He tears away at another page, the sound is familiar discouragement. He walks across the room and drops it atop a small pile in the waste basket. He walks back to his desk and picks up his quill and his vile of ink.
With a single match he snaps fire between his fingers and burns the white feathers of the quill until they drift into the dancing dusty air.
He sits on the floor in the center of the room and pours the ink from the vile, watching the stains blot out the light. The oils twist and harden. Darkness.
He thumbs the vile, the last drop of ink smudged to his print, his print smudged to the glass vile. Silence.
He takes another match and lets it hiss in its wake. He drops it in the wastebasket and throws the vile at the window.
The light from the sun off the lake breaks through the glass and hits the vile on a corner, and through its shadow a paper-cut rainbow sewn from his thumb-print sits against the wall.
He watches it shift with the falling sun, and his eyes blur the beauty.
So he stands up and walks back to his desk. He pulls a pen from the drawer, takes his seat with a breath, and begins to write again.