It was a curse, a disease for the most creative. A side effect for such a wonderful career, the devil’s pothole in God’s path. Writer’s block.

“Alas!” cried the writer, so dramatic despite being alone in the darkened studio. “I have writer’s block! Cut down in the prime of my career. It is the illness without a cure!”

He stopped as the emptiness became apparent. He demanded attention, as he genuinely thought it was a sickness and needed someone to care. Like a man with the flu lying in his bed, he bellowed for his attentive wife. She entered wearing an apron, the complete contrast of a modern woman.

“Yes, dear?” Her face was etched with expectation, yet indicated that it would be satisfied with any response.

“I am ill, my lovely wife. I have what we writers call writer’s block. Have you heard of it?”

“Yes, dear.” Of course she had heard of it. She was a very intelligent woman, so intelligent that she knew exactly how to play her role. Attentiveness was all she needed to show in order to have a luxurious lifestyle, so she stayed quiet and let her husband spoil her. All she needed to do in return was to listen to his inane comments now and again.

“Well then I don’t need to explain the severity of this matter then” her inane husband stated. He paced around the room, sighing, breathing, everything but thinking.

“We need to find a solution!” he declared, with such satisfaction that you’d have thought he’s already found the solution.

“How about going for a walk, dear?” suggested his wife, simply trying to find some more time for herself. “That always clears my head. Maybe you’ll find some inspiration in the world.

“A grand idea!” exclaimed the writer. “We make a perfect team, you and I!”

“Of course we do, dear” agreed his wife, as she got his coat.

The writer stumbled down the narrow staircase as his wife pretended to tidy upstairs. “I must change this staircase” he thought, as he nearly broke his ankle on an absurdly small step. That was until he realised that minimalism was all the fashion at the moment, and comfort and practicality were small sacrifices that must be made in order to maintain his image. If minimalism was the style though, the writer himself was horrifically unfashionable, barely able to squeeze through his front door as he took a sandwich for the road.

A fine heat greeted him as he stepped out from his luxurious home, with a gust of wind keeping his body temperature in balance. He looked up into a blossoming tree, and saw the birds singing at the topmost branches. Further down, he saw the fervent bees desperately buzzing around their hive.

“The blossom tree with the birds and the bees does indeed make a beautiful sight” he thought. “However beauty is nothing without plot, and there is no interesting plot here. Everything they do is dictated by nature, and routine makes for a dull story. Therefore I cannot use this as inspiration, no matter how beautiful.”

He continued to walk along the road, and saw a gang of sugared up teenagers playing in the street. Their music was so tuneless it forced him to look away from their group, negating any inspiration he could have drawn from them. His attention was instead drawn to a coke can that was rattling towards a gutter at the end of a street. He sat down on a bench and pondered upon the object in motion.

“Hmm…there’s a journey behind and ahead of that can, one which could make quite an epic. However the can has no character, everything you judge it by is one the outside. A story cannot be made of appearances, no matter how great the journey.”

From the suburbs he then travelled into the city. The gleaming skyscrapers above him glistened in the sunlight, leaving a single window visible without the need to shield his eyes. Inside he could spot a pompous businessman, clearly rich and powerful, enjoying the prime of his life.

“This man has a happy ending, a drive, the passion for success!” declared the writer, becoming a nuisance for the working men who had to squeeze past him. “However he lacks love and emotion, business is all he knows. You cannot make a story without emotion, no matter how great the success. No emotion means no sympathy from the reader, so I cannot draw inspiration from such a detachable character.”

Finding no suitable basis for a story in the city, he returned to suburbia. On his way home, he looked in at a typical terraced house. There was a cosy scene to be viewed, with a complete family sitting in the living room. The husband had his arm around his wife as they watched television, and the children played on the floor.

“This man has everything in perfect equilibrium” stated the satisfied writer, until he thought about the matter further. “However his life is dull. Love and family follow the same routine day in, day out, much like the birds and the bees. He is content with mediocrity, there is nothing interesting that will make his time remembered. I could write of his successes in work and love, but if they are of normal interest, they will be forgotten. A story capable of being forgotten is no story at all.”

He turned many corners and eventually came to his street. Walking down his drive, he opened the door with no more inspiration that he had the last time it swung freely. Collapsing on his leather sofa, he turned to the last refuge of the imagination that is television. He pitied himself for resorting to altered broadcasts of reality and fiction, but then again, many can be inspired by such works. The news was his first choice of channel, hoping to see something that was real, yet more interesting than anything he had seen in his outings. A serial killer was being reported, a crazed psychopath responsible for countless deaths.

“This man leads a life of fantastic drama, finding fame and a place in history.” the tired writer said to himself. “Yet he has no reason, and drama without reason is like a rebel without a cause. The world has no need for such rebels nowadays, they are far too clichéd. I pray the next channel is more inspirational.”

He turned to the geographic channel. It had a feature on Egypt, this writer’s favourite part of the world. The camera panned over the sphinxes, the sand dunes and the pyramids. It was from the latter that the writer last sought to draw inspiration from.

“ These pyramids provide great mystery, so much so that love, plot and reason are all questions that add to it’s attraction!” cried the writer, convinced that this time he had the solution. “But…these questions can never be answered. They are set to remain a mystery, and this will provide eternal frustration for those so enthralled by them. I could not write a story which raises questions, but fails to answer them. A mystery always needs facts in the end, that is the nature of the beast!”

With this he stormed upstairs, furious by the lack of inspiration the world provided. He slammed down at his desk and grabbed a pen, determined to start outlining a piece of work that would be inspired by his own extravagant thoughts. He was back where he started, in the darkened studio.

When his wife came up at night time, he was slumped motionlessly at his desk. She thought he was asleep and would have taken great pleasure in waking him, had she not found that he was crying.

“What is the matter now?” she inquired, her ears attentive to any response.

He looked up, holding a pen that dripped tears, not ink. “In every novel written, there is an aspect of life missing which makes it imperfect. When I went out into the world, I saw so many factors of life missing in one part, only to be found in another. In one land there may be no beauty, but a strong plot. In another, there is beauty but no plot. All over the world there is beauty, plot, drama, reason, emotion, success, mystery, facts – all balanced perfectly in equilibrium. God created the world in order to create the perfect novel, the perfect story. When compared to life itself, a mortal’s work will always fall short, and that is why I despair.”

With such a pessimistic view of his capabilities and ambitions, he put down the pen, seeking a live which required no imagination. He set out to join a banking firm, confident that they would be able to suppress and butcher any remaining threads of creativity. When he explained his outlook on life, they snapped him up immediately. To the economic world, he had the perfect ‘half empty’ persona needed to take the world by storm. Indeed he did, as his last observation of the world around him enabled him to make millions in such a logical career.