Pick Your Poison

 I wrote this story a while back. I was thinking about the poor men/boys that have died playing MMORPGs and other video games for days on end, while abusing stimulant drinks such as Monster or Redbull. Seems that sitting in one place for too long without food or water and minimal bathroom breaks will literally kill you.

Everything in moderation. Think of all the vice out there. Anything in excess could kill you.

Pick Your Poison

Titus spins scissors around his index finger, waiting for words to form in his mind. He has made himself tea, watched a few videos on YouTube and created a playlist on ITunes awaiting inspiration. He has a paper due in three day and can’t begin to find a topic to write about. He balances his pencil on his fingertip for a time and then holds the pencil between his thumb and index finger and shakes it slowly until it looks as if it’s made of rubber. Finally Titus gives up and sets his head down on his desk.

            The Chiclet like buttons that make up his keyboard begin to click in succession. He looks up, startled, as a tiny woman glides over the white letter tiles. She hops on the chosen letter with both feet to produce a result on the screen. Titus can’t take his eyes off the dainty woman. The color of her skin and hair is vivid and seems to sparkle with the faint light of the screen.

            She comes to rest on the period key, both feet together with her hands clenched behind her back rocking up and down on her tip-toes with a giant grin. Her teeth are ivory white and perfectly aligned. “I’m your muse,” reads the screen in twelve point Times New Roman font. A raised eyebrow precedes the head shake, eye rub then squint from Titus. He stands and walks to the side of his desk. The muse turns with a hop and walks heel to toe down the length of the spacebar, with her arms out wide tilting left and right maintaining her balance playfully stopping at the Alt key.

            “Amazing!” Titus said with a cupped hand muffling his speech. The little woman nods spritely. Instantly Titus sits on his swivel chair. The urgency he felt in his heart to write was near painful. He had so much bottled up inside he had to express. He started with his first-time attempt at a love story. It was a rough outline but was complete in less than an hour. Then he moved on to a mystery. He had the ending and plot twist in his head before the characters formed on paper. He looked at his muse sitting atop his screen swinging her crossed ankles back and forth, her small fingers laced together in her lap.

            Titus shakes his hands out and cracks his knuckles. He looks to the corner of his screen. It’s past two o'clock in the morning. “One more paragraph,” he says to himself. He rubs his eyes and begins to tap away at the white squares under his fingertips. The muse moves from one end of the screen to the other with youthful grace. She sits again cross-legged, still with her hands in her lap. She looks as jovial as she did fourteen hours ago.

            Titus does not move from his chair. He has never felt like this before. He is making so much progress and all of the work is good. He imagines himself accepting multiple awards for his future novels. He is driven, rubbing his red eyes he smiles at his muse. Her smile has become a smirk. She raises a mischievous eyebrow at him. He shakes his head and looks again. She is serene as ever and Titus is contented. He continues to work.

            The sun peeks through the window as Titus finishes rereading his first story. The lovers’ plight seems unrealistic. He begins to make changes to the book. He chops and cuts. He curses as he sees the whole of the plot crumbling under closer scrutiny. “How can he meet her at the carousel if they weren’t at the circus during their prom?” he looks to the muse. She shrugs sweetly with a quick flick of her tail. Titus tries to recall his early encounter with the muse. Something seems different.

            The moonlight reflects off of the pond in his front yard. He yawns but can’t stop. The story must be perfect. Titus notices the muse has made her way to his shoulder. She is purring in his ear like a housecat. The soothing noise helps relax Titus. He continues to work through the unbearable exhaustion. The presence of the magical creature makes the burden less cumbersome. His words are still flowing onto paper but every time he reads them over they don’t make sense.

            Again the sun has snuffed out the star lit night. The glare on the water of the pond burns his black-ringed eyes. He pulls the shade and continues to type. The muse begins to walk along Titus’s hunched neck. The massaging of tiny feet along his shoulders and spine bring his goal back into focus. He has moved past the love story, which became a suspense novel which became a horror novel. “Who would have guessed the girlfriend was a cannibal?” Titus asks, mostly of himself.

            Hours later Titus checks the bottom corner of his screen. His heart sinks. The story he has written a dozen or more times was due yesterday. He looks to the keyboard. It is covered in dried blood, his fingers capped with scabs. He stands quickly enough to make the room spin and feels faint. He notices his tongue is swollen, his eyes are dry and can’t be closed. He tries to yell but air won't pass his useless tongue. He tries to walk to the door but his body will not comply. He collapses to his chair and weakly turns off the monitor in front of him and peers into the black screen. He has aged what looks to be a hundred years. His hair has fallen out in clumps and his teeth are rotted or missing.

            The faint chuckle from his shoulder sends shivers down his frail spine. Titus nearly forgot about the muse. He turns to his left. Every hair on the back of his neck stands on end. There on his shoulder is an emaciated old demon with broken teeth. Its jaundiced eyes stare coldly into his. With a wicked shriek the demon claws at his face.

            Startled Titus bolts upright; saliva covers his right sleeve. He rubs his eyes, which close easily. His heart is racing in his chest but the realization that both hands are resting on the top of a thick haired scalp calmed him. The dark screen in front of him is identical to the dream except the reflection was the young student not the withered husk he previously thought. He looks about his room hastily, to his relief it is empty. He wiggles his mouse and the screen flashes to life. There in front of him is the sentence, “I’m your muse.”