Prison of Sentience

Empty.

A blank sheet of paper patiently awaited a pen to tickle its surface. Born from the death of a tree, a shell of a leaf, and a loose lump of essence, the page was particularly satisfied with its life so far. No doubt, its ancestors had held high hopes for what lay ahead for its destiny. It wished to be used as a tool. It dreamed of being successful, to live for its worthy ambition. Its purpose of life!

Silent and still, a bed of wood upheld the paper's dream. Waves and loops of age were visible on its skin. It, too, felt a cloud of pity for the paper bottling up in its non-sentient mind. A tub of anticipation to observe a worthy human finally set the paper free from its doubt of being a failure.

Yawning, a man in his thirties sat at his desk with his hands clutching his head like a boulder of rotten bread. Ideas trickled into his head but were drowned out by the screams he could hear storming every cell of his brain. Screams of trauma, screams of doubt.

To him, life seemed like an endless domino cycle of doubt, depression and distress.

"Ugh... Quiet down, you morons!" he threw a paste of anger-flavored words at the wall behind him. His own words bounced back from the concrete surfaces and annoyed his ears. A fact latched onto his current platter of logic, making him realize something important. His eyes seemed dimmer. "Right... I forgot.... You're not here."

A room bare as a newborn, except for his dutiful desk and charitable chair. His wallet remained crammed with due receipts in another room unspoken of. He owned no musical device, so the monotonous beats of rainfall were all that currently provided ambience for his task.

He wanted to write.

Unfortunately, memories of his past clung to his sensory perception, infecting sensitive areas of his psychological health. From sudden uncomfortable visions to auditory illusions, he almost gave up trusting his own thoughts and interpretations.

Petals of hatred glistened from flowers of emotional pain he had acquired over years of triumph. Passion fueled his hobby, but toxic friends and unsupportive parents ate away at any roads of fortune he built. He had been bullied just for loving to write.

A nerd, a geek, a lifeless zombie... He could've written a list of their abusive nicknames faster than he could produce a fruitful work of literature.

"Damn it!" he delivered a smashing blow to the wooden table with his fist. Logic. Emotion. Passion. He didn't know which one to choose. A fourth option poked at him from the shadows - Vengeance.

'No,' he thought, quickly fluctuating his frame of mind to a calmer octave. 'I don't wish to write and succeed to seek revenge on those who demotivated me. Rather, I myself should consider responsibility for everything. My scars and my shining stars. I am because I was.'

A caterpillar of pain throbbed and curled around his writing hand. Silently, the man tolerated the harvest of his own actions.

The wood where his fist struck remained visibly fine. No marks or signs of impact at all. On a subconscious level, though, pieces of the wood's soul ripped apart under the weight of its owner's hardship and mistreatment.

"Aaagh..." he clutched his forehead in the likeness of a Greek philosopher trapped in time, trying to rethink his life plans. "All my life, all I wanted was to create worlds and characters..."

A pen was sleeping beside the virgin paper. He turned his attention specifically towards that shaft of metal, plastic and ink.

"All I wanted was to weave life into my creations..." he muttered to people absent and invisible. "To let my readers enjoy them, to adopt them, nurture them..."

His chair involuntarily let out an anxious creak as he leaned forward to grab his pen.

"All I wanted was to be a good writer!"

His hand muscles whirred with motion - battling forces of excitement versus procrastination - positioning the pen's nib normally at the superficial whiteness of the piece of paper.

Both his mouth and his mind went mute for a moment.

A train of words were stationed in his mind, ready for departure out the gates of freedom. A pearl of sweat climbed down the ladder of his forehead cells. Hundreds of hours of melancholic memories were en route to being imprisoned by the call of hope. The call of duty. For something magnificently great.

The paper, the pen, the person - all three dreams united as one.

His eyes grew dimmer and his lips drooped downwards into a frown. Without any external context, he scribbled the following words :

"All I see are broken dreams."