Once upon a time there was a man who used to write but didn't any longer. He hadn't written anything for a very long time. He used to think of wonderful stories peopled by brave and enduring characters, and thrilling adventures in far-off lands. Tales of magic, danger, and courage. Tales of clockwork superheros, oracular children with hanted eyes, gun-toting, trash-talking heroines and dinosaur-hunting cowboy space-ninjas.
But sadly, that was all in the past. It had been so long since he'd actually written anything that he'd forgotten how to do it. When he tried to use his imagination to dream up a story, his mind simply shuddered and ground to a halt like a piece of rusted machinery. Soon he began to forget words altogether, saying "nice" when he really mean "wondrous" or "bad" when he meant "hellish". The sentences that fell from his lips became pitiful, shrivelled little gray things where once they had been intricate and beautiful curlicues of thought and expression intertwined.
Eventually he struggled to communicate at all and just said "um" or "er" a lot, then he resorted to pointing at things and grunting or simply shrugging his shoulders in dumb resignation.
Eventually the man sat in a chair, alone and mute. The words had left him, the beautiful thoughts and stories had left him, and all he could do was sit and stare as blankly as a dead fish, his mind a blank expanse of empty grey with no beginning and no end. His head filled with nothing but the soft hiss of white noise and the absence of stories.
Awww so sad.
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