Before Inspiration Strikes

I stayed in the same worn-out space. I traveled across the country.

Looking at my life, I often asked myself the question: Am I spending time searching until l find it, or killing time waiting until it finds me? I don’t know which it was--shoot, I don’t even know what “it” was. But when it did happen, it was unmistakable, and I cruised with it for miles until it ran its course and I had something beautiful to last me until the next one.

I avoided human interaction at all costs. I did whatever it took, dipping down cul-de-sacs, speeding past one-way signs, careening around and around a roundabout for hours. Once I was in a certain mood, I saw the mundane as brakes and the familiar as blinders. 

The key to working is pretending to be busy until you actually are. That day, I was busy doing everything that didn’t matter. I had been driving down a humid, dusty dirt road in the middle of nowhere, when my tires got firmly stuck in the mud. No matter how hard I revved the engine, I couldn’t coax the car another inch.

Being still was not good for my purposes. The trouble was, this had been happening more and more lately. Sometimes there was traffic to blame, but sometimes I just couldn’t get my hand to turn the key, and that was especially unsettling. 

I hated those days. They were the days I was worse than useless.

Not moving made me angry, but not explosion-angry, not honk-the-horn-and-curse angry. It was worse. I was downward-spiral angry. I was lose-track-of-time destructive-boredom frustrated. And I couldn't be stopped.

I drank cold coffee and spilled most of it on the upholstery. I stared into the mirror and talked nonsense at my reflection until I felt like a stranger.  I blasted sad music and wrung out my feelings until I had squeezed everything out of them, before switching to upbeat pop songs. I stretched myself to the max, clenching and unclenching every muscle in my body. I took a deep breath and released a loud monotone exhale, a passionless scream.

I was so, so stuck. 

At last I brought myself to wind down the window and look around. Stuck, all right. I was deeper in the mud than I had thought, and at the sight of it I could feel the cycle starting back up inside me. I knew I couldn’t make anything worthwhile anymore, not in this state, so I had no choice but to destroy. 

I would have slammed the window shut if I could, but I had to settle for rolling it back up, which was intensely unsatisfying. Then I curled up in the backseat with food and my wifi hotspot and let it happen. I wasn’t hungry but I ate, wasn’t entertained but I scrolled through every possible form of media. I could do anything. Eat a family size box of cereal. Watch an hour’s worth of pointless videos. Maybe I couldn’t be a creator, but I was the ultimate consumer. 

Soon I was sated and sedated and hated myself. I threw the cereal box onto the floor of the car. I shoved my phone under the seat. 

A strange claustrophobia was creeping in. I opened the sunroof to look at the sky, and all of a sudden fat raindrops were pouring down onto me. I wanted to cry too. I couldn’t. Even my eyes were too dry to produce anything useful. So I tilted my face upward and let the pity of the heavens shower over me.

The awakening that often comes with cold water ensued. It’s never going to happen while I’m trapped in here, I realized. I wasn’t driving anywhere alone, and no one else would come to help, unless I asked them to, which would just about obliterate what dignity I had left. 

The movement I craved could happen out there, though. It was possible; the downpour was proof of what might be coming. Granted, the odds of it finding me were pretty much infinitesimal. But I maybe I could help increase them.

A crescent patch of forest cradled the expanse of mud in which my vehicle was submerged. Evergreen trees, the tallest one towering over the others at the center of the curve. Its branches were thin, but they were also closely and consistently spaced from bottom to top. Practically a ladder. Perfect.

First, I needed materials. I dug through the glove compartment until I found an old pair of binoculars. They went around my neck. I also uncovered a portable radio and batteries, and stashed them in my pockets. 

Next, I scavenged the surrounding area for the largest rod of metal I could find. I managed to extract a collapsible steel pole from the broken body of an unfortunate tent that had been swept away from its owner. At full height, the pole would easily be fifteen feet high, just right for my endeavor. I folded it up and put it in my knapsack. 

Finally, I wrapped myself in a tarp, also pillaged from the tent. I slid my wrists through the fabric slots where the poles were supposed to go, so that the material wouldn’t fall off as I climbed. Something told me the storm wasn’t going away anytime soon. I was going to be up there for a while, so this would be my shelter for now. 

I spared one more glance back at the car. There it was, an island that used to be my home in the middle of a mud river that used to be my road. Technically, it wasn’t too late to go back. I could somehow get hold of a shovel and get to work digging the tires out. I could lay down my pride and call a tow truck. I could even leave it all for rust, hitchhike to the nearest town, and get a real job.

But none of these were truly options anymore. I knew what I had to do to jumpstart myself back to life before this meaninglessness settled in. So I turned away from the car and pulled myself onto the lowest branch. 

The damp bark was rough against my bare hands and feet. My decision to forgo shoes and gloves meant that my skin grew cold and raw, but my grip remained firm. I pulled the tarp tighter around myself to avoid snagging it on stray twigs as I scaled higher and higher.

I focused on the repetition of arm, arm, leg, leg, and kept my eyes trained on where the tree tapered to a point. As it drew nearer, the branches grew shorter, and I hugged closer to the center. Eventually, the top was only a few feet above me. 

I slid down to a sitting position, wrapping my limbs around the trunk. For a few minutes, I just clung there and breathed. Occasional gusts of wind ruffled over me, and my body automatically squeezed the bark tighter.

Once it was clear that the breeze was not a serious threat, I slowly craned my head backward and looked down. It occurred to me to make use of the binoculars. Through their rain-specked lenses, I made out my car, as stuck as ever. I saw the brown of the road and the nondescript fields behind it, and far beyond that, distant civilization. Telephone wires and trees stretched to the left and right. 

I turned to face forward, peering around the tree I was holding onto. I saw small hills and a highway, and above that, enormous dark clouds. The overcast sky drained almost all color from the land, but in a way the scenery seemed half-alive. Anticipatory.

After rubbing feeling into my hands, I set to work on the radio, crossing my arms over a branch to stabilize myself. With a small amount of pressing and twisting and rearranging batteries, it soon became operational. The station didn’t much matter to me. I just needed some form of stimulus, something to consume while I was up here besides my own thoughts.

Then there was the pole to assemble. With each piece I slid into place, my chances of achieving my goal increased the tiniest bit. Once it was erect, I decided to put it right down my shirt, the metal frigid against my chest. The closer I was to the receiving end, the better. I poked the other end up through the treetops, piercing into the sky. A conductor’s baton--when the heavens gave the signal, I, the instrument, would play.

And there it was. The best I could do.

I waited. 

I soaked up the rain. I listened to the drone of the radio. I gazed at the horizon, taking in every detail of my surroundings. When the first thunderclap sounded, I echoed it back with a guttural scream. A real scream this time.

I waited to be struck.