WRITING OBSTACLE

Create a dialogue scene between an artist and their muse.

A Work Quarter

*I need to practice first person peripheral*


There he is again. I stare at Blue through the corners of my eyes. His gaze, as usual, is cased upon Red, ogling her. I sighed and rolled my head away, trying to focus on the board. The chalk swipes away. It's stale exterior making a harsh screech as it was brought down across the board. I look at the small cascade of chalk crumbs falling; some stayed unsettled in the air, some bounced on the floor like popcorn. The door creaks open and a figure temporally blocks my view. I slowly look up to see Blue heading towards his work station. I peek over my dividers to see Red being, as always, utterly oblivious to him. Blue sat on his seat and started to work on some papers. I knew he wasn't writing anything, just drawing sketches of Red, he should really be more careful.


The overseer lifts his nub of chalk away from his canvas, his hands white and scathed with chalk. They always seemed to use every atom before requesting a new chalk pencil. The room looked up to see what new orders he wrote, everyone except Blue, he didn't have reason to look up since he was just going to be drawing for the entire work quarter. I scrawled the orders down on my sheet and looked up to the overseer. I was on the line of whether not he was at the least bit suspicious of Blue. I walked to the pile neatly stacked on the floor and picked up two fillers at once. The rest followed me in order, I sat on the right so I went first, then it went to the left, then backwards, to the right, and finally to the front where the pattern would continue, only broken up by an overseers stall near the middle. I looked at the fillers with the usual grim curiosity. The board had ordered us to not use any adjectives or prime numbers. The order to not draw written on the top of the filler blurred out the other orders be side it and my neck grew hot. I exhaled.


Everyday, I walk a fine line for someone who doesn't even follow the Pastors' orders. I take two fillers, danger. I write different answers in each, danger. I sign the names 'Blue' and 'Purple', danger. I put both of them in the pile, DANGER. Whatever. I stifle a groan and hunch my shoulders up and fill in those blanks, careful to use slightly different scrawl on each.


Blue hasn't looked up since he put his pen down. Or rather, he did look up but only to look at Red. His pencil seemed to hold a universe in it. Not this universe. The universe was a universe of rules ordered by people that were called better, one of rulers that were supreme, and one of only intellectual imagination.


I use to know a kid, I think he was a Violet or Orange, who had picked up a rod and scratched on the metal walls of his room. A large commotion happen one day when an overseer chanced to pass his window and see the spirals and waves on his walls, the Pastors sent a big van with six wheel down to our section and a small army of men scampered out of it, I remember at the time I thought it was kind of like an infinite car. The kid was forced out of his house, kicking ad screaming as they dragged him towards the van. Before the Pastors could move the house away a couple of people got in and saw what he did. I was one of them. The group were shocked at sight of the room, saying he must of been crazy. They said it was random claw marks of an insane person, but I saw The Great Orb, the clouds, the straight street with a stone sitting near a tree near Section 17, and a breeze filled with fillers, sweeping across the street and sky.


The light over the middle flicker on and off and I placed both sheets at the place the pile of fillers had been. Gradually the empty space grew into a stack as the room filed their fillers, all answered and filled. I saw marks across each page where the owner tried to figure out the correct judgment. I mentally kicked myself as I realized I had not added that detail to both our fillers.


Red started to pack up and I made my way down near Blue's pod in the confusion of exiting crowd. I dodge the overseer's eyes and creep up towards Blue. His paper had been filled up with drawing of Red, her thoughtful face, her biting her lips, and smiling. As always the thought of tripping on the fine line vanished as I saw his paper.

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