He was a man reborn. Resurrected, in fact, by the powers of creation.

The energy filled him and controlled him. His words danced the way eddies swirl in streams; took chances the way motivational speakers pursue dreams. He was once again the conduit for his catharsis. Pages could not escape his steadfast determination for domination of the artistic powers that be.

For a time everything was Elysian with super-sized fries.

Fizzling under the skin, the fire gave way to a tiny puff of smoke and his auto-perfect euphoria of pen-to-paper went dark. The words slipped through his fingers like wet sand, leaving only a muddy smear behind. He failed on every occasion to weave that smear once more into the divine sandcastles of his previous endeavors. Abandoned by the energy of ecstatic reanimation he slunk down into the hollow shell of “Chin up, Johnny. Everyone goes through it.”

He was dead once again.