Found Words

Looking through Google Docs, which I use off and on, I came upon this three-year-old fragment. What's a blog for if not for publishing things one finds in odd corners?

Once upon a time there was a woman who wouldn't write. She was daily beset by fearful imaginings, and hesitated to give them even mediated life through the page. She was also an incorrigible editor. The merest sentence, should it be written, would be fodder for a hundred or more rewrites. Surely to write badly was worse than not writing at all? There were too many bad writers in the world, what need to add to their number? Melodramatic, infantile, without redeeming merits, escapist, a cherisher of the familiar who knew that she would blaze no new paths, only tidy the borders of ancient gardens a bit, if that much. Was there any value in that to the world? To herself? What if, after some time of tidying, it turned out that she might after all find some new flower growing to one side of the path? It was then that the thorns of Time would rise up and wind around her ankles, drawing blood.

The cat stared intently at a sound. It could have been the house settling, or a child moving in its sleep. It could be something worse....