So there I was… sitting at my computer staring at a blank screen. Rankled with the disparaging realization that nothing I would inscribe henceforth would ever become immortalized within the Hall of The Great Literary Masters, I became depressed. Come on brain, I prodded, produce something profound! An insight, a piece of a novel, a poem, an idea, a sentence, my name… Nothing. My inspirational thought-maker had temporarily broken down. I sighed and flip to Facebook and began the long procession of activities that would eventually waste my entire evening: surfing the internet. In all honesty, I wasn’t really “surfing” on anything… I was just sort of lingering aimlessly down the corridors of the world wide web.
I shall force words to come out! So I flip back to my blank Microsoft Word page and begin to blather on and on about not being able to write. It then hits me. I am an idiot. Why am I wasting all this time writing about nothing? The invisible little, ever present, English teacher perched on my shoulder shakes her crane like neck and adjusts her thick horn-rimmed glasses.
“You know that you should be working on your math homework.”
“I know.” I say… silently of course.
“Well? Get to it. The day isn’t getting any longer.”
“I don’t want to. I want to write something. I have been walking around school all day with a million thoughts accumulating in my head and I want to release them! I want to share them with the world and bring joy and knowledge to someone’s day! I want to inspire! I want to encourage! I want to comfort! I want to impassion! I want to remind the people what they are here for. I want to brandish the pen of my mind and with it emblazon my soul upon the immortal canvas of Time!”
There is silence for a moment. The English teacher then ponders,
“Is this before or after you figure out how to correctly use a preposition in a sentence?”
At this point, I sigh. I really am getting no where with this person.
“You are a discouragement to me.”
“I am only what you make me.”
“I would never intentionally allow a batty, old English teacher to sit on my shoulder.”
“And yet you’re the one who is talking to the batty old English teacher. Who, I might add, is just a personified form of your conscience.”
I glance at the clock. It is five already. I have wasted so much time. Why am I doing this? I have so much to do! However, one must also postulate that too much academically induced stress can have very grievous side effects to one’s sanity and sense of general well-being. Why I am listening to some pencil-nosed hag who is berating my philosophy of balancing work and play?
“I heard that.”
“Heard what?” I say aloud.
“Do not play games with me! I do not have a pencil nose!”
“What! I didn’t say that!”
“Perhaps it may have crossed your mind at one point in time that since I am merely a figment of your mind that every thought that passes through your mind can be and will be heard by me! Unless of course that concept is too complex for you to grasp.”
“Whatever. I don’t like you.”
“Well… I am part of you. So is it really me you dislike or yourself?”
“Stop it! Leave me alone!”
“But how is that possible? Can anyone ever escape the labyrinth of his or her own mind? ”
“Be quiet!” I shout. “That is enough!”
There is silence. My head hurts. I scratch my nose. I decide that one of two things has just happened: either my ability to produce quality prose is askew today or I have schizophrenia. I am banking on the former. So for now, to stop myself from withdrawing even more from the intellectual debt of my mind, as I have been composing a nonsensical, circuitous dialogue between me and…myself, I will now put away my pen, leave my noble writing ambitions for tomorrow, and do my math homework…
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