The beginning part is always the hardest part

by raimperial

Monday evening. It was raining outside and I was sipping coffee at a Starbucks outlet down town. As I was trying to write a story about Monday evenings, I soon began to notice the light from my computer screen being reflected on my fingernails, and I realized, hey, why have I never written anything about my fingernails? The bizarre realization fascinated me, and so I started writing about them in descriptive fashion. Like, for instance, how my nails grow so fast I always have to carry with me a nail clipper everywhere I go, or how tiny soil particles get caught underneath them whenever I was bullied and pushed to the ground back in elementary school. Or how I try to maintain their lengthwise measurement to a specific one so that I could scratch myself whenever I feel itchy somewhere.

I sipped some more coffee and I suddenly became conscious of how much I’ve wasted my time writing about them. I was already five pages back-to-back writing about them and there was no progress and nothing more exciting to write. The whole aspiring writer writing in a coffeehouse attempt suddenly became a painfully monotonous and uninspired sideline profession and before I knew it, I’d already dunked the paper into the now empty cup of coffee. I grabbed my suitcase and fiddled with the security code until the lock snapped open and revealed a week’s worth of numbers to key into the machine. Oh, the mediocre joys of a permanent job.

Got myself another cup of coffee.