Me. Writing.

Blank page. Pen. Tea with three sugars. Mahogany desk by the window. Faint smell of fresh, cheap varnish, and white tiles mopped with bleach. Chair facing the door, then the window, then the door. Orange sun beaming though the blinds. Room tinted with a pale, yellow glow. Sepia effect. Like an old, dusty photograph. Beautiful. Beautiful but blinding. Blinds pulled. Quiet room. Blank page. Stare at the walls. The bare, white walls. Bare. Boring. Blank. Take some tea. Wait. Look at the tea. Hot tea. Hot, thin smoke slithering out of the cup. Dances for a second, stretches out like a yawning spider web, and then swirls into nothingness. Touch the cup. Hot. Hot, sharp, piercing heat. Brief, needling pain. Heart beat picks up for a moment, starts to rat-tat-tat-tat-tat, and then slows. Falls to a heavy thump, thump, thump, thump. Sip the tea....

Read the rest of the story in the latest issue of Tongues of the Ocean, an online literary journal which is based in the Bahamas and focuses on Caribbean prose and poetry.