, no longer gray and lonely. Lights filled the streets, chatter echoed through alleys, and buildings grew from the rubble.
The king tapped his staff steadily as the story grew. “Yes,” he muttered proudly. “Structure, grammar, order. This is much better.” The shadow lingered in the dark corners of my room, hissing between each sentence. And the child, filled with the energy of youth, ran into the city, sprinting down illuminated streets and exploring each new creation.
The growing city pulsed with an energetic rhythm. The more I typed, the more complete it became. Characters formed into personalities, buildings rose high, yet the shadows lurked in dark, unfilled alleyways. Each new character was me, whether I knew it or not. Personalities that I had always suppressed flowed out into each character. The city grew, but so did the cracks. Soft laughter echoed in each crack, with criticism in each remark.
The king marched down the streets, repairing each crack with etiquette and staff technique. His crown wobbled as he barked orders at passersby. “You there, stand up straighter. And you, speak with diction and proper grammar!” His staff shimmered in the beating sun, commanding the people with ease.
In between the rubble of a deleted sentence, the shadow slithered. He seeped into buildings, shops, and even people, consuming them into doubt and hatred. Everywhere the darkness spread, cracks formed as well. The more I wrote, the harder the cracks were to contain. “Now you see?” he scoffed from an ominous corner. “It’s chaos. You build, I unravel. There is no end, only failure and destruction. You must give in now!”
Day turned to night. I tried to type faster, though it only added to the fissures in my world.
In the disarray, a voice broke out. The child sprinted through the large crowd, waving his arms wildly to catch my attention. “Don’t listen to him!” he called out hoarsely, tugging on my sleeve again. “Even if there’s cracks, they’re alive because of you. Build your world.”
I looked across the city. The civilians' eyes glowed with my own. My hands clenched. The cursor blinked, awaiting.
The king’s voice rang out, “Only structure can help them.” The shadow’s snickers pierced through the tense air, “Your world will rot with inadequacy.” The child mumbled humbly, “Grow this world. Keep writing.”
The words split into three roads, leading into the heart of the city. My fingers hovered above the keys once again, knowing that this choice would shape my creation forever. The three roads reflected the characters' faces with a shimmer. My hands shook above the keyboard, each character watched anxiously.
The three paths merged into one. The king banged his staff against the cobblestones, the shadow hissed with disgust, and the child giggled with delight. I wasn’t writing for them. I wouldn’t let them control me anymore.
The city was no longer gray, but was painted with life. The figures glared at me with wide eyes. The cursor blinked. For the first time, an unfilled page didn’t feel like an enemy. The city was still incomplete, full of cracks and corners yet to be explored, but I didn’t care. I smiled faintly, fingers hovered over the keyboard. Then, I typed my world, not with perfection or doubt, but with passion.