It starts with a montage:
A blurry flurry of papers.
The camera pans out.
A writer is crouched over the pile, frantically scrawling away.
The camera zooms in.
A pencil scratches the surface of the paper, the sound like skates cutting into clean ice.
A fist crumples a ball of paper and drops it down off of the side of the bed.
The pile is growing; one ball bounces off of another.
Classical music plays in the background. Or maybe classic rock. Or even something bluesy, ‘cause writers often have the blues. In fact, they regularly mope around, brooding as a form of procrastination.
The camera pulls back.
They suffer publicly. Their friends wonder why they don’t just get a real job. They grow moodier. They start fights with loved ones to avoid fulfilling their destiny, whatever that means. They must believe their chosen line of work is some sort of unavoidable fate, however unpleasant, and that they are the chosen one.
Only they can do this task: drop the ring into the fiery pits of Mordor, conquer Voldemort, destroy Darth Vader, enter the Upside Down and blow the smoke monster to smithereens using nothing but their mind.
Even when they succeed, trauma will ensue. It is inevitable. They will never fully recover. They will never be the same. While childhood friends continue life as they knew it, they, the chosen one, will never be the same. Everything will have a slightly more sinister twist. Forever.
The calendar pages flutter as the deadline approaches. The clock ticks noisily on the wall. Blood rushes to their head and a heartbeat is ominously heard loudly in their ears. There is no body under the floorboards, so it must be stress.
Suddenly, cleaning the toilet seems very appealing.
Rituals form. Every day, coffee will be made at this time and this way. Two sugars, two splashes of creamer, filled to the little crack near the top of the rim. Same mug. Every day. The work will begin when the coffee cup is empty.
When the bottom of the mug is revealed, two words are visible: Start now. This was cleverly painted on the bottom of the mug by the writer at a paint-your-own-pottery store. So far, it is all the writer has written, which doesn’t bode well for destiny.
As the two words appear, the music stops short, cut off uncomfortably in the middle of a refrain. Unresolved dissonance hangs in the air. It is as if oxygen has been cut off. All blood flow to the brain is gone. Nothing is left except despair echoing in the pit of the stomach.
The writer looks at the pile of crumpled papers and says: Fuck it. And also: Time to begin.
Except they are launched into a daydream.
It is more like a grand mal seizure.
They have disappeared from the earth, even as their body sits on the edge of the bed, laptop in hand.
They stare straight ahead, the eyes two pits of sadness as they see nothing but terror ahead. They are a prophet. An oracle. They can see the future, and they are afraid.
They clutch the manuscript tightly in their hands. They run for the subway entrance. They barrel down the stairs, pushing past crowds of people who are all wearing gray suits, and dash toward the open train doors. The doors begin to shut in slow motion. The manuscript that is clutched by hands is now also crushed by hands as a leap of faith is taken.
They make it through the jawlike doors in the nick of time, Indiana Jones style, reaching out at the last minute for the hat.
Procrastination Soup
Place the following ingredients into the Instant Pot: a small chicken, a few peeled and sliced carrots, a chopped onion, a bay leaf, a tablespoon of kosher salt, and whatever else you’d like to add to your soup. Fill to the max fill line with water.
Set Instant Pot to the soup setting on high pressure for 2 hours. Release pressure manually, although if you don’t, that is fine too.
When done, strain, add the carrots and some of the chicken, shredded, back into the soup. Make some noodles. Eat.
Okay, now. Enough procrastinating. Get back to work.
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Pomegranates & Honey 
