Cold

The tea was cold, having sat untouched for hours while I typed. One word after another. One sentence followed the previous. Until I'd delete it all and start again.

I sipped the tea, then spit it back into my cup. I'd steep another pot, maybe after I hit a thousand words. Maybe eight hundred. Five would barely be work. God damn, they just wouldn't come.

I saved my unchanged file for the seventeenth time -- gotta love prime numbers -- and paced around the house. The curtains weren't closed properly so I straightened them. The washing machine had finished so I transferred the clothes to the dryer. The phone showed two recent calls so I scrolled through the call log until the blinky-green light turned off.

My watch must have been wrong. Had to have been less than an hour since I typed a meaningful sentence of text. Had to.

The phone rang. I should've let the machine take the call, but I could afford another ten minutes. My father. He wanted me to bring him chips. I told him no, his blood pressure was too high. We argued. I ultimately agreed to bring him popcorn.

Thirty minutes less in my time slot. I had to make at least three hundred words or I couldn't even count it as writing.

With the kettle filled and plugged in, I rinsed out the tea pot and dropped in another bag. I watched it fall to the bottom. What little water remained as residue at the bottom of the empty pot seeped into the bag and coloured itself pink. Cranberry tea. It was my last line of defence on a wordless day.