Dear Blinking Cursor,
Yes, I see you. I know that you sit there waiting. “Great things are to come,” you seem to telegraph as if you were an 18th century Morse code. My head spins with stories. They have since I was tadpole-like in my ability. I have scattered words from there to here and yet, you still blink.
I’m no Euripides. No one will probably be reading this tangled web of beautiful lies I spin thousands of years from now. I will not be quoted and misquoted on Facebook like Mark Twain when all that’s left of me is dust.
And yet, you blink. Eager to be fed.
Do you not know I have a kid who needs another glass of milk? A husband with lips made just for kissing? Do you not see my hands full of bags of cat food?
You relentlessly wait. Wearing at my mind. I close my eyes and yet you are there. I’m renaming you Godot. Curse you, cursor, and your all-the-time-in-the-world stare at me.
Sometimes I imagine that you’re the entrance to a black hole. If I could just unlock you, the words would come out on their own. It’d be so easy. Less effort. Less feeling like I was letting you down. Tap into the deep part of my brain, o blinking one. Release the wild things.
I’m so tired of disappointing. I picked up this perfection mantle at age 10 and have been unable to drop it. It is tattered, frayed and worn. I want to do it all, be it all, see it all, taste it all. Yet it leads to nothing.
The whispers I ignore tell me that I’m a writer. I was meant to tell those stories. But the siren’s call (the loud kind, not the irresistible one) of life’s essentials pulls me away from you, cursor. There’s piles of laundry to tackle, dishes to clean, a dog to wash, bills to pay, and floors to vacuum.
Life happened while I was busy making plans to return to you.
Don’t give up on me, please. There are tales that I need to tell you of chickens that live on the roofs of odd buildings. I long to lose myself to chasing you across the page. I ache for there to be more and more and more words that follow you like Orpheus chased Eurydice. Were that my ending were not so tragic.
I like to think I’d give up so much just to please you. I’d sacrifice time and effort and energy. Yet, I’m spent. There are days when I can barely lift my thought process beyond survival.
Could you wait? Or will this be like the pot of water that’s been left to boil on the stove too long? Empty. Charred. Will my words burn away and be of no use to anyone? Will you keep blinking your slow, patient S.O.S. that calls to me? I want to be like my author heroes. I want to stick to a page until the story unfolds. I want to chase you from here to the end. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is so weak. I binge watch old TV shows as you sit in a sea of white. I play games on my phone to drown out the noise of your silent requests.
Don’t lose hope, little cursor. Together we will do great things. Perhaps we will attack them like they did on D-Day. A full-scale invasion will march forth and you will not have blinked in vain.
Too much?
Then I’ll be truthful.
Please wait. I’m coming. In the snatches of time before falling asleep. In between the rush and bustle of the every day, you and I will dance. I will find the quiet times to put thoughts to words, inaction to action, and magic to paper.
And it will be beautiful.
About the author: Tabitha Grace Challis
Tabitha is a social media strategist, writer, blogger, and professional geek. Among her published works are the children’s books Jack the Kitten is Very Brave and Machu the Cat is Very Hungry, both published under the name Tabitha Grace Smith. A California girl (always and forever) she now lives in Maryland with her husband, son, and a collection of cats, dogs, and chickens. Find out more about her on her Amazon author page or follow her on Twitter: @Tabz.