A true story, part 2

Somehow I survived. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was.

I finally got some sleep in the two hours before dawn, if fitfully, thanks to a blue-green Vicks Sinex time release capsule.

Awake, I got out of bed and tiptoed to the studio to see if the computer was still there, then went downstairs to make coffee and cut a navel orange in six sections.

Depression soon set in, then a staggering 12-foot wave of anxiety. I tried to read The New York Times but couldn't get past the front page. Fifteen minutes went by, then another fifteen minutes.

I walked back upstairs and looked the computer in the eye, but no matter where I looked I couldn't find the missing novel. It was gone, kaput, fini--8, 9 years R.I.P.

I unplugged the big iMAC, wrested the frame from its moorings and carried it to the basement. Perhaps it needed some time off, a vacation. Perhaps too many barnacles had attached to its underside. Perhaps we just needed a break from one another...

I spent the rest of the day in the studio, lying on the floor reading the biographies of Edward Hopper and Carson McCullers. One hour, two hours, three hours, four hours went by as I read. When I looked up at the space where the computer had been, a great peace came over me and I went back to my reading.

I was comforted by the possibililty that all the words, all the images, all the writing and re-writing of my novel were just resting, sheltered inside the computer, mulling things over, thinking things through, wondering if they all belonged together or not. And when I looked at the empty space on the desk in the studio, what wasn't there was a blessing.

This is the end of a true story, as I am living it.