Short Stories
The Next Day
There is nothing quite like the feeling of a looming deadline. Every sense is heightened, every effort bent on accomplishing what must be done. Any choices have been taken away, a commitment has to be honoured. There is no room for movement in this arrangement. I am walled in, trapped by the constraints of this box I have so willingly built. Plans are laid aside, all tasks forgotten. To even stop and eat would consume precious seconds.
Dread hangs heavily in the air; the voices in my head will not be silenced. Distractions keep appearing, taunting me. Yet the excuses have long been exhausted, and my friend procrastination firmly asked to depart.
I must now stare my demons in the face, for I have used up all my tomorrows. There is only the next day. This pending day, held in place by our collective perception of time, constructed of the minutes, the hours that stretch behind me as the ones before me seem to dwindle all-too-quickly with each glance at the clock.
It is only a matter of beginning. Of gathering my thoughts, mustering my courage, unleashing the potential that lies within, waiting for this very moment when the floodgates will finally be released. For these weeks have not been completely lost. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind a brew has been fermenting, all the ingredients carefully measured and added, stirred, and then finally left to rest, to settle, to form substance.
I turn the tap – the act of placing pen to paper is enough, and I am pressed to keep up with the torrent of words pouring onto my page, as if I am merely the scribe, keeping pace with the dictation of another. Line after line they flow, directed by unseen forces that order them in to being, until they finally slow to a mere trickle.
And so it is done. The 11th hour always proves to be my finest, the moment where I may pause and savour what has been birthed on the page, the pains forgotten in the joy of creation. Sheer relief bathes away exhaustion that follows such a labour.
This air is now filled with celebration. For I am free, released from the prison of my own making, buoyed by the knowing that I will always come through – I can trust that I never fail to achieve what I set out to do. For it is the very feeling of these highs and lows that sustains me – the rising and ebb of the tides – the daily challenges and victories that drive me forward, in eager anticipation of the next day.