Creative Claustrophobia

Two parallel walls of smooth, flakey-looking brick vanish together somewhere in the distance, but moving in either direction does not visibly shift the vanishing point on the horizon. 

The alley feels stale and dank. It is oppressive but not grungy or dirty

It is too illuminated to be night but too dark to be the day. There are no lamps or torches along the walls. 

The bricks are bare. Mundane. The walls do not sound hollow. 

There are no signs of posts or any posted signs.

There are no markings or numbers. 

No street art. 

There are no doors. The windows are too high and dark to reveal anything beyond the walls.

No stars, planets, or moons speckle the space high above, where the walls disappear into an inky swirl of shadow.

Moving forward, each footfall on uneven cobblestone echos softly as first. But with each step, the echos increases in rhythm and sound. But silence soon follows when the footfalls halt. There is no one in front or behind. And there remains nowhere to go but forward or back.

With the uniform brick and the lightless windows all the same, which way is actually forward.

The darkness from above spills over the tops of the walls. The inky shadow slowly trails over the brick as the ally narrows. 

A turn on the heel does nothing. It is just like running on a treadmill that moves which every way.

There is nowhere to go.

The shadow and brick close in…

The Writer startles herself awake with a slight gasp.

The late afternoon sun shines in from the western-facing window. Its hot kiss lands smoothly on her cheek before burning. In the summer, it would be right in her eye, but since it hangs in the winter sky farther to the south, it is set far enough back from her periphery to not blind, only to annoy.

She looks at the words on the page; they don't make sense like when she typed them earlier.

Even though the project's direction is clear and nears the end, there is a question about what she is doing.

What is she doing?

The Writer poured so much time and energy into the words that no longer make sense. She reads through them again.

Do they make sense?

They might if she just makes some tweaks.

How can she tell?

The Writer thinks about giving up but doesn't.

Will the project ever actually end?

A part of her system hopes it never does, but another part knows it will, one way or another. 

Things end and begin. That is how it works.

But, even in the end, the project is too much of her life. It is a defining feature of how the Writer engages with the world and how she fits in.

The Writer will never stop being the Writer. She at least knows that much. But as she pens the words that embody her thoughts at this moment, the sinking inky collapse sneaks back into her head.