Still Feeling My Way Around This Wall

Past 36,000 words which means that since it's the 16th, I can write fewer than 1000 words a day for the next 14 days I could write fewer than 1000 words per day and finish by the 30th. Wild.

Annnd every word written the past couple days has been a struggle, has been steps in absolutely no direction. On Friday I had a revelation taking me somewhere but that path quickly closed. Now all that comes to me is the first lines for other things (I want to write a story that starts, "Yeah, it's true, when Bobby was a young kid, he killed some dude." I don't know why, but the feel of that opening line is attractive. Conversational, confessional. There's no story beyond that. I don't know who Bobby is, nor who the narrator is, but for some reason, I want to write that story.)

So, now, I'm going to go find something that will pass for an excerpt for the day.

He rises to his knees, kneels, in front of what used to be in front of the altar. Thinks about praying, thinks about his mother praying, thinks about his mother, not able to find anything in his room. How would she feel now, here, in this world, where there was seemingly nothing left to find? Would it drive her mad? Nothing to organize, nothing to tidy, but at the same time, nothing to lose, nothing to be lost, nothing to create any sort of chaos. Somehow, the ultimate in orderliness had been created, and here Dot was, stuck in the middle of it, without any idea.

And so he does pray, kneeling there, in the dust, in the dirt, amidst the splinters and fragments of what used to be a church. It didn't matter, he tells himself, that the church is no longer there. If God is anywhere, then God is everywhere. If God is anywhere. Dot has his doubts. Dot has all of his doubts, and wonds if they are the only thing that remain untouched. Like cockroaches and tax collectors, his doubts (and apparently himself) are the only things to survive the apocalypse.

He stops himself there. Was this the apocalypse? Has he decided that that's what has happened? Had the ultimate battle between good and evil transpired as foretold in revelations? Certainly, the landscape looked scarred as if by battle, but why then was he the only one around? Who had won? If it was the apocalypse, did it matter if he prayed? If it wasn't, did it matter anyway?

No matter, he thinks. No matter at all. I will pray anyway, and if God isn't around, then the Devil can laugh at me. It would be refreshing to hear a different voice laughing at him, so used to hearing God's laughter was he. So used to hearing God laugh.

So he prays. Prays for knowledge, understanding, strength and willpower. All the things he had ever prayed for in his life, leaving out his usual plea for world peace as the world seemed beyond that now. Seemed beyond praying for now. Seemed, somehow, at peace now anyhow. He thinks of other things to pray for. To pray about. His family? Who knows where they are? Who knows who they are? He throws them into the mix. His friends? Where are they now? He prays for his friends, a generic prayer, let them be well, or let them be at peace, let them be whoever they happen to be. Anything else? He can't remember, he can't decide, decides he is done with prayer. Forever? For today, at least. Done with prayer for today.

He rises to his feet, feels enclosed by the ghost of the church. Feels enclosed for the first time since. Since when? Since what? How long has he been as such? This question haunts him. This question will haunt him. How can he have no concept of time? He always felt that as long as he was alive that there would be time left and now it feels as if there is no time left. As if time has fled the world. And he checks his pocket watch and yes, it still works, is still measuring time, but it its own master, it ticks as it will, it does not determine time. It is possibly measuring imaginary time. It is probably measuring nothing.