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500 Words: "When"


The scream went on for an alarming amount of time. Thank God it was only in his head. He stared blankly at the screens, words and images bobbing in and out of focus. He vaguely thought he heard someone say his name, but he continued looking lifelessly at the monitors in front of him.

Man, he was desperate to be away from here. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on. It had been fine at first, sure. A bit slow at times, but manageable. But now he’d finally figured out what he wanted to do with his life, so this was an unwelcome distraction - but with bills to pay and food to put on the table, a necessary one.

Okay, this time he definitely heard his name. He snapped out of the trance-like state he had been in and looked up. A female colleague was stood about 10 yards away with a curious look on her face. He managed to muster a faint smile and made a half-hearted apology about being miles away. The colleague seemed fine with this, not that he probably would have cared if she hadn’t been. Oh great, more work he thought, although at least it would get him through the next 30 minutes or so.

30 minutes closer to going home, where he could endlessly procrastinate about writing. That’s what he wanted to do you see, write.

He’d been saying the same thing for well over a decade, but something always seemed to get in the way. Never anything of any importance mind, which was the real tragedy of it. Thinking back to all the time he had wasted sat in front of the TV or on his computer made him feel physically sick. But doing those things was easier than writing and he couldn’t be judged for them, whereas if he’d written anything, some people might not have liked it. And then what.

He tried to convince himself once more that it didn’t matter what other people thought, and that he should just write for himself. But he wasn’t that good a liar.

Of course, it mattered what other people thought. It always had and it always would. It was the same in every aspect of his life, he couldn’t comprehend the idea of people not liking him. Why wouldn’t they. He was a good person, easy to be around, funny, decent, caring - for the most part – yeah, he was one of the good guys. So woe betide he ever do something that might make people not think that highly of him.

Maybe that’s why he didn’t write as much as he should. Fear.

Fear of rejection. Fear of not being liked. Fear of being found out that he’s not as good as he thought he was. But doesn’t everyone have these fears? Maybe, maybe not.

He sat down at his desk at home, fired up his laptop and watched Netflix long into the night.

Maybe he’d write tomorrow.  

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