Writers' Block

Writers’ block is the dormitory mid-way between the dining halls and the water taps. It was not that the dormitory was exactly midway in distance but because the bells for food rang at the same time as the taps were turned on, we usually had one of two options: to eat or to fetch.

To eat was to boycott the taps where our inspiration flowed.
To fetch was to forget food upon which our survival depended.
Such dilemma we all encountered in the Writers’ block were we called home.

I had my mattress besides the door not far from the many others that inhabited the same room as I did and every time I looked out of the windows one way I saw what I did not see the other way. They were pictures that besieged my mind in the rushes of water and jingling of bells: Bells of wants cloaked in necessity and the rushing of waters seemingly to no end.

When the bells rang, some of us would leave the writers’ block with our bowl in our hands, our pens in our pockets and leave our books behind on our mattresses and run in the direction of self-fulfilment. While some others would run for water even though their bellies echo forth in hollowness speaking belches through their mouths. Yet one over the other possessed no supremacy of thought or desire- only the future stood to judge us all whether or not for food or water we had gone.

The jingling in my head and the echoes and pangs chimes as the bells ring for I am in no less of a quandary as I think of the future and an audience unborn
Of the present: and my gifts untorn,
And I look to the pages of my book forlorn,
knowing I won’t remain here for long.