The Cursor

The cursor blinks into my staring eyes. There’s nothing scarier than seeing that small dash fade in and out of existence at the top left corner of the page. It taunts me, winking at me with every minute I don’t put my fingers to the keys. My temples ache from staring at the screen for too long. 

Some music might help, says the right side of my brain while painting a picture that’ll never translate the same on the blank canvas tucked into the back of my closet. 

Do your damn work, says the left, smoking his twenty-sixth cigarette of the day. He’s stressed, racking up the statistics of what my lack of writing will mean for my career in the future. 

It’s worked before. Music! Says Right. I shrug, pull up YouTube. There it is; the antithesis of productive work. A wall of block texts, advertisements, and millions of views. All for naught. 

What are you doing? Left screams as my attention is pulled away from the word processor. You’ll never get any progress done here. This is a rabbit hole you’ll punish yourself for going down. If you’re going to play music, use your Audio Technica.

Over my shoulder, on the rickety Walmart bookshelf is the record player, surrounded by two speakers. The vinyl records stand vertical against the left side, bent corners hugging their neighbors. 

“Makes sense,” I say out loud. I throw on something that seems to fit the mood of the story and sit back down, fingers at the ready. In the end, I’m dancing around the room, head-banging to what was clearly the wrong choice of playlist. Once the record’s flipped and the ballad is sung, I’m standing there, sweaty and satisfied. I cringe when forcing myself to look back at the laptop sitting on the desk I bought to specifically help get back into the swing of things. Next to the laptop is an organizer; a half-finished manuscript laid to rest over a year ago sleeps on top, dusty thesaurus and dictionary on the middle shelf, and a copy of Writer’s Market -fashionably three years out of date- on the bottom. I slam the laptop shut and migrate to my bed.

The ceiling fan spins in a drowsy loop overhead and I can’t help but follow one of the blades. It’s mesmerizing until I snap out of the trance and look at the laptop again.

Maybe we should try again? Left questions. Cigarette ashes fall onto his report papers and he blows them away, causing more to fall and creating a vicious cycle.

Masturbate instead? Right whispers into my ear while he’s got the chance. He sends a stroke of yellow across his canvas. 

Sounds like a fucking plan, I think, pulling out my phone. It’s not one I’m proud of today; can’t say I really am anymore but it gets the job done. Right is satisfied and goes into hibernation for a couple of hours.

That solved nothing, Left says, almost disappointed. He gets a kick out of it but will never admit it. The shower that comes after seems to help. It deafens the senses and gives me a chance to be nothing; unbothered, unchallenged. Just a sack in the water and I’m perfectly content… until it grows cold. 

My phone lights up when I get out of the shower. A message reads:

MOM:

Hey. Just wanted you to know I love you and I enjoy the talks we have every week. Thinking about you a lot and can’t wait to see you soon. 

Attached below the text is a link to a website listing writing courses that are way beyond my pay grade.

That’s sweet of her, says Right with waking drowsiness. 

Impractical says Left. You can’t afford to pay two hundred dollars for a class you’ll spend half an hour watching. Just keep reading and hopefully writing and we’ll get there. Stephen King’s golden rule that I learned back in my freshman year. It always kept me intimidated and motivated; recently, more of the former. 

I dress into slightly cleaner sweats and a black shirt, tossing the dirty clothes onto the ever-growing mountain on my side of the bed, sitting in the desk chair once more. The stickers on the back of the laptop stare at me as I open it. There sits the cursor, blinking at me with relentless mockery. It’s at this time that Riley gets home. I hear the jingle of her keys downstairs, the scampering of our dog’s paws on the tile floor. They come scurrying up the steps and into the room.

“Okay, settle down Hades,” I say as the one-year-old pup swipes at me with excited paws. Riley is behind him, smiling. Her hair is puffy purple, eyes hazel, and her presence comforting.

“Hades down!” Riley says. Hades backs down, accepts my pets, and retreats into his cage, gnawing on the rawhide bone he’d left unfinished this morning. “How’s your day been?” The shrug I give is meager.

“Nothing productive,” I say, gesturing to the computer. “Another day of procrastination.”

“Well, you can’t beat yourself up over it. Do you think there’s a problem?” she says.

“Oh, absolutely. It’s just me. I’m the problem,” I say, spinning in the desk chair. “There’s a handful of good ideas in my noggin when frankly, they’d be better off in someone else’s head.”

“You’ve been given the ideas for a reason. They’re yours to tell.” I can’t help but smile a little. Reassurance comes as naturally to her as tattooing. 

Speaking of, ask her about it, Right says.

“How did today go? Good clients?” I ask. She pulls the iPad out of the bag slung around her shoulder before setting it against the dresser that sits at the foot of our bed. 

“Pretty good,” Riley says, scrolling through some file I can’t see yet. I love this look of hers, her brow furrowed with more concentration than I’ve ever been able to muster. It’s the same one she gets when tattooing clients. She hands me the iPad. “What do you think?”

They’re beautiful. Photos of finished pieces inked onto calves, triceps, backs of necks. The color sings on the skin like a twenty-something who’s just found his range and can’t get enough of that one note that helped break the barrier. Lines loop and streak around fleshy curves. I keep scrolling back and forth. There’s a barnacle-studded whale accented with foamy green and pearl white; a vacuum cleaner drawn like a 40s style cartoon with bulbous eyes and traditional colors; a valkyrie taking flight, studded with plated armor and wings composed of rainbow feathers. 

Jesus Christ, says Right, dropping his paintbrush. We’re a fucking fraud!

