Essay --

I blinked. The pencil drummed on the table erratically as my hand twitched, my knuckles feeling the trembling broken lead beneath my anxious thumb. The incessant tapping fell dull on my ears, but I earned more than one icy glance from classmates. The paper stared back at me, white and unyielding. My eyes were locked on its blankness, but I didn’t see. The faint blue lines blurred, and fabricated shadows danced before my unfocused eyes. My mind whirred; I could almost hear the gears struggling fruitlessly to turn without oil. I felt my heart stretch with the effort of keeping all the unsatisfied energy within. My fingers laced up through my hair and I pulled on the long curls, as if the prickling pain would help me think. A frustrated growl threatened to escape my throat, but I pushed it back down with a silent reminder that everyone was already irritated with me. The vague babbling from behind served as an ignored cue that a friend was trying vainly to communicate with me. From experience I knew that after a moment, she would mutter, â€Å"You can’t hear anything I’m saying, can you?† and give up on trying to reach me. That was fine by me. The whole of the world was a distraction; I couldn’t afford any individual pulls from my work. As it was, a song hummed distantly in my mind, begging me to draw it closer. My pencil adopted the beat and I frowned. I studied my hands, the tendons tense beneath the surface, knuckles jutting out sharply, and scratches splitting pale skin. Instinctively, I drew one up to my mouth and began to gnaw on an abused and ragged fingernail, feeling my braces click, metal on metal. I noticed my habit, but did nothing to stop. A thousand thousand thoughts sauntered across the surface of my sanity, mocking... ...ped a bucket of cold water over my sleeping chimera. The sound of my pencil’s knocking bounced off the walls of my consciousness and echoed back into my ears. Words of description flashed before my eyes, leading me on towards the light. My paper’s utter blankness ceased mocking me, and held promise instead of contempt. I felt the words there, written in ink only I could see, waiting, waiting for me. I felt a smile push the corners of my mouth up and my pencil began to fly across the paper, soft whispering noises floating up to me like a song, the gentle proof that I had broken down the walls around my creativity. â€Å"The pencil drummed on the table erratically as my hand twitched†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I almost laughed aloud. I couldn’t stop now if I wanted to. â€Å"I’ve got it,† I called over my shoulder. â€Å"Yeah? What?† my friend leaned forward absently. I smiled. â€Å"Writer’s block.†