Here I sit at my desk, arms folded across my chest and a jacket around my shoulders as I stare at the empty document on my screen. I’m waiting for it to come, waiting for it to land in my chest and bloom with a thousand petals of a thousand colours that swim along my arms to shoot out of my fingers as I hit the keys. But it’s not coming. Inspiration isn’t coming.

I look around the room a little but there’s nothing new that I haven’t already seen. Nothing to bounce my mind off and have it return with splashes of colour and feeling. Nothing to give birth to an idea that’ll spread across the page in excitement like spilled ink. I start humming, just making random noise as I try to think of something. The deadline isn’t too far away.

One of the internet tabs blinks on the other monitor and my brother has messaged me, asking me to come over for something to eat. But the deadline is soon, and I have nothing. But I’m also hungry. But there’s nothing on the page. I wonder if all writers are this kind of masochistic. I knew the deadline was coming, but nothing had sprouted and so I hadn’t started anything.

“Argh,” I moan as I start rubbing my face and look away from the screen again, the white beginning to burn my eyes. “I wanna eat.” I grimace at the time in the corner of the screen, as if it might feel pity for me and turn back a few hours… or a few days. I start swivelling in the chair, trying to think of previous ideas I’ve had or something I was already working on, but none fit the requirements for this piece I’m doing. Or supposed to be doing.

I get up and start walking around the den, just looking at things and touching things, trying hard not to start investing any time in anything else but also not going back to my seat. Eventually I plop back down into my chair and swivel it around before I pulling myself up to the desk to message my brother back saying that I’m too busy. And then I just look back to the blank page. I’m not sure how long I’m looking at it until I realise that it’s getting bigger. The white is starting to fill my vision, and as I realise what’s happening, I’ve been swallowed by it.

I feel like I’m in that state between being awake and being asleep as I look around me. It’s just white. Nothing. A void of emptiness. I’m not even sure which way is up, or which way is down and my brow creases as my eyes whimper at the harshness of it.

“Hello?” Nothing responds and I start kneading my cheeks, in case I might have fallen asleep in front of the computer, but nothing changes.

I start walking but my steps make strange crinkling and shuffling sounds, like I’m walking on a gigantic pad of paper. I wonder if it’s what it looks like in my head when there’s nothing coming out and the thought hurts me a little. I don’t want to think that I’m empty.

“There’s colour, I swear,” I say out loud as if I need to defend myself. “There’s colour and feelings and—” I stop as I notice a warmth behind me, as if a fire has suddenly sprung up against my back, gently massaging it. I turn around and from the steps I’ve taken, colour oozes into the white like brilliant spills. “Wow,” I breathe. My stomach flutters and the colours spread, flowers of all types starting to bloom up through them, dripping with a thousand hues. My mind twirls in the beauty of it and I can feel cogs starting to turn in my head; the faster they move, the faster the colour spreads. “Like magic,” I murmur.

My footsteps are covered, and the colours are starting to fill the world as the flowers grow, larger and larger until they’re blossoming small sprite-like creatures that float upwards with airy giggles and fluid movements like they’re gliding on gentle breezes. Some of them are waving to me.

“Flower colonies,” I think out loud. “Sprites that live in different floral clusters.” The sprites begin to bloom more rapidly for a moment, with clear categories of what flowers they were created from emerging amongst them. I start walking towards them and watch as they nuzzle the flowers and curl around one another, just happily living. “And they… and they look after the gardens and keep the grounds clean.” To my left, soil starts to shift through the white until it makes a large patch and the sprites begin to move over to it, their voices like harp notes. They sift their little hands through the dirt and eventually vegetables begin steadily breaking through the soil, growing as the sprites care for them.

Several of the other sprites start to sing, their voices like chimes as they sway and make daisy chains together. Bees are starting to rise around the flowers, humming around as the colour and patches of garden continue to grow. “And birds.” And birds start to appear in what looks like a close sky, spreading colour patches of their own in pastels. Small sparrows flit around the sprites and many of them began to fly with one another, spinning petals in the winds.

