The blank page sat in front of me, taunting me. I scowled.

“Are you finished yet, my love?” called my Weft. I chose to ignore them at the moment. I hadn’t come up with a single idea, nor even started the loom in question. Meanwhile, my Weft went on, weaving threads of lives and connections as a perfect rendition of my latest template.

I pushed away from the drawing desk, and instead spun around to stare at the walls around me. Tapestries of all shapes, sizes, and colors hung from the crown moldings. My favorite pieces that we, my Weft and I, had created. Depictions of the worlds we created together. Stars in unique skies twinkling over a small town, a great warrior holding their quarry overhead in front of an adoring crowd, a mother cuddling her baby.

The strings wove into each other with perfect detail. My ideas, my Weft’s artistry. All I had to do was come up with an idea, share my idea with my Weft, and create the Warps for the loom. And I hadn’t been able to do that.

Their presence behind me was always something I felt in my chest before I detected with my physical form.

“My Warp, did you hear me?” they called again. I sighed. “Oh, have you begun another story already?” There they went, assuming I was able to create. That I was able to churn idea after idea out of me like some sort of automatic process, like all I had to do was copy what was in front of me. I scowled and crossed my arms, but didn’t turn around. As I stared at a tapestry that depicted a silhouetted couple of lovers against a backdrop of a purple and blue glowing sea, I listened to my Weft circle my work station. For some reason, it brought out a sour jealousy in my chest. “Where is the piece?” Every word from them made me clench my teeth. They hadn’t noticed my tension, my silence. My irritation. They hadn’t looked at me at all. If they had, they wouldn’t have continued speaking, “I finished the other tapestry.” The sounds of papers shifting. “I wanted to show it to you. I added a few details. I also changed a color or two, because I thought it would look a little better. I wanted to see what you thought.”

The couple depicted in the tapestry in front of me was so small. It was just a scene from a world we created, where they felt like the only thing that mattered was one another. They were a depiction from an entire world of sentient beings with thoughts, feelings, lovers, lives. I showed it all through this one scene. I selected each shade. Each color. I determined the size of what image, how large the bugs in the background to the textures of their skin. I secured the spots for the threads my Weft was meant to weave. Me.

“Why does it matter, if you finished it already?” I finally answered my companion. My words were taut, like strings on a loom, ready for tamping.

“My Warp, where is your drawing?” came their question again. I finally spun around, unable to contain the growing rage in my chest.

“Why do you need a drawing if you’re just going to change it?” Now it was they who didn’t turn around. They just stood at my desk, sifting through my papers, noting their emptiness. The uninspired blankness of me sitting there for an endless amount of time, waiting for an idea to lift me. Now my supposed lover, the one that helped me create so much, stood there, unimpressed.

“Hm?” Finally, after they spent so much time calling for my attention, I caught theirs. They turned to face me. “Lover, are you upset?” Such a stupid question. It shocked my very core into stillness. I stared at them incredulously, waiting for my anger to speak for me. But a melancholy weight began its way down my senses. They never noticed I couldn’t create this entire eternity. They never noticed my absence, my lack of life. They created, contented and inspired, while I wasted away. And in the entire birth and death of that world, I hadn’t even existed.

My scowl softened, but I could tell the fury in my face remained just by my lover’s expression.

“How about you make your own cartoon, your own loom, and stretch your own Warp?” And instead of worry or confusion, curiosity stitched into my companion’s features. “Since you are such an expert at every part of the process, you don’t need me to create worlds. Clearly.” The edge in my tone finally brought my Weft up to speed.

“Where is this coming from?”

And that was precisely the problem.

“The fact that you don’t even know is why I will not be creating anymore. You’re on your own.”