Weekly Prompt-"It was a Dark and Stormy Night"

Here is this week's free read. Check out the original prompt and the other responses here. Enjoy!

Overcoming Obstacles

Colin sat staring at the cursor blinking in the word processing program. Mocking him and his inability to write words. Colin hated writer’s block. Hated it with a passion. He was a writer, dammit. He should be able to overcome this.

“Honey, I’m home.”

Despite his frustration, Colin couldn’t help but smile at the sound of his boyfriend coming home from work.

“I’m in the office.”

Mark walked through the doorway a second later, still looking as hot as ever in his black business suit. His hair was still slick from the hair gel he insisted on wearing, but it did nothing to damper his natural beauty.

“Hey babe,” he said with a smile on his lips and a twinkle in his blue eyes.

“Hi.”

Mark walked over and gave his boyfriend a kiss on the lips. Colin gave a soft sigh at the gentleness of the kiss.

“How was your day?”

Colin groaned at his boyfriend’s question, as it brought back all the horrors of the day.

“That bad?”

Without replying, Colin turned his laptop screen so his man could read the words on the page.

“It was a dark and stormy night,” Mark read from the page. “Isn’t that the first line of a novel already?”

“Yes,” Colin groaned out in frustration. “But I can’t think of anything. I’ve been staring at the damn screen for the last three hours, trying to come up with something, but I can’t.”

“You’re trying too hard.”

“I know. But there’s a story in my head and I want to write it. I just can’t figure out how to start it.”

“Come with me.”

“What?”

“Come. With. Me.”

Skeptical, Colin took Mark’s hand. Mark silently led him out of the house and outside. Colin had to squint against the brightness of the sun as they stepped onto the wooden porch the surrounded the front part of their colonial house.

“Mark. What are we doing outside?”

“You need a break. Something away from a computer screen. So we’re taking a walk.”

Colin was skeptical as Mark led him down their sidewalk. He really hated being outdoors and he had to get some work done. But Colin had learn in their five years together that when Mark was as determined to do something as he was now, it was best just to go along with it.

Slowly, they walked through the town, still hand in hand. Colin found that it was a nice walk, but he couldn’t get his mind off work. He needed to get back to writing.

Finally, Mark led him to the large park in the middle of their town.

“You brought me to a park.”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

Mark got a sly grin on his face before letting go of Colin’s hand and racing down the path. Colin stood shell-shocked for a minute, not knowing what was going on.

Mark must have got the feeling that he wasn’t being chased, because after he ran about fifty feet, he slowed down and turned around.

“Well, are you going to chase me or what?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because it’s fun.” With that simple explanation, Mark turned and started running again.

Colin thought for a minute before shrugging his shoulders and running. They weren’t going to be leaving until Mark got his way so he might has well play along. Colin took off running. Mark must have heard him take off after him, because he sped up.

Colin lost track of how long he followed his boyfriend around the park. He caught Mark a couple of times, but Mark would just give him a quick peck on the lips before running again. They ran on the path most of the times, but every once in a while Mark would veer off into the grass, ducking around trees to avoid Colin.

Finally, Colin couldn’t run anymore. He sunk onto a bench, Mark smiling at him about ten feet away. He was waiting to see if Colin could keep going. When he realized Colin was done, Mark came over to the bench and sat down next to him.

“So what was that,” Colin asked once he had his breath back.

“What?”

“Why did we just run all over this park?”

“Let me answer your question with a question. When did you stop thinking about your novel?”

Colin opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out. Mark was right. He hadn’t thought of his novel in the last twenty minutes, at least. But just as he thought of the novel, he had a breakthrough, inspiration washing over him in a wave.

“We need to go home. I need to get this down.”

“That is why I ran you around the park.”

Colin gave Mark a smile and a quick kiss. He had the best man ever. Who else would have thought writer’s block could be cured by a run around a park? Now he knew exactly how he was going to start his novel. And there wasn’t going to be a storm in sight.