Writers write, because the story...

They were just words. Words smudged into the frosted glass of this room's solitary window. Clarity within the opaque, crystalline tendrils.

He sits behind his desk. Pen in hand. Staring at the etchings, letting them burn into his mind.

Many thoughts flow. All of them, pieces. Parts. Cogs and screws of a greater machine. But none of them captured the whole, in simplicity.

Writers write, because the story...

Needs their hands.

Needs their soul.

Needs their acknowledgment.

Wants to be told.

So he stared. And stared. And stared.

It was a frustrating exercise. He fumbled with it every time he stumbled. When the words wouldn't come. When his back tightened and his feet furiously tapped on the hard wooden floor. Or his hands clenched and unfolded. An impasse. Not gentle. Not kind. Infuriating.

He laughs. 'What would become of me if I ever figured it out? If I didn't have this to infuriate me more than... this, fucking wall, how would I scale it?'

He smiles. It's an ironic display. Appearing as he gazes over the blank page before him. For three days the flow just stopped. Not like listening to music on a car radio when someone switches the channel. No, that he could deal with. Putting those words to parchment to save for a later day. This was more like watching TV when the picture suddenly goes static. 'At least then you could listen to the hiss.'

His eyes gaze back to the glow. The broken picture in the letters bluish grey. Brown. Cold. No green.

Writers write, because the story...

A sudden breeze causes the branches to waver. His eyes wander.

Seven books on a shelf. All alone. Away from the others. They're his. The stories that found him. He never read their reviews. He had heard they were horrible. Still, four of them made the top ten list in sales for over a month. So those epitaphs never mattered to him. Not that they would have anyway, never once had he thought, 'writers write, because the story... needs to boost my ego.'

He stands up and crosses the room. On a small stand under the shelf, there's a stack of papers. Neatly sorted.

And right there on the top is a sight to make him howl in maniacal laughter.

The words had stopped because they had already been written.