Leifker presents...

Writer's Block

A R.O.D. fanfic by Nicholas Leifker

R.O.D. created by Hideyuki Kurata; I make no claim to the characters 
contained herein.  All rights reserved.  I ask that you not do anything 
with any part of this fanfic without permission.

Spoiler warnings.  If you haven't seen up to about episode 16 or 17 of 
ROD TV, this probably isn't for you.  Then again, if you don't care 
about spoilers, maybe it is.

***

The screen shows a brilliant white, an obnoxious field in what would 
otherwise be darkness.  Nothing on the lines, nothing showing in my 
head, no stories floating in the ether.  Just a field of whites and 
grays; no sharp blacks to carve a story from.

Looks like another long night of nothing.

Is this what my life�s come to?  God, I�ve even forgotten how to dream! 
  It�s the same damn thing every night - a white screen and a 
clean-slate mind.  The dreams just aren�t there - and the stories 
aren�t, either.  This feels so much like death.

Aw, hell.  Call a spade a spade; this is death.  Every writer I�ve 
talked to speaks of the writing bug like a drug: they hate its torment, 
but couldn�t imagine it going away.  It�s the little demon on our 
shoulder, whispering these ideas in our ears as we write them down in 
our thrall.  I talked with a couple who�d �died� of writer�s block; 
every word they spoke was hollow, without the spark I�d seen from other 
writers.

And now I�m among the deceased.  A ghost.

What would you give for a night to last forever?  To feel the fire in 
your heart, every moment of that night, and to know that it would never 
let go?  She was so excited that night, going on about her friend and 
how she was about to have a baby; she positively glowed that night.  
She wondered what the child would be like, whether she�d ever have a 
baby of her own, all the things normal girls do when it comes to 
babies.  (Personally, I never saw the point; writing books was a lot 
more fun than some crying poop machine, anyway.)  She waved goodbye 
with a smile; I went back to my computer, and finished the revisions to 
my last book.

She didn�t come by the next day, or the next, or the next.  I went to 
her apartment; dust gathered on her precious books.  I searched her old 
haunts - Jinbou-cho practically worships her - but found nothing, save 
whispers and rumour.  The screen stayed pristine white after I trudged 
home that night, and it has stayed clean ever since.

Sometimes I wonder why I do this.  I stare at a screen all night, 
waiting for some word to come out - something to bring it all back.  
Sometimes I�ll actually type a word - last week it was �bakery� - and 
hope that others gravitate around it, but none come.

No.  My words gravitated around her.  She exuded the chaos that made 
the words flow freely.  She came to me because of my gift... but she 
gave me my gift, and developed it far beyond what any class or 
instruction could give.  She forced me to live; she was my first kiss 
and, though not in a way others would understand, my first love.  Her 
life fueled the insanity that became my writing.  And in her absence, 
the papers have settled to the ground, their animation gone.

Some people wait by the window for the ones they love.  I wait here.  I 
wait for her to come by, with her adventures of far-off places and 
magical books, with her heroes and villains and stories every child is 
weaned on.  I wait for her to come and give me my words back, so I can 
give those words back in turn.  The computer screen is my window, and I 
wait for her.

I wait for her to come home - so the paper can dance again.

***

Nicholas Leifker
nightelf@thekeep.org
http://www.thekeep.org/~nightelf/fanfic
July 14, 2004

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