AI Mutant: Itch
He sits before the blank page and stares into it as if waiting for something to emerge. A shape. A voice. A reason. But nothing comes. The mind a barren plain where the wind moves unseen and the only sound is the ticking of a cheap clock on the wall. The cheapness of the clock bothers him. As if the worth of the thing kept time in a lesser fashion. As if each second that passed were somehow impoverished by its measure.
He reaches for a phrase. He tells himself this time he will say something true. He will put down something worth the trouble of having thought it. Something serious. The world is an awful place. That much is clear. Death moves through it like a blind old dog, snuffling among the ruins. The earth itself heaving with the weight of those who’ve lived and died and lived and died again. He sees them all in his mind. The sorrowful dead, milling about, waiting their turn to rise or be forgotten. He sees history as a long grim joke, the punchline buried in the next war, the next ruin, the next nameless grave.
And yet.
His fingers hover over the keys. Some wretched little imp within him stirs. Some mischievous bastard thing that cares nothing for gravity or meaning or the solemn weight of the world. Instead, it whispers nonsense in his ear. A literary jest. A cheap gag. Something about a man walking into a bar. Or perhaps a bit of parody, some pastiche of the greats, a few lines written in the grand manner only to be undercut by the pettiest of absurdities.
He clenches his jaw. He tells himself no. Not this time. This time he will write something that matters. Something that holds weight. But already the words are slipping from his fingers, already the sentence he meant to craft has taken some leering, sideways step toward foolishness. The words betray him. They dance away like devils. He swears at them and tries again.
But the itch remains. That damnable itch. The desire to laugh at it all, to make light of it, to smirk in the face of the abyss. He cannot help it. Perhaps he was born this way. Perhaps the world itself is to blame, having long since made of all solemnity a farce, a long and senseless jest played out on a stage of dust and bone.
And so the serious page is abandoned. Again. He sighs and types out something ridiculous. Something that makes him chuckle despite himself. He sits back and looks at it and shakes his head. And somewhere beyond the room, beyond the house, beyond the world, Death himself pauses in his long and weary stride, and for the briefest moment, he smiles.
