The clock on the wall didn't just tick; it felt like it was counting down toward a deadline that didn't exist. "Sometime," Arthur always told himself. "I'll get to it sometime."
The first word was clunky. The second was worse. But by the time the sun dipped below the horizon, the paper was no longer white. It was messy, flawed, and absolutely real. Arthur leaned back, his neck aching and his fingers stained with ink, and finally understood: "Sometime" had arrived, and it looked exactly like "now."
Arthur looked at the typewriter. He realized that "sometime" wasn't a point on a calendar; it was a ghost that lived in the space between intention and action. It was a comfortable lie that allowed him to feel productive while standing still.
The block wasn't a lack of ideas—it was the weight of potential. As long as the work remained unwritten, it was perfect. To begin was to risk being mediocre.
The "it" in question was a mahogany desk tucked away in the corner of his attic, covered in a fine layer of dust that had become its own kind of upholstery. Beneath that dust lay a collection of half-finished sketches and a typewriter that hadn't felt the strike of a key in years.
He reached out and blew the dust off the carriage. It puffed into the air, a miniature storm of forgotten Saturdays. He rolled in a fresh sheet of paper—crisp, white, and terrifyingly blank.
