I rest my head on the pillow, and lie awake, staring at the ceiling.  Like
a hundred voices in my head, I hear the phrase "What if?" over and over.

What if?
What if?
What if the Pool of Drowned Boy wasn't a cure?
What if Ranma had a brother?
What if the Senshi had partners?  What if Rei had a great love?
What if I got a wish like Keiichi?
What if?
What if?

I focus on one, and like slipping inside a bubble, the story explodes into
being.  I see great dramas, epic tales, stories beyond imagination.  They
consume me, and I fall asleep with a thousand tales being told in my head.

I awaken, and I remember the feelings, the images in my head.  They fade
as I go about my day, only to return, like a curse, every time my head
touches that pillow.

So I write.  Like a tap on a barrel, my hands allow the stories in my
head to flow into the screen, to be crafted into the words that form a
story.  As they leave me, I feel at ease, like a pressure has been taken
from my shoulders.

Yet I read them, and they're not the same.  They summon the images in me,
but I feel, I KNOW, that they don't mean the same things to the others
that they do to me.

I know this, and it hurts.  It hurts to know that the the grand, sweeping
epics, the depth of despair and the heights of joy I can feel through my
words do not reach the others who read my words.

So I write more.  I write more and I hope that someday, somehow, I will
read my words and be able to feel, to KNOW, that they reach others the way
they do me.

***

You wanted to know what I go through when I write?  That's it.

Christopher Angel
cja124@mail.usask.ca