In the Beginning

Not much to go on here. Not very inspired as of late. Insipid summers will do that to a person. So will wasting your life in train tunnels. [Careful, sir, in that way madness lies; let me shun that.]

Still, what we have here might be the beginning of something. We'll see what happens in Ithaca this weekend, after I have a chance to walk the dog, explore Cornell, experience grass and trees, read and write.

I have put the Pushkin project on hold temporarily. I hope to return to it once I am in a better humor.

Anyway, the story so far:

A sharp Ticonderoga vaulted through his nimble fingers landing with a bony crunch in the lower right hand corner of his legal pad—just above the pale, penultimate blue line. “How poetic,” he frowned, turning the pencil back around and flicking the broken point away with his eraser tip. “He couldn’t take the pressure. Poor little nit.”

Although his page was still unsullied (apart from one black pit surrounded by a scattering of graphite dust) he tore out the offending page, along the pad’s perforated top. He needed a pristine canvas on which to arrange his thoughts. As far as these—his instruments—were concerned, like Lucifer, he was their General. Pencils, pens, erasers, reams paper—these demons—were the expendable elements of his artistic infantry. Opposing his him was a large window. Beyond that, commanding the heights, there stood a hemlock tree.