The Command

The command is to write - but every day you wake up saying to yourself: "I can't write, I was never taught, my fingers are illiterate appendages of a cheap Japanese laptop, my mind is too oddly shaped it has no dustcover its pages have wormholes holes that smaller worms fall through." Every day the same old thing, and a plasma screen mocks you, mocks your open slack mouth, your dull eyes, the slow grinding inertia of every thought. The command is insistent, it prods the soft belly of your cringing ego, demands a pound of flabby words be made flesh, and so, you tap random keys listlessly until another string of consciousness unwinds itself into a last line, that if not memorable, yet at least will not live long enough to disgrace you.