Friday, May 13, 2005

A true story

There had to be something that could fill that space. That small white space, staring up at him, mockingly, just daring him to touch his pen there and write something. The pen stayed where it was, poised in midair, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Long minutes passed with neither side giving an inch.

What was so hard about this anyway? It was just a birthday card. Write a bland wish for a happy birthday and sign your name. Easy as that. Nobody expects a perfectly-written note on a birthday card, and most people just sign it and leave it at that.

Still the pen hovered, the hand holding it beginning to tremble slightly from being held motionless for so long. The brain running the whole deal processed combinations of words that could easily fill the space, but none of them seemed right.

The white space smirked smugly. Nothing was going to fill that space, that little bit of space between the message on the card and the UPC. Why had he gotten one of those novelty cards that don’t open instead of a traditional card with a lot of space to write in? Large spaces are easier to fill, there’s no need to be concise. This space was too small for any type of personality to show through, despite his best efforts to force it.

The hand twitched and set the pen down on the table. The white space laughed out loud, hurling abuse towards the hand’s owner, who was by now pacing around the room, mind still trying to figure out what to write.

The trick was to be concise. Had he ever purposely been concise? Sprawling tracts of text were more his style when he wanted to write something with any degree of detail, and that was coming back to bite him now. With the problem seemingly figured out, it should be simple to compress his thoughts into a line or two and then show that space who’s boss.

The pen hung above the space once more. It still made no move, and the space was obviously not intimidated. If it could yawn derisively, it would be doing it right now.

The pen was set down once more.

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