BLOCK

The phone rang. It was Frieda, with an invitation to escort her to a roller disco.
"I'm not a roller disco kinda guy," Jock replied gruffly, and dropped the phone back into its cradle.

Outside it was cloudy. Jock made coffee. Halfway through drinking it, he remembered he was 'caffeine sensitive.'
"Fuck it," he said and finished the mug off. Then he screamed and shattered the mug on the tiled floor.

Frieda phoned again. She was 'concerned' about him, quote-unquote.
"Concern yourself with something more mysterious," he advised her.

Because there was no mystery anymore. The visions had dried up. He hadn't felt the sober chill of a winter sunrise yet; he slept all day and barely wrote anything.

"Dammit, Frieda, come back to me," he murmured to himself. It was midnight, pouring with rain. He stood staring at the phone, aghast. The four walls of the rooms were obscene in their oppressiveness. He had sat staring at a fresh slice of paper all day, clasping a biro. Poised, agitated. Trying to channel a feeling or some sort of vision. Nothing.

Nothing. Just blackness. An insurmountable feeling of lethargy and hopelessness. He tried to wrack his brain. Somewhere in there the writing lay dormant, waiting to be excavated from his subconsciousness.

He didn't know what he should write. What should he write, dammit? He didn't know. What did writers write? Writers were... clever... He wasn't clever, dammit. Here he was affecting to be a writer and he wasn't even smart enough to defend himself.

Intellectual warfare. It was...
The phone rang.
"Frieda?" he asked, hopefully.
"No," a blunt male voice answered. Jock began sobbing and shrieking hysterically. He knocked himself over the skull with the receiver a few times and then smashed it against the wall. The he administered the same treatment to the cradle of the phone, rendering it a mess of cracked and splintered plastic. A surge of euphoric catharsis overwhelmed him and he collapsed, exhausted and calm. His tears twinkled under the single bare lightbulb. The doorbell rang.

He composed himself and slowly opened the door, red-eyed and sniffling. Frieda stood there, shy and beautiful as ever. He wanted to lay his trembling hands on her but found he couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to spoil such an untainted vision of sheer beauty. She coughed and smiled slightly.