I Don't Know What I Am Doing || Short Story

I Don't Know What I Am Doing

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        I sit down at my desk, blankly staring at the device maliciously placed in perfect synchrony with my gaze. The brightness of the document is nearly blinding. This is painful. I take a sip of coffee. It's too hot. I let it cool down for a short while before drinking. This is much better. A veil is lifted off my mind. I love this bitter-sweet awakening.

        The chair needs adjusting. My spine hurts from yesterday. I assume a more comfortable position and place my forearms on the desk. What an incredibly awful start. I stare down at the empty page. My fingers reach the keyboard and move in an unknown pattern for several minutes. I write. Do I write? I try to write. I don't write.

        The creaking of an old leather chair echoes. The furniture's centre of gravity sheepishly shifts outwards. "Aaargh," a groan overwhelms the silence of my bedroom as I guide my palms to the back of my head. The ceiling is so white today. Is it? I stare at it with defeat. All the imperfections suddenly become very clear. There is a crack on the corner facing east, a crack I haven't noticed before. Why is there a crack? How long has it been there? I should probably get it fixe- Aaaaaah! I can see a spider. "Hello, little buddy!"

        I should name him. Hmm, Spidey suits him... No, that sucks. I hate it. I'll name him Jonathan. "Hi, Jonathan!" I wave in its direction but it does not seem to acknowledge my presence. It crawls away. My eyes follow its tiny footsteps. "To make a friend is to lose a friend." It's gone. I am not making any progress with my story. In a desperate attempt to concentrate, I shift my gaze to the bright screen. Its mocking voice haunts me. Why am I not writing? Why can I not write? Why am I not making any sense?

        I trace my fingertips across the keyboard and create a word: loss. That's ironic. What can I do with this? Let's write a paragraph. It doesn't have to be good; I can edit it later. Imagine being an editor and having to deal with people's incoherent trains of thought. I don't think I would be able to do it. I would make a horrible editor. What am I talking about? Wait, right, loss - I need to write about loss. Does it have to be loss, though? This document says to "include a character who is lost." Let's see. I write for exactly five minutes before an itch conquers the back of my arm. It's distracting. Everything is distracting. I can't focus. Screw this.

        I get up and drag my deprived existence to the kitchen. Am I hungry? I should make something to eat. What do I want? I am not sure. What is "to want"? Before I can understand what is most suitable for me to eat, I need to understand my deepest desires... or so I think. My back rests against the refrigerator and I scratch my forehead. Well, it depends... If I am to approach the question in a purely morphological sen- No. Jesus Christ. I will stop myself before I fall down this philosophical rabbit hole. After all, I have not written one paragraph. The deadline is approaching, creeping behind a grey wall. It is rather daunting. I grab a small pack of crisps and head back to my bedroom.

        I sit down at my desk once again. The chair is equally uncomfortable. No matter how much I try, I cannot imitate the position in which I was sitting not so long ago. This is mildly infuriating. I ignore my back pain and feed myself the snacks. I should have gone for a different flavour; this is hurting my tongue. Bleargh. The pack reaches the other end of the wooden surface after a relatively aggressive throw. What do I have so far? Wow, this is bad. It's so bad. Delete. Delete everything. I am starting over. That was an eyesore. How incompetent can I be? Come on, brain! Come up with sentences!

        I don't understand. Normally, there are no restraints. What is the issue? Could it be the deadline? Maybe it simply is the theme. I am not sure. Maybe... it's me. Perhaps my ideas are not good enough. What am I comparing them to, though? Regardless, none of my words satisfy me. I drafted a plan. I deleted it. I came up with a different idea, but there were too many plot holes. I deleted that, too. I pondered translating an old story... yet that would be cheating myself. I want to write more. I have not written anything in a long time. When I drafted another plan, I redrafted it and then redrafted it once more. I hated that, as well.

        Why am I looking for something to blame? The truth is that I have felt oddly unmotivated lately. That is normal. We all feel like that sometimes. I would not be blaming anyone else for putting their other needs above creating content, so why treat myself differently? There is no point in forcing myself to write, is there? Yet here I am, sitting in front of an empty document and drinking a second cup of incredibly bitter coffee. I should have added soy milk. Is it too late to have some now? The taste would not be the same... but what if, I wonder? No, I am sticking with my initial decision. Ping! I heard the sound of a notification. Someone texted me. I should check that out.... No. I need to write. Oh... but what if it's urgent? I need to make sure that they're safe. Five minutes won't hurt.

        It was not urgent. It also was not a matter of five minutes. That was a horribly poor estimation. A text turned into a phone call, which turned into a video call, which resulted in us playing a game and inviting more people, which resulted in roughly three hours of not writing. I am disappointed. No, that's a lie. I am quite happy. It was fun. Why would I feel negatively towards spending time with ones who are dear to me? I would not have written anything in the meantime. My focus is awful and my mind is scattered weirdly. I am out of ideas.

        I have been out of ideas for some time. I figured that this would motivate me, but it is quite the opposite. Having a theme about which I can write does not change how I feel. I wish it did. I keep distracting myself. Those thoughts are not of any relevance right now. My gaze meets the intimidatingly blank document once more. What was the theme? I need to read those guidelines again. One would say I should be the last one to forget.

        "Write about or include a character who is lost." I am trying to think. When was the last time I felt lost? I did wander the streets years ago. Perhaps I should mention that? Would writing about the emotion of being lost in its literal sense be... boring? Then, what type of loss am I referring to? What type of loss do I want to refer to? I could discuss my path to becoming a physicist; there were plenty of moments in which I felt confused and seemingly had no direction. Hmm... but who wants to read about physics? This is not a memoir. I want to create something fun, something with which others can relate, at least to some extent. I type the magic word once again and do not divert my eyes from it.

        Loss. Loss? What is loss? Is this loss? I am lost. Oh...Oh? I am lost!

        That is brilliant. Let's rewrite.

        My fingers race across each letter of the pleasant-sounding keyboard. I am writing. Words are plastered over other words and sentences barely follow each other. I am repeating myself. My sentences are too short. Should they be longer? Even if I did try to achieve that, it perhaps would not have the same effect. Would you look at what I did...? My hands and ideas are irritatingly competing against each other. There are too many full stops. Unfortunately, there are not enough commas. Oh, I just used two! Forget what I said. What an incoherent piece of writing...

        This works. It's not too long but not too short, either. It's not my best work but hopefully, it can make fellow writers smile. Good is subjective, nonetheless. The words are strung together in a seemingly irrational way, yet the sentiment is relevant enough. It is, in my opinion at least. Who says that matters, though? Suffering brings people together, which is both bizarre and amusing. Let's take a step back and laugh a little; it's perfectly normal to be lost every once in a while. 

        Ah, phew - 1496 words.

        With that, I press send.

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A/N:

I hope you enjoyed my short story! 💜

This was written as part of a short story competition I organised for my Discord server lmao. It didn't count for anything, but I found it quite fun to write. It's mostly a meme tbh.

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Links:

Cover background photo by Markus Spiske: [https://unsplash.com/photos/jGbC-FPO4pk].

Header photo by Andrii Ganzevych: [https://unsplash.com/photos/jXqvVxrtmdg] -- Not exactly related to the story but kitty!!!!!