The keyboard is key

Another day, the same computer, and the same blank, black screen. This is it. Do or die. You have to find time, after all, what does it take to pen just about 500 words, the voice inside my head tells me. There has to be something to write about, I complain. The volume of the voice seems to have gone up manifold — the whole world’s out there, and you’re complaining about that? Get down to work, the voice booms.

Chastened, I am back to blinking at the screen. Three minutes, can do it no more. Then, a bright bulb seems to have lit up at the back of the brain. Eureka. Now I know what Archimedes must have felt like. It’s all clear suddenly. This is what they must refer to as writer’s block. Hell, no wonder mum’s the written word.

At that point, the machine seems to be suppressing a snigger.

Now, that is too much. Desperate situations call for desperate measures, so I plonk myself in front of the dreaded machine (which has achieved Terminator-like proportions by now). There’s no way that I’m getting up till Mr Writer’s Block is weeded out of the system. It’s back to playing staring games with smart-alec Mr Machine.

As the clock ticks away, the mind wanders. The eyes follow the mind’s lead, and I look out of the window. The clouds, looking astonishingly like puffs of cotton wool, are chasing imaginary birds in the sky. It’s a beautiful day out there, puts one in the mood for an old-fashioned picnic (complete with the wicker basket and checked napkins), a long drive cruising along the expressway perhaps, walks through a shaded arcade, perhaps with a river flowing in the distance.

Ho hum, someone’s really meandering. And to think that this is a quest for a few hundred words. I take a look at the screen. And then take another. For the screen’s blank no more.

A certain someone was right: you don’t need time to write a short piece. But staring at a blank screen always helps!