My Muse is Dead
by Guy Anthony De Marco
I’ve been facing an empty page, the character prompt flashing like a tiny rusted pin wielded by a sadistic acupuncture dropout, jabbing my impotent writing ego over and over.
There is nothing to write about. Well, nothing horror-related, which means the same thing to me. My haunted laptop taunts me, the keys pale and slick, letters worn to the point where they remind me of Celtic tombstones, still around to remind us of the glorious departed, but insufficient to read the names of the dead carved upon the monument.
I decide to take a break from the self-torture, tired from the creaking springs in my chair pushing against my spine. One of these days, I won’t be able to get out, and they’ll find me with the coils twisted around my ribs and through my vitals, flailing around like a spring-loaded clown doll.
My wife made a juicy, still-oozing steak, and left it by the crazy stove. I hate that stove; I’ve found it turned on in the middle of the night, belching flames and a curious brimstone odor. Our cat disappeared that night too, an odd coincidence.
The steak looks inviting, lying next to the garlic cloves and in a ring of mashed potatoes, which acts as a dam to hold in the blood and juices. No fork, for some reason, only a silver-handled knife embedded in the meat. I don’t mind. Even though I yell at my kids when they feast on flesh using their fingers, I personally like the feel of blood running down my arms as my teeth rip apart the muscle fibers.
After devouring the steak, I poke my head into the fridge, moving aside several random opaque containers my wife uses to store things. One of these days I need to look in them, no telling what she’s been up to. Behind the carton of thick nightcrawlers, some of which escaped into the strawberry pudding yesterday, there’s a jar of thick brownish liquid with a couple of round objects drifting around the bottom. I can’t make out what they are, but I get a flash of blue-green, perhaps hazel, when I swirl the container. Maybe it’s a leftover from some past dinner, who knows. Further digging reveals a container of cherry lemonade, which I chug right out of the pitcher. If my wife caught me, she’d embed a cleaver in my neck.
My hunger sated, thirst quenched, I head back to my little nest, surrounded by ancient whispering books and papers. The chair springs welcome my old bones, the laptop slides over like a glowing coffin lid, and I’m back to this damn torture of having my eyeballs assaulted by the stark, veil-colored blank page, the cursor blinking ghost-like, playing hide-and-seek with my consciousness. I wish I could think of *something*.
You know, if only my muse was undead, I’d have something to write about.
