#whisperthingsintomybrain

Alright, I thought to myself again. Feeling kind of hungry, let’s grab a snack and while we’re doing that, we can think of the beginning. Satisfied with my ingenious decision and problem solving skills, I stood from my desk and made my way to the kitchen where I began to fix myself a sandwich. After a few minutes, I realized I hadn’t been thinking of any ideas for a beginning. Scolding myself, I tried to focus. By the time I had sat back down with my plate of food and glass of water, I had come up with absolutely nothing. I took a bite from the sandwich and narrowed my eyes at the computer screen. Hey, you know what I just thought of? said the part of my brain that only knew how to distract. A new batch of characters for you to make on Sims. I was tempted, as I always was, but I convinced myself the loading time was enough to put me off for at least right now. Back to the story.

Okay, they’re at the airport. Start with that. See where it goes. I nodded to myself and began to type. I had just gotten comfortable in the scene when I heard meowing at the door. I rolled my eyes. This cat, I swear to God. I stood up again and went to let the cat in. “You’re interrupting my writing, you know?” I told him as he brushed himself between my legs to get to his food bowl. He twitched his tail at me. “I’m leaving the door open, so you don’t come meowing once you’re done, you hear me?” He kept eating. I liked to pretend he understood, and sometimes I believed he really did, but still did the things he did just to spite me. I retreated to my desk again and read over what I had so far.

He was jolted out of his sleep as the plane touched ground. He unstuck his face from the window and looked around groggily, momentarily disorientated. From beside him, his sister was chewing her gum frantically, hugging her knees.  "What's the matter with you?" he asked her, stretching his back.  "I hate flying," she grumbled. "I hate these small planes too. I'm freezing and I can't hear out of my left ear." She glanced over at him. "How can you even sleep with all that?" He shrugged and yawned, feeling his ears pop as he did. Now that he thought about it, it was pretty cold too. "I was tired. It's a five am flight, who wouldn't be?" "Maybe if you didn't stay up 'til four last night," she said pointedly. She rose from her seat despite the flight attendant's requests to "please remain seated" and picked up her bag.  "Whatever. You know you may as well sit and wait, they're not going to let us out for another ten minutes at least." She shook her long, violet hair out of the ponytail it was in and retied it. "I don't want to sit," said she, pouting her lips. "My butt hurts." "Woe is you," he pushed himself up in his seat by the arm rests to look around. Many others were also standing and getting their carry on bags together. Why people were always in such a hurry he'd never understand. He sat back down, taking his cell phone from his pocket and turned it on. "Aw crap," he muttered and held the phone above him. "What is it?" his sister asked, taking her seat again. “’Searching for service'," he pointed at the screen. "You and me both," she said with a playful wink. He chuckled and shook his head. “That was terrible."

I read it over again, letting in that guilty satisfaction of having written anything at all, quietly congratulating myself. I knew tomorrow I would hate it and scrap it, but today I liked it, and that’s all that mattered. As a reward, I allowed myself the rest of my sandwich. Before I had gotten halfway through it, though, the cat came into the room, calling for attention. Rarely able to resist him, I gave in and set down my food to pick up the cat. I scooted the chair away from the desk so as not to get cat hair on my food, and picked him up, hugging him to me and cooing him in that baby-talk voice. “What is it, baby? What’s up? You done eating? You wanna go outside? I left the door open, what do you want?” He only purred in response. I let him keep me company for a little longer before taking him to the top of the stairs before the door and setting him down. I looked down at my shirt all covered in cat hair now and made a face. I brushed as much of it off as I could and went to wash my hands before sitting back down to enjoy the rest of my sandwich reward for writing a measly paragraph. I read it over again once I had finished eating. I had lost that immersion I had in the scene from before and was already finding pieces of it to fix and change and scrap. I tuned my attention back out the window. The sky had turned from blue to orange and I hadn’t been outside once today.