Fictional Failures

“You spend all your time up here staring at that page.”

“I’m writing. That’s part of it.” I placed the pen back on the table forcibly and looked up at him, trying to make my expression as pointed as possible.

“Don’t you have to put the pen on the paper?” His arms were folded over his chest as he leaned against the bookcase. My teeth ground together. Did he have to lean against it? He really had no respect for other people or their things.

“I would, if I had fewer distractions.”

“I’m a distraction am I? That’s charming isn’t it, considering.” He shook his head his angular features making his gaze more penetrating than it should have been. That was my fault, I’d been watching a punk documentary the night before and one of the people on it had clearly influenced me. “You hear that Jessie? We’re distractions now.” He stomped over to the chair by the window and loomed in the girl’s face. She blinked sleepily before her head drifted round in an arc to stare at him. Her movements were slow and fluid.

“I’m distracting you?” Her brow creased.

Kit groaned and shook his head. Jessie never really followed our conversations, too busy daydreaming. I never had been able to figure out how to write the elves.

I sighed, feeling more than a little useless. I hadn’t noticed Kit looming over my desk. His blue eyes really did sparkle, at least that had gone right. Perhaps a few tweaks and he could be used.

“Isn’t there someone else you could write out?” His words broke me out of my contemplation.

“What?”

“Look, if you’re not going to talk to me and you’re not going to write, I could do with some more company. Just kick someone out of another story.”

“I am not going to write a character out because you’re bored.”

“But I have to sit in our little study all day because you couldn’t get my character right? How is that fair? Doomed to an eternal purgatory of seeing you write characters that actually get to fulfil their plot. Me? Oh no, never going to track down the man who kidnapped my sister am I. Because you couldn’t figure out what to do with me. I could tell you what we should have done. You should have had be beat the info out of that biker in chapter seven. That would have moved the story along.”

“Careful or I’ll change it into a fantasy and make you an elf.”

“Hey,” Jessie mewled from the window seat. “I think.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Typical,” Kit snorted. “I’ll never get a rewrite at this rate.”

“Come in.” Kit glared at me as I yelled. The door swung open and Tom stuck his head through the gap.

“Sorry.” He looked around the empty room. “Just checking on you. Thought I heard voices.”

“Just talking to my characters.”

Tom chuckled, “Course. I’ll let you get on then.” The door started to close. I could already feel Kit’s eyes on me.

“Hold on, I’ll come down. Perhaps we could go for a walk.” I leapt up and was on my way in seconds. As I pulled it shut behind me, I took a last look inside. Kit sat on top of my desk cross-legged playing with my pen. I waved an admonishing finger at him as he stuck his tongue back out at me.

His words followed me out of the room. “I’ll wait.”

This was written in response to prompt 16 on https://puttingmyfeetinthedirt.com/2020/06/01/june-2020-writing-prompts/

These prompts are to get you writing in ten minutes without worrying about editing or overthinking. A great idea to get your brain back into writing!