The block wasn't a lack of ideas—it was the weight of potential. As long as the work remained unwritten, it was perfect. To begin was to risk being mediocre.
They never had. The bridge had remained a skeleton of steel, and the friendship had drifted into a quiet history.
One afternoon, a sharp gust of wind caught the attic window, rattling it in its frame and knocking a small, faded photograph from the wall. It was Arthur at twenty-four, grinning at a camera held by someone whose name he had almost forgotten, standing in front of a half-finished bridge.
Arthur looked at the typewriter. He realized that "sometime" wasn't a point on a calendar; it was a ghost that lived in the space between intention and action. It was a comfortable lie that allowed him to feel productive while standing still.
The clock on the wall didn't just tick; it felt like it was counting down toward a deadline that didn't exist. "Sometime," Arthur always told himself. "I'll get to it sometime."
