Creative Roadblock
“No, no, no.” He mutters, “What’s wrong with me, why can’t I paint anymore.” The man puts this canvas to one side, once it dries he’s paint over it and start again but for now he needs a clean canvas, he has an idea in his head. He always has ideas in his head, and normally they come out okay, but recently he has been so self-critical he can’t find anything good about his paintings. He has become what he most feared, a perfectionist.
He put this creative roadblock down to the stress of his upcoming art exhibition. The gallery kept getting on at him as the date drew closer, and as this was his first exhibition in over two years he was of course worried. He had enough material to put forward but he had no master piece. No pièce de résistance. But he had the idea for it and that is what he was working on now.
He sighed and collected his thoughts, looking at the clock on the wall the time read 1:17 am. He decided that it was time for a coffee, he turned away from his easel and started to walk to the door, but suddenly he came to a halt. He had heard something moving downstairs. A soft thud-thud-thud almost like a knocking.
Thud-thud-thud.
Moving cautiously to the door he pressed his ear to it to see what he could hear. Silence. He heard nothing and doubted he had heard anything in the first place.
He flicked on the light and went downstairs slowly trying to be quiet as possible. Although he had just talked himself into believing he had imagined the noise, he still had doubts. Reaching the bottom of the staircase he flicked on the hallway light, banishing shadows and potential hiding places for anyone. Or anything he added as an afterthought.
It was then that he noticed a letter on the ground, next to the big oak door. It was a plain white envelope, it had not postage mark, and no address had been inked onto the snowy piece of paper. All that was on the envelope was a name, scripted in crimson ink, Jonathan Spencer.
Jonathan turned the ominous letter over in his hand, he expected a wax seal, although he didn’t know why. His expectations were short of the mark, it hadn’t even been licked shut, just tucked in. Jonathan slipped the envelope open and withdrew a single piece of paper.
Five words adorned the paper, and they chilled Jonathan to his core, yet like the expectation of a wax seal he did not know why. He began to turn the card over to see if there was more but as he did he caught movement in his peripheral vision. A quick flit on his right hand side. Turning to confront whatever it was he saw, he saw nothing. He had heard of this before, corner of eye phenomena, that was all. Starting towards the kitchen he saw the flit again, looking towards where it had been it vanished yet again.
He turned on the worktop lights and the main lights in the kitchen. He had originally come down for a coffee, but he decided something harder was called for. Jonathan walked over to the liqueur cabinet and withdrew a crystal decanter, full of scotch. He did not bother with a glass, or rocks, which was how he normally took it, but instead he took a mouthful straight from the crystal neck. He slumped onto one of the stools on his breakfast bar and took another long draw from the container, as if he was a man lost in the desert.
Jonathan placed the card in front of him and read those words again, over and over.
Your time is running out.