Stay calm, says Left with what sounds like a hint of panic. We’re not out of this yet. We can be just as great. We just have to WORK ON IT!

“Well?” Riley asks. I blink and look at her.

“You never cease to impress me,” I say, standing. She kisses me, her smile never breaking. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you,” she says. She looks over my shoulder, sees the empty page on the laptop screen. “How about we get a bite to eat? Maybe some fresh air will help clear your head.”

“I’ve obviously got nothing going on,” I say. “Let’s go.” I change again, this time into something more presentable. Riley feeds Hades and I brush my teeth, spitting into the sink I haven’t cleaned for about a month. The small blue blobs of toothpaste sit like putty. I wave them out of my mind and kill the light before going downstairs.

“Where do you wanna go?” Riley asks at the foot of the stairs, twirling the lanyard around her finger. 

Tacos! Fucking tacos! Right screams, painting the picture of corn shells and diarrhea. 

Healthier, Left says. You had pizza for lunch. Why not something leafier?

“The Herbivore?” I suggest, wrapping myself in a jacket.

“Oooh, I like the way you think,” she says with an approving nod. “I’m gonna get myself a pita.” She giggles and bounces out the door.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Riley asks, licking at her thumb that’s now covered in sauce.

“I don’t know,” I say, picking a large chunk of tomato from the pita pocket in my hands. The mixed greens crunch with every bite, the ground beef seasoned to a tee. “Just kind of spacing.”

“What’s in all that space, though?” she asks, wiping her mouth with a filmy brown napkin. “Ideas, frustrations, curiosities?” I look at her.

She’s breathtaking, says Right. He’s correct. The bulb lights strung overhead cast this radiance upon her that sets her pupils at the perfect circumference. She’s looking at me with full attention, something I’ve never been able to give. 

Of course, she is. That’s why I picked her for you, says Left. The day we met was a good one and the courting process was better. I didn’t have to do much, though. I was in love within the first week of talking to her, but she fell in love as soon as I opened my stupid mouth.

“Something,” I said with my trademark shrug. “I don’t know what. Just a name, a place. Stupid little ideas that don’t connect.”

“Do they have dots that can help them connect?”

“If they do, I can’t see them. Trust me, I try to see them but my vision is always blurred.” I bite again and Riley follows suit. A fire cackles in a small pit to our right. The chatter of socialization and sizzling food hum around us like the walls of a beehive. 

“Well, I know you and I know it feels impossible, but when you have an idea, don’t let it slip. Sit down and grind it out. I’ve read what you can do. You have a gift.”

A gift that’s poorly honed and childish in nature, says Left. Better work on that. If it is a gift, I don’t know why I’ve been cursed with it. I think of Riley’s tattoos and can’t help but feel envious that she’s doing what she loves before I could do the same. 

Art takes time, says Right. Even I can acknowledge that. 

“It doesn’t feel like it,” I say. “If that’s so, why do no contests pick me when I send them something? My words don’t matter to anyone when they’re on paper. I’m two steps away from just giving up altogether.”

Like I said… Right says, almost angrily. Art. Takes. Time.

“Please don’t,” Riley says, grabbing my hand. “Your words matter. You matter, honey.”

Wow, says Left, tilting his nose down to look over his spectacles. She actually cares about us.

“Thank you. I’m doing my best,” I say. I’m lying, but cast what I hope is a convincing smile. She hesitates for a moment before nodding and kisses my hand before ravaging the rest of her pita.

We don’t talk much on the way home. I’m lost in my thoughts and she’s trying to deduce them by reading my expressions. Hades barks when we come home and we let him out before settling into bed. He gnaws away at another bone as we lay down.

“I love your mind,” she says to me. I open an eye and turn to her silhouette. 

“What’s that?” I ask, already almost half asleep.

“You might not like it up there, but I love your mind. It’s capable of great things.”

“No, that’s what your brain is for.”

Correct, Left and Right say simultaneously. 

“I’m not like you,” I say. “I can’t pick up a pencil and do what you do. That’s not me.”

“Because you’re a writer, not a tattoo artist,” she says. I’m pretty sure she’s smiling when we kiss goodnight but I can’t tell. She begins to gently snore but I lie awake, watching the lazy fan again.  I close my eyes and hope to fall into some sort of dream.

2:30 comes and my brain won’t shut up.

We’ve got something new! Right shouts.

Extra, extra. Read all about it. It’s a good one. Left says. I roll and pray they’ll shut up but to them, persistence is key. Something throws the sheets from my body and takes me to the desk chair. It can’t have been me. It’s not possible. How did I drag myself here?

We did, Right says.

We’ve got some work to do, buddy, says Left, straightening his glasses and cracking his knuckles. Ready?

“For what?” I whisper. I can only look in horror as I find my fingers lifting the laptop screen. It lights up and there it is; my winking nemesis. “I can’t do it.”

You don’t really have a choice anymore, says Left. You’ve got a lot of ground to cover and we’re here to help. 

Trust us, says Right, dipping his brushes in water and setting up a blank canvas on his paint-splattered easel. Just put your fingers on the keys. We’ve got the rest. Let’s do it one more time. I close my eyes and squint hard.

“Stop talking,” I whisper. Riley rolls to my side of the bed. Right and Left clear their throats. 

Alistair Pomfrey was the fourth child of Tamara and David, and it was his turn to die for the sake of the family name, Left and Right both say at the same time. Left pounds at the keys of his typewriter and Right brings an arc of red across his canvas with one fell swoop. I find myself saying the words out loud.

“Fuck,” I say as I open my eyes and start putting my fingers to the keys. The cursor never has a chance to blink.