Tammy sat there, mind blurry, a dark cloud of doubts swirling, no notion of what to think or write. “What should I write today?” he hummed, like a broken-down recorder in a room where even the dead wouldn’t speak. Usually, he heard them, their voices chanting, a rhythm he would dance to in the middle of the night until dawn. His parents had given up, hoping he’d be among the normal as they walked through life.
“Darn, what’s going on here?” he muttered, staring at his eyes in the mirror. “What more do you want?”
“Everything!” his reflection demanded, “Be careful what you ask for.”
Tammy blinked, the reflection’s voice echoing in the silence. He rubbed his eyes, wondering if sleep deprivation was playing tricks. But the eyes—his eyes—stared back with an intensity that felt foreign.
“Everything?” Tammy muttered. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“Everything,” the reflection repeated, impatience creeping into its tone. “The words, the stories, the dreams. You want it all, don’t you?”
He hesitated. He did want it all—the ability to write without constraint, to create worlds and characters that breathed life into his otherwise mundane existence. But the pressure, the doubt, the fear of failure—they were always there, lurking in the shadows.
“Yes,” he finally whispered. “But I don’t know how.”
The reflection softened, eyes reflecting a depth of understanding. “It’s not about knowing how, Tammy. It’s about feeling. Trusting yourself. Let the words flow, even if they make no sense at first. You can shape them later.”
Tammy sighed, the weight of his self-imposed expectations lifting slightly. He picked up his pen, the blank page before him no longer a daunting void but a canvas waiting to be filled. With a deep breath, he started to write, the rhythm of the words gradually returning, like a long-lost friend.