Andy Hawthorne

The primary issue with the day, as with most days that begin with the vague, nagging promise of productivity, was the creative output deficit. 

It was a hole—not the gratifying, physics-defying sort of hole that opens into another dimension when you least expect it—but the dull, administrative kind, like a missing form in triplicate.

I went to the designated source of stimulant infusion, a place the locals insisted on calling a “coffee shop,” though its true designation, according to the local inter-dimensional directory, was “Temporal Energy Sink 4B.” I mentioned to the Barista (a person whose serenity was, quite frankly, offensive) that I was having a writing problem.

“How do you mean?” she asked, which was, naturally, the precise moment one needed fifty pages to explain the difference between not wanting to write (a perfectly normal state of existential resignation) and being physically incapable of generating words (a minor, but widely unappreciated, form of universal sabotage).

“I should, strictly speaking,” I began, carefully adjusting the trajectory of a sugar packet that seemed to be vibrating with suppressed narrative tension, “have about 1,000 words of publishable content completed before venturing out for the requisite coffee break. But statistically speaking, given the current rate of my psychological inertia, you’ll likely have long since been closed for the day.”

She nodded, which was, of course, entirely useless, while executing the unnecessarily complex brewing ritual required for my Capricious-uccino.

She then presented the beverage—a swirling maelstrom of brown fluid and optimistic foam—and offered a truly staggering suggestion.

“I was thinking,” she said, her voice dripping with the sort of earnest helpfulness that makes one suspect a hidden agenda, possibly involving the takeover of municipal council, “you could simply go to the café up the road after you’ve written enough words. It’s open much later.”

I didn’t merely recoil. I executed what I believe was a perfect ∗360-degree emotional withdrawal manoeuvre*. My jaw, which had been perfectly serviceable a moment before, seemed to detach and attempt to find a quieter planet.

She looked puzzled, a clear indication that she was either an alien or a civil servant.

“NO writer,” I hissed, “ever goes there. Not willingly.”

“Why?”

The sheer, staggering ignorance of the question required a minute of silent contemplation on the nature of fate and poor urban planning.

“Have you seen,” I finally managed to enunciate, “what the designated administrative region that establishment falls under is called? Do you not understand the terrible power of nominative determinism?”

She shook her head, proving my civil servant theory correct.

“It is called,” I explained, leaning in conspiratorially, as though imparting the secret recipe for the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, “the ‘Writers’ Block’ district. And I refuse, absolutely, utterly, and with considerable emotional expenditure, to submit to a topographical metaphor.”