Musing Out

I didn't know what to write today. Really, now. I didn't. That's what my mind was thinking all day. Hell, it was thinking like this for almost a week now. Frankly, I was getting tired of it, but it looked as if today was going to be the same.

I guess that's what happens when nothing interesting happens in your life. Lately life seems to look like an endless loop of the following:

• wake up
• prep for your day
• work (on a work day)
• get your off-day plans with people botched
• sleep

Once you're stuck in a routine like that, living just seems... well, dull.

"That's because you're making life dull."

I looked around to see who could have said that. No one in sight. It confused me - I was seated at a table located at a secluded part my local library. From where the table was situated, I could hear nothing but the sounds from my headphones and the footsteps of anyone walking towards my presence.

As I looked to the left, I tried to pinpoint the possible origin of the sentence. The voice didn't carry an echo, which meant that nobody was yelling at me from a distance. There was no intercom sound, and there was nobody else in the secluded section of the library except for me. After thinking for some time, I thought of what Spock said from the 2009 Star Trek movie:

"If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

So, if we were to remove the factors of physical manifestation and instead pull in every possibility of the sentence's origin, we could solve this. Seeing as how there's no physical manifestation of anything that could have said that, then that would mean -

"Thaaat's right. Me again."

That came from my right. I turned back to my laptop and saw a woman sitting on the table next to my stuff. It was my Unnamed Muse wearing a set of U.S. Navy service khakis for... gods know what reason. She looked down on me with a semi-piercing stare and a half-smile that screamed "malicious intent."

"It's been a while, Josh... around eight months or so. How the hell have you been doing?"

I shook my head and looked at the laptop screen. After about three seconds of silence, I let off an apathetic "Eh."

She let off a small chuckle. "'Eh,' eh? Sounds like I was right."

"About what?"

"You making your life dull."

I looked back up at her. Yeah, my life had been pretty dull as of late. Getting stuck at work and then having off-days that got wasted for a number of reasons - that would make life seem boring. But I couldn't have been the sole cause...

She smoothed her khaki pants and got off the table. "Trust me - it's you. Or rather: your reaction to how bad things got to make life dull." She pulled up a chair and sat herself next to my right side, gazing at my laptop. "Writing today's entry, I take it?"

I would have said "yes," but there was nothing on the screen.

She smiled and looked at me. "I'll take your lack of a response as a "I'm trying to."

I slowly began to type a sentence, but midway through, I stopped. As much as I wanted to focus on writing something (anything, really), her words were starting to bug me. I held the backspace button to erase the unfinished stream of thought and quizzically looked at my muse.

She arched her eyebrow as her expression changed to one of amusement. "Trying to figure out what I meant about 'you making your life dull,' I take it?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I get what you mean - I let the little things get to me, and it spoils part of my day. I know that, but it's a near-constant that I'm aware of. So why do you need to tell me again?"

"Because you're letting today's spoiling affect your ability to post an entry."

"Of course," I began to protest. "There's nothing here right now. I can't think of anything; I can't concentrate on fun; I have jack squat thought up. I mean, the weather's not even cooperating with me."

"Oh, really?" She gave me a look of disbelief. "Look outside and tell me what you see."

I looked through the window and saw a sunny sky. Roughly two hours ago there was nothing but melancholic clouds hanging above the world. Now there were only a few.

"Don't tell me you were going to let the weather 'force' you to write some bullshit 'Blank Day 6' post."

I stayed silent and kept looking outside.

She merely shook her head in response. "Honestly, I don't know how I'm still working for you sometimes. You have your moments where your head's in the clouds and you just won't shut up, whether it's with your voice or your typed-out words. And then there's moments like these where I'd contemplate leaving to find better employment opportunities." She let off a light yawn and switched her tone of voice to a taunting one. "I'm pretty sure there's some creative genius out there who could use my support instead of a washed-out has-been who can't even write one frakking blog entry right."

At those last words, I looked back at her, glaring. Admittedly, I knew she was only pushing my buttons just to see if she could set me off, but I fell for the taunt anyway.

She smirked as she adjusted her collar. "Well, that woke you up."

I kept glaring daggers. "What do you want from me." (That's not a typo; I sounded more like I was demanding an answer from her rather than asking.)

"Nothing." She cleared her throat and continued: "Well, one thing, really. I just want your fighting spirit back in action. Boring entries mean no spark of life in your writing. No spark of life means I don't have a job." She glanced upwards for a bit, and then she looked back at me. "I like having a job. It lets me help you with yours."

I was dumbfounded. "...how does your 'employment' help me at Tar-"

"Your writing, genius." She threw her right hand in front of her face and shook her head into it.

"Oh. Uhm... right." I scratched my head and looked away.

"Idiot." She let off a quick, heartwarming laugh before continuing her train of thought. "So, Boss: what do you have planned for today's entry?"

I turned to face my laptop screen. There just had to be something I could write about. Five days of boring crap preceding this... I couldn't afford to put a sixth on here. I hovered my hands over the keyboard, waiting for a thought to come across my mind so I could type it.

Just when I was about to give up for that moment, I looked outside and noticed a cloud giving way to the sun. As my eyes got disoriented from the brightness, a spark went off inside my head. I turned back to the computer and began to type something out. One word became two... two became six... six became a sentence... that sentence began a paragraph... my hands wouldn't stop.

My muse sat there with a satisfied smile that seemed to say, "Glad I was able to do my job." She looked on and watched me type. As she read, her overconfidence and victorious smirk began to be replaced with a worried look and a luminescent blush. "W-What are you typing?"

I stopped writing and looked back at her with a poker face. "Nothing. Just our little discussion. I thought it'd be better than reading boring old crap. If anything, this can be seen as a bit of a life lesson. Sometimes, when you've brought yourself to a low point, you just have to help yourself out of it - especially if you're the one who jumped into the pit in the first place."

"Well, yes, but... but this!?"

I arched an eyebrow. "Yeah, 'this.' What's the matter? The last time you and I talked like this, you didn't even give a frak that we were having a discussion posted on my blog for the whole universe to see."

She almost looked embarrassed. "W-Well, that was because... because I was drunk!"

"'Drunk?' Psh; as if." I let off a cackle. "You had one beer. Gods, and I thought I had a low alcohol tolerance limit, you featherweight. What's got you flabbergasted all of a sudden?"

"N-Nothing! W-Well... uh, w-why're you..." Her stammering failed to net out one decent response, and that just caused me to roar with laughter. I couldn't recall the last time I had seen her so flustered.

An angry "SHH!" echoed from across the room.

My muse and I immediately shut up and looked across and saw a frowning librarian standing there with her index finger over her mouth - the universal symbol for "shut up, you idiot." Despite nobody else being in the room, I felt an embarrassed blush crawl in my cheeks - the kind a grade-schooler would get when they were singled out in class and humiliated. After staring me down for a second or two she rolled her eyes in annoyance and walked away.

I looked back at my laptop screen and continued typing this entry out. After another paragraph made its way onto the screen, I looked over to my muse. She had her left arm propped up on the table and had her face buried in her hand.

She shook her head. "...idiot."

"You hush."