The writer hovers the nib over virgin-white paper. She waits for that perfect opening line, but it does not come.
“Instead of a constipated mind, I wish I had verbal diarrhea,” begins the first line.
The prurient beginning does not sit well with her crappy mood. Becka rips the page, crumples it, and shoots the ball in the circular file.
She begins again, “She was in deep waters, when the leg cramp began,” and then the thoughts stop flowing. She waits, but the writing hand feels a stiffness. Another crumpled ball goes in the basket.
“The father played with his child’s blocks,” she writes, but she can get no farther. She seems to hit a wall. “The block is in my mind,” she berates herself, but she does not give up.
“Another one bites the dust,” she begins, but with a new violence, she rips, crushes, and throws the snowy ball.
“Practice makes perfect,” she wryly notes, as it successfully lands in the basket.
“The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, and the canine bared his teeth and growled.” This start seems to have no bite, and so it lazily joins the others.
It’s always a bit tragic to see new starts crash and burn; is this the end of the beginning?
“There’s got to be a perfect one,” she sighs, looking at the mound of balls in the waste bin. She stretches her hands, rotates wrists clockwise and in the reverse. She rises up, stretches, rolls the shoulders, and this loosens her some.
She picks up the pen again to finally put down a very satisfying story starter.
“Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”
She is correct, it is the perfect one.
Only, it isn’t hers.
©IK 2019
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