A writer's stream

There was a writer, and she did not know what to write about.

There was a writer, and she looked around.

She saw a child scale a closed school gate with a red backpack dangling from one elbow. She wrote about that.

She passed by a millipede, kicked it aside, and wrote about that.

She bought a bottle of cold water, drew a line down its glistening coat of condensation with her finger, watched the bottom droplet stagger its way down the bottle, and wrote about that too.

She paused by a large puddle of water, tapped at it with the toe of her shoe, and watched the ripples. She imagined she saw five other writers dancing behind her, each peering down at the puddle. She wrote about that.

She saw a squashed yellow flower on the road and wrote about that.

She looked up as a young man on a bicycle zipped past her. He turned his head to look at her for a second before turning back to look ahead. She smiled at the back of the receding figure. She stood there smiling at him, not quite knowing why, until he was out of sight. She wrote about that.

She went inside her house and slammed the door shut. The sound made her jump and look at the door for a moment, and she wrote about that too.

She lay the wrong way down on her bed and ran her toe along the bedpost, and she wrote about that.

There was a writer and she lay the wrong way down on her bed, her freshly sharpened craft knife pressed against the inside of her left wrist. She wanted to write about that too.

But the writer had run out of things to write about. She put down the knife, and she stopped writing.