“And there’s a cottage,” and there is a cottage, “where a famous witch lives,” with smoke in the chimney, “and though people think she is evil and wicked, she is actually lovely and a beacon for good magic.”

The cottage sits on the edge of a rising forest, the flowers spreading to it and the sprites and birds moving towards it. It’s made of wood and is covered in vines, leaning a little to one side but cute and cosy with a few windows and a single wooden door in the front. Terracotta pots litter the front and sides of it in a messy but cohesive beauty, herbs and flowers waking up in all of them as a warm smell of soup starts to waft through the windows. The roof is layered in creeping plants with small flowers, and birds sit upon it whistling to one another.

A raven flies towards me, landing on my head and I almost laugh in shock. It jumps down to my shoulder and looks at me before nuzzling into the side of my face. It flies off towards the cottage and I realise that a cobbled path is pushing through the ground as the flowers move out of its way, grass growing neatly in the seams. I start walking it, towards the little cottage as the forest fills the backdrop and larger creatures begin to become visible, like elk and rabbits and squirrels, all just wandering around contentedly as the sprites greet them and share with them vegetables they’ve harvested and fruits they’ve started growing in another garden patch.

The sprites start to bloom flowers in the forest and some of them gently make hollows in the trees with their singing, decorating them like little wooden terrariums, making homes for themselves. Some others begin decorating the antlers of one of the elks, who minds a little but doesn’t deny them their fun. They trade trinkets with the birds and help the squirrels gather nuts. There are a few sprites watering the potted herbs when I arrive at the cottage, carrying little pails of water from a stream that has started forming behind the little home, stretching along the forest for a while before dipping into it. The sprites twirl and show their petal bodies off to me, waving and singing tunes to me as I watch them.

The world smells unbearably pleasant, making me close my eyes as I just take it in. I can smell the rich smoothness of the flowers as dozens of different sweet scents fill the air. I can smell the sharpness of some herbs and the savoury of others. I can smell the pine of the woods and the dirt and the crisp smell of green grass, and vegetables and fruits as if they are splitting open at their ripest. The soup lingers in my throat and warms my stomach as the smell of wet grass by the stream fills my body.

When I open my eyes again, a yellow tulip sprite is in front of my face reaching out to touch my nose. I jump and it giggles at me, many other sprites joining in, creating a chorus of bells. It touches my nose before looping around me and floating off towards the forest. Its little hands felt like feathers brushing against my face.

As I look around, the world is almost filled in with colour, with only the harsh white left in the distance. The sky is a swirl of pastels, like a perpetual sunrise with a few bright dots scattered about as if the stars are peering through. There is so much life and activity though it feels completely peaceful and harmonised. I turn around and the cottage door is open, showing a snug little home with wooden floors, rugs, potted plants, a fireplace and plenty of wooden shelving with papers and trinkets all over. At the back of the cottage is a white light. A familiar rectangle of white light.

“Is there anyone home?” I ask, thinking about the witch who bleeds magic into the land. I walk towards the door but there’s no response. Some of the sprites and the raven from before head in. The sprites begin to play with things on the shelves and the raven sits on the desk at the back where the bright white light is coming from. I walk in and to the left is a snug looking bed with a quilt of gorgeous floral patchworks on it. A bedside table holds an oil lamp and a few books. On the right is a little kitchen made of wood, a kettle sitting upon a rod in the fireplace, steam pluming from it, with a cauldron of simmering soup beside it. “Hello?”

I walk up to the desk where the raven is and the white light is actually a writing pad, a tall black feathered quill beside it. The writing pad is empty, its glaring white out of place amongst the warm colouring of the home’s possessions.

“Oh,” I say as I sit down at the desk, pulling the chair in as I look at the writing pad. I laugh and grin at the raven. “This is my home.” I take a breath and pick up the quill, writing the heading on the page in a colourful scrawl. I lean over the paper and start writing. “This is my inspiration.”