A bit of a preface for this story: I was trying to find something to write to start off the second semester, I thought I could write a generic column about writer’s block, but as I was writing, it felt strangely familiar. I searched through The Current’s database to see if I had written this column before, but I couldn’t find anything.

Determined to find this lost artifact, I scoured through my google docs until I found it: a vignette I wrote for my freshman year pre-IB English class entitled The Seemingly Innocent Case of Writer’s Block. 

This story is too funny not to publish and shows such an innocent effort at an English assignment. It has that freshman attitude that I cannot even try to replicate as senior year has drained me of all positivity and innocence–but I’ll save that for therapy.

Anyway, enjoy this throwback of a story.

The Seemingly Innocent Case of Writer’s Block

I’m stuck. Today started out fine, I rolled out of bed, almost froze to death walking to school, but I can’t complain, it was my choice to come here after all. “You could still be homeschooled,” I hear my mom say in my head, her voice overcoming the rock music blaring through my headphones. “You could be sleeping right now, you have no room to be complaining, this is a privilege-” I turned up my music and tried to focus on the lyrics instead of the cold nipping at my fingers. I slept through the first period and ate the lunch I packed for breakfast, it was all adding up to a normal day.

Now here I am, period two, a writing activity I’ve known about for months, and I have…nothing. My brain has stopped. It came to a screeching halt and crashed into a lampost. I hear everybody else quietly typing away, while I look around and try to find someone’s idea to steal. This hasn’t happened in years, I’m always full of ideas and things to say, but at the moment I just want to sleep. As I sit and the minutes tick away I slowly fall into a pit where my life falls apart over one mistake.

“If I fail this I’ll get a bad grade, and if I get a bad grade I’ll fail the class, and if I fail the class then I’ll never go up a grade, and if I never go up a grade I’ll get older and older but still be a freshman. And what if I want kids? I can’t raise a child and stay in school! And I won’t even get to be a sophomore and learn how to take care of a baby in health! What if I murder my own child?! IF I CAN’T THINK OF ANYTHING TO WRITE I WILL KILL INNOCENT CHILDREN.”

Ok, Ok, calm down Lee, you aren’t going to kill children, all you need to do is think for a bit.

I sit and stare at the screen till I get dizzy, I look at the clock, it reads eight, fifty-five. Five minutes have passed since I started writing. Finally, I thought it might be best for me to take a refreshing nap. As my eyes start to drift closed, I feel that wave of peace that comes when I start to fall asleep. “Everything will be ok, I’ll finish this at the end of the period.” I thought as I take off my glasses and laid my head down on my backpack. A few minutes later, I woke up, feeling awake and full of ideas, I log onto the computer and was just about to click google docs when…The fire alarm goes off.

As I see people packing their bags and logging off I scramble to at least write a few sentences before we had to leave. I haphazardly mash the keys so at least I wrote something. As we evacuate outside, I hear teachers telling their groups of students that when we go inside, we will continue to our third-period class.

As I shuffle in amongst the mob of students I notice something peculiar, I can’t see. I can’t see anything, everything is blurry and I begin to panic. I reach for my glasses to see if maybe they just need to be cleaned, and they’re not there. I forgot to pick them up from the computer lab when we left. And by the time I got back in, the lab was locked. As I sulk over to my history class and soon learn that there is a test today. I begin to wonder,

“What if I fail the test because I can’t read? What if I never graduate because I fail?! I CAN’T KILL ANY MORE CHILDREN! I’M NOT CUT OUT FOR THIS-”