She stared at the blinking cursor at the screen and began tapping the next sentence on the keyboard. She recalled her way home and noted her delight on the five-minute walk towards her house; she had stared at the cemented ground, sidestepping dog droppings, and stepped on dried brown leaves audibly being crunched beneath her feet.

She paused typing, took a drag of her cigarette, and placed it back on the brimming ashtray. After typing for a minute, she massaged her eyelids with her fingers and walked towards the bathroom. She faced the bathroom mirror, and plucked the pair of contact lenses out her eyes. She leaned towards the mirror and studied the dilating pupil of her right eye--so clear the dark brown iris, and yet she could only see clearly within two feet. Beyond that, everything blurred out of focus.

She ambled back to her seat and crossed her legs. She took another drag of her cigarette and flicked the ash way. A flake of cigarette ash settled on the delete key. She lowered her head and studied the ashflake. "So delicate," she whispered, "that when you touch it, it turns into powder." She blew it off and watched it waft away, until it settled undamaged beside the mouse.

She continued typing and paused after a while. She walked towards the kitchen and took the glass on the sink. She opened the tap and listened to the rising burbling note of water filling the clear glass. She raised it to her lips, and while drinking, studied the cluster of minute bubbles floating on the water surface, casting a dot of shadow half-filtered through the glass below it. A tiny spectre dashed at the corner of her eye. She turned her head, facing the wall, and there, a spider stopped on its tracks, carrying a mummified ant in its mouth. It had eight legs, thin as hair, that folded into three sections, calculating its every step. She blew it off, as it scampered up towards the ceiling, beyond the reach of her sight.

She resumed to her seat, and noticing the cigarette smoldering its last short cylinder of ash, she opened her cigarette pack, but found it empty. She crumpled it and tossed it at a paper basket, overflowing with other crumpled cigarette packets. "Damn it," she whispered, and began chewing a scab on her finger. She ripped the scab and spewed it off, flinging it at the monitor screen, where it stuck with a drop of saliva. She wiped it off and began chewing another scab. She looked at the blinking cursor staring back at her. Her mind went blank, and she began rereading what she had written instead. The first line was about a woman staring at the blinking cursor and began tapping the keyboard. She recalled her way home and noted her delight on the five-minute walk towards her house.

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