TheBanyanTree: Inspiration

[Monique]

The office supply store was always a good way to spend a half hour, when it
wasn't time to go back to work, and the line at Starbuck's was longer than
he wanted to wait, and the sun wasn't shining, and something had to be done,
anything at all, other than what he really wanted to do, which was go home
and take a nap. The office supply store could occasionally yield great
treasures, or small treasures, or it could yield no treasures at all, just
the same things he'd looked at the week before. Like the scented file
folders. Did people really buy scented file folders? Why? Wouldn't a candle
be easier? A can of air freshener? He didn't understand the point of scented
file folders, but it was nice to know they came in peach, raspberry, orange,
mint, and tobacco, especially now that smoking wasn't allowed indoors.

 

But on this particular day, it was the journals that caught his eye, the
right one specifically, as they were on the right side of the aisle, right
next to folio pads and DayTimersC and Word-A-Day calendars. Some had a thick
hardbound cover, like a book, except the pages were empty. Others had cheap
imitation plastic (what is imitation plastic?) covers, or synthetic leather,
or purple flowers against a backdrop of azaleas. (Why azaleas?) Some of them
were very business like, and looked far more important than he felt, and
others looked to be appropriate for a child to take to the sandbox. 

 

He passed by the executive style journals (he knew they were executive style
because the labels on the front identified them as such, in case one might
not be sure what the heavy grey or black covers meant), and then he
backtracked, stepping backwards without turning around, trying not to be
obvious, attempting a look of disdain at the merchandise while inside his
head synapses started snapping and that feeling in his stomach, the one that
became so apparent when he was on the trail of the Next Big Thing, became
overwhelming. He looked at the faux alligator covered journal that said in
neat script on the front, JOURNAL, in case one weren't quite sure, and as he
picked it up he felt his fingers tingle. 

 

His stomach did a slight flip flop when he saw the price, $26.99, but it was
only a slight flip flop, and when he compared the price to the
possibilities, the possibilities won by a wide margin. With this journal he
could write down everything that was passing through his mind as it passed,
all the important things, all the things he meant to remember, all the
things he knew were worthwhile and valuable and just needed to be set down
in writing before they left him cold and empty, as thoughts were likely to
do if not captured. He opened the JOURNAL, he looked at the pages, turning
them slowly, all of them blank, but all of them filled with possibilities. 

 

He loved possibilities, possibly more than he loved reality, but this is not
an uncommon sort of thing.

 

The urge to buy the JOURNAL was strong, but he thought carefully first. What
did he have to lose? Less than thirty bucks, after tax, and what did he have
to gain? A world of infinite possibilities. His thoughts, his remembering,
his blasts of insight that often faded away quickly simply because he had no
impressive JOURNAL to write them down in. A scrap of paper was not
sufficient, a plain notepad with lines to keep him on the straight and
narrow, those could only record humdrum thoughts. But this? This JOURNAL?
This could capture infinity.

 

So he bought it. He paid for it, and he took it with him, and he carried it
with him the rest of the day, and that night he sat down with a new pen in
hand, and he opened his JOURNAL, and he looked at the first blank page, and
he realized, with a sinking feeling, that he had nothing worthwhile to soil
the first page with. Nothing momentous yet. Once he started he knew there
would be no going back, so he hesitated. He closed the book, and he waited
for a memorable thought to enter his head so he could dutifully record it.
He knew once he had one memorable thought the rest would follow, sliding and
crashing into one another like one of those displays of dominoes that goes
on and on, and then he could fill the book, and then, by golly! Then he'd
have something! 

 

It was that first thought which was the most elusive. It always is. And each
time he had a thought, he knew it was not yet the right thought, the
important thought, the one thought to start the ball rolling. 

 

And so he waited for inspiration to strike, and while waiting he visited the
office supply store and smelled the file folders, and waited for life to
begin.