Emerald skies (wait, how do you have emerald skies? I’ll have to research what gases have to be in the atmosphere for skies to be emerald) greeted him in the morning as he stepped outside. His (what would you call a motorcycle-type vehicle that doesn’t touch the ground, like in Star Wars?) floater beckoned.
He wanted to hit the road (wait, why would there be roads if vehicles don’t touch the ground?)
Are you going to let me tell the story or second-guess every word I try to write? (BWAA HA HAHA HA HAHAHA ha ha ha ha ha!) What? (I pulled you away from imagining a guy taking a ride on his floater under emerald skies.) Damn you, Self-Editor, you nailed me before he was barely out of bed. Can I get on with the story? (No, I’ve driven it out of your mind. BWA HA ha ha.)
So, you see, class, you have to put your Self-Editor in handcuffs, lock them in a trunk, and walk to the other side of the house where you can’t hear them screaming how they can’t breathe. Because when your Self-Editor is in the house, you can’t breathe. (That’s funny, I hit the wrong key somewhere and autocorrect changed “breathe” into “create.” How appropriate.)
He wondered whether he should get a cup of coffee before he started. He could almost taste the bitter jolt of woe-up, the hot liquid easing down his throat to break up the morning frog, the comfort of being warmed up from the inside, but he wasn’t ready to be comforted yet. The days had slipped by one, two, three, and he was three days closer to the day when it would be too late.
He knew — intellectually — that the day was inevitable, it comes to everyone, but he couldn’t muster the required sense of urgency. He tried slapping himself figuratively and he tried slapping himself literally, and still he remained calm in the face of the literal deadline.
“Maybe,” he told the mirror, “calm is acceptance. Maybe some days just slip by, and the more you beat yourself up about it, the less you get on with living.”
“Yep,” said the man in the mirror, “it’s what you call a vicious circle.”
“Everyone calls it a vicious circle, not just me,” he said.
“Don’t get me started,” the mirror replied.
“You talking to me?”
“Oh, stop, that’s a cliche by now.”