Emerald City

The constant blinking of a straight small line on a white screen.

The constant unblinking eyes of a Boy who has been sitting on a chair for hours, neglecting the pain in his back screaming at him to please stand up for just one minute, and the pain in his side, screaming at him to please lay down for just one minute.

His raggedy face enlightened by the bright screen is the only thing a hypothetical spectator could see in the darkness of that room, except for little sparks of light trapped behind eternally shut blinds.

Words rushing inside his mind, he can see them in his eyes, forming a beautiful composition on the digital page in front of him, he can feel them running around in his head, often banging off the surface, he scratches his head.

His seemingly dead eyes open wide for a matter of seconds. Usually, when this happened, his hands would begin beating down on that keyboard and words would come running into the page, filling it with not just digital ink but emotions and feelings and charming lines used in the rightest of contexts.

But his hands stand still today. He had the power to feel the words in his head floating around and then streaming down to his heart, his magical heart, getting washed in something unearthly beautiful, becoming more than just words in that instance and then splitting up, a bunch to the right and a bunch to the left, swimming inside his arms, giving meaning to his muscles, inside his wrists, like the blood in his veins, and then bringing life to his hands, on the tips of his fingers they would be born and brought into the world. Words into the world creating new worlds.

But now the words are trapped in his head. Forever floating around, for years, a few of them would find an opening one time or two or three, and they would manage to escape that purgatory and reach for the heart. But perhaps his heart was not magical anymore. The words, shining with the bright light of hope, would get tangled in this black mass, blacker than ink itself, a black hole of sorts, eating the light away from them, as they scratched and they crawled, until the words were no more.

The Boy knows there is no hope, for he can feel this happening inside him. He can feel the viscous, pitch black substance that substituted his magical heart.

He is supposed to look around for inspiration, but he doesn't even bother for his eyes have surely adjusted to the dark but there is nothing remotely inspiring about the mess in his room. He is supposed to listen to the sounds of the world, but he's been wearing headphones for as long as he can remember, yet he's not listening to any music.

An unexpected light appears right under his field of vision, dim yet bright enough to divert his attention, he knows immediately it is his phone that he silenced and smacked on the desk face down so nobody could bother him, even though he knew nobody could be bothered to bother him. He waits until the light disappears. His eyes want to go back to decay by staring at the white screen but his curiosity always got the better of him. He picks up the phone and turns it on, a feeling of remorse invades his stomach. Another message pops up right as the screen is about to turn off again, a terrible smile lights up his eyes.

For the first time, he takes off his headphones, he wants to listen. Nothing but sounds of cars, throttle, brake, streetlights. He puts the headphones back on.

He knows he needs to go to the city, his friend needs him. But sometimes he just can't help but feel as if the outside world is no place for someone like him.

He minimizes the white page on his computer, he knows he could just as well close it altogether but never does, he shuts everything off and stands up two seconds later, the lower of his back cracking in satisfaction as he does. He feels stuck after all that sitting time, he presses a closed fist against his back and leans backwards, letting every single part of his back crack. He feels like he can breathe again, until the stinging pain from the thorn planted in his left side almost blinds him and calls him back to a vertical stance. He checks his left side, the thorn is still there, his white t-shirt dirty with blood; it looks infected.