At my desk in that quiet time before dawn; I cupped my hand behind the candle’s flame and gently blew. As it disappeared it left wisps of smoke as thin as webs spun by the ghosts of spiders. There was nothing left but the sooted scent of wax and the darkness, which had seemed so profound as the flame was extinguished but slowly yielded as my eyes became accustomed to the dim images left behind. Just enough to affirm I was still in my room, but not enough to reach the far corners, where the sharp lines of the walls and ceiling could geometrically define the boundaries of my creative nook. My pen still lay with its nib pointing at the last words of an unfinished sentence; but I was tired and the soft light of dawn only served to hasten my desire for sleep. As my head touched the pillow I allowed my body to melt into the blankets, hoping to find a gentle shelter in dreams; but the unfinished verse became a barbed hook, stuck firmly into my mind, refusing to let me fall over the precipice of consciousness while tethering me to thoughts of the un-ended poem. I lay there feeling the perfect ending was just behind a door, I merely had to take the key and unlock it. But there kept being more doors and as soon as one was open, there appeared another in a seemingly endless progression. There would be no rest until I satisfied my creative demon’s hunger. Swinging my legs from the rumpled bedclothes, I set my reluctant feet on the floor. As I stood the floorboards creaked a low groan, perhaps in sympathy for my stiff limbs, and I was drawn back to the paper and pen which insisted I finish before offering my mind the reward of sleep. The room was much as I had left it, but now the low rays of the dawning sun illuminated the far wall and reflected a soft glow which gradually suffused my den like snow melting at mid-day. Sitting back at my desk I looked down at the unfinished page; lines of verse coldly staring from the paper like the fingers of wax which had run down the flanks of my candle, each marking the irretrievable minutes which collect in our lives. I gaze at the pen in my hand, cradled softly in fingers that once were strong and full, now held more tenuously by the finely lined digits which direct the flow of ink upon the page as my mind renews its quest for the final lines to satisfy the appetites of my muses.

By James Geehring

From: United States

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