It bit me again. As I lay cloaked in my duvet, caught in the vortex of my latest dream scape, it methodically crept under the covers and sunk its pearly whites into my unsuspecting, dormant flesh. It released its powerful venom and as that viscous liquid began to flow through my blood stream, I awoke with the need to put words on a page. In a frenzy, I searched for pen and paper and began to jot down thoughts trying to keep up with the pace that my brain had set. The perpetrator of the bite nonchalantly sat at the edge of my bed, grotesquely picking the dirt from under its nails. As I continued to help the ink flow at the same hurried pace of the ideas that struck me, the writing bug simply smiled at me. It waved, jumped from my bed and left me alone with my thoughts.
(Image courtesy of Google)
In the waning moments of my unconsciousness, the characters permeated those forced waking moments and began to breathe a life of their own. The inspiration was so overwhelming I had to leave the shroud of that warm duvet and sit at my computer in those wee hours to keep up the with the feverish flow of creativity.
More than a few minutes later, and after several disgusted glances from my dog, the characters were freed. Their stories were recorded to their satisfaction and I was released from my graveyard shift of being their stenographer. I put the laptop to rest and the dog and I headed back to the warmth of my bed and drifted off into an uninterrupted sleep for the rest of the night.
The light of the new day welcomed me from my slumber. As I shook off the remnants of my sleep, the lingering images of the characters I had created in my semi-conscious state hovered like images in cartoon balloons above my head. Vague recollections of the story line pieced themselves together although some details were still caught in strings in the web of my groggy brain.
The elusive writing bug escaped in the early hours of dawn and the puncture wounds are no longer visible from the late-night violation of my sleep. The only forensic evidence that remains from my harrowing hopefully-soon-to-be-published experience are the scattered words on the pages.
Does that late night bug ever visit you in your sleep?
polysyllabic profundities 