27. Three Hours

Only three hours to go.

Mickey used to be very good about posting stories on Exactly500; doing it at lunchtime. Some days he would even write more than one story, building up a stock of stories for rainy days. Things looked quite good.

Then the rainy days arrived and the spare stories were used. Then he started submitting stories later and later.

Now it was nine in the evening. In three hours his time will run out and after only twenty six stories Mickey’s streak would end. He wondered how long he could last writing one story a day, but he genuinely did not think it will all end so soon.

Just write some nonsense. Blah blah blah.

Mickey ignored the voice in his head. No. He is not going to just write a random selection of words. This was not what Exactly500 was about. It was about…

What was it about, actually?

The idea to write a story a day crossed Mickey’s mind almost a month ago and before he knew it he actually had a website for the concept. Not just a mere blog, but at an actual website with a purchased domain. What did he hope to accomplish?

No one was reading his stories. At first, a few people did, especially his husband. But as the days gone by the novelty wore off and according to his web statistics counter, with the exception of random visits from Google, Mickey was his own lone visitor.

It did not matter. Exactly500 was about Mickey practicing his writing. It did not matter if some of the stories were crap. In fact, that was the whole point. Just write and work the crap out of his system.

Maybe you should write about this? About trying to come up with something to say?

Mickey snorted. What an annoying idea. Might as well pull the plug on this ridiculous concept and get it over with. It was bad enough that three consecutive days featured a trilogy of stories starring a time traveling T-Rex with super powers. Mickey was really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

OK, assuming he did write about trying to come up with an idea for a story. How would that be an interesting story in itself? What is the conflict? How is it going to be resolved? Is there a twist ending? A punch line?

Mickey stared at the empty page.

No, just start writing. The one thing that is not supposed to happen with Exactly500 is the classic staring at a blank page moment. Just write, even if it is crap.

So Mickey started typing:

“Only three hours to go.”

Mickey’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. Was it really the best idea he could come up with? If so, great. But maybe, just maybe, he could still come up with something better.

A noise made Mickey look behind him.

A big man with an axe towered over him.

The man swung the axe, splitting Mickey’s head in two.