Le Mot Juste

Loose leaves rustle. The gray light of evening dips and sways and night closes in. Gone are the jays and the wagtails, the harbingers of better days. No fancy gadgets, just a jar of pencils newly sharpened. The clatter of a typewriter haunts the silence, like a woodpecker probing for nutrition, finding little. Curtains flutter. She's shabbily dressed and thin. A lonely candle sputters as she struggles. Notes and erasers jostle for position, still no inspiration to brighten her face. Coffee and cigarettes, vodka and tears, and none will curb her fears of ever grasping white from black, light from limbo, the curse of the damned, the never land that has her jammed. One word, one spark of enlightenment nudges her back. Excitement whacks her like a sharp evening breeze, and her fingers are dancing all over the keys.