Knots

Written 57-B27 [2025-09-13], Edited 57-B27 [2025-09-13]

Image credit: Twitter Twemoji

The would-be novelist was tying himself in knots while staring at his screen.

“Oh right, a story about a guy starting at a screen written by a guy staring at a screen how original,” he lamented, to nobody but himself.

He looked at a plot outline created by his past self. “65 planned chapters,” the writer shouted to the wall. “Which is to say 64 + 1, which is 2⁶ + 1, which is supposedly clever because it’s a power of two plus one but goddamn, they’re all chapters about people staring at screens and yapping in offices about bits and bytes!”

A fly landed on the would-be author’s wireless keyboard and he threw the keyboard out the window. In a fit of rage he throw his iPad out the window as well.

He looked out the window and glared at the broken electronics on the pavement. “Who gives a shit anyway!” he yelled. “It’s all in the cloud!”

Then he ran out the door without locking it, jumped down the stairs to the basement, pulled his bike to the ground entrance and tried to get the damn thing out the door. It was always a struggle because bike was longer than the platform on the midpoint of the stairwell.

In a shocked moment he noticed he had an untied shoelace. But it was already too late, he stepped on it and fell down the stairs, along with the bike, breaking three bones and tearing his flesh apart before he even reached the bottom.

“Goddamn it!” he yelled as blood pooled around him. “I just wanted to touch grass fuck fuck fuck!”

Feedback from the Joy of Writing group

• When the narrator fell, “I thought [he] died”

Notes

This was written in 10 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.