Deadline!

By Nathan Gromotowicz

Isaac sits at his desk gazing upon a typewriter. The paper resting on the paper rest is a blank, it has been thus for the last week. And his cogitations are equally as destitute of words.  His deadline is in two days. 

The employers who hired him are strangers to Isaac. They paid him in advance, and generously at that. He had no valid reason not to accept the job, even though the time frame for completion they stipulated would be tough for any calibre of writer. One week, word count between twenty-five thousand and thirty thousand words, those are the parameters. 

Isaac has been writing for pulp mags much of his adult life, managing to make a reasonable career out of the gig. He is not exactly a talented author, but he is prolific and knows what sells. And he has the greatest superpower any writer could ask for: an immunity to writer’s block. Or at least up until now he has had this superpower.

The people who employed him had an odd stock movie villain quality about them. They seem the sort that stand around corners twirling their moustaches’ in wait to commit some sort of horrible crime. 

Isaac looks to the cloak hanging on the wall, not even a full two days are left to him. Thirty-eight hours and this needs to be finished.