Gather Ate My Muse

I’ve come to the conclusion that Gather has eaten my muse. For the longest time, I haven’t been able to come up with the inspiration to write a single thing. I look at the posts that are available, and find very little creative or original writing. The things that I used to find on this site that inspired me to try to match them with my personal best have been long gone.

This brings us to last Saturday, when we were no more than two blocks from home on our way to Halloweekends at Cedar Point, which is a ten minute ride from us. I realized I’d left the camera at home. Kevin wanted to turn around and get it, but I told him to forget about it. The thought of a photo essay about what I was about to see didn’t matter or excite me. I knew I wouldn’t feel inspired to share my experiences, because Gather had eaten my muse.

As we were walking along the midway and the Corkscrew’s riders, and the ride itself, screamed not ten feet over our heads in a loop-de-loop-de-loop-de-loop, I looked at Kevin and said, “That would be such a cool video, but I know I wouldn’t take the time to post it.” I shook my head in sadness over the loss of my muse as we walked past boxes of bones that shivered and screamed, past lurching zombies and headless horsemen. “What cool videos those would make,” I thought. I was truly saddened that I had no regrets over leaving the camera behind, because Gather had eaten my muse, and I wouldn’t bother posting them, anyhow.

No desire for the camera and a missing muse continued to sadden me, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to share the acres of headstones and mausoleums that filled the center of the midway, from one end to the other. I would never be able to show all of you the graveyard where Rock ‘N Roll was dead and buried; the skeleton band that was wailing away to the oldies, or the headstones of the likes of Jim Croce, John Lennon and Buddy Holley.

The fact that Gather ate my muse and I didn’t care that I left the camera behind prevents me from sharing the image of the stream of zombies that was at least two hundred strong, flowing out of the employee locker rooms. Bedraggled, pale, lurching and moaning, they lumbered on to the midway and wandered to their assigned areas. I can’t share the Dead Raggedy Ann, whose pinched and forlorn visage looked through me while she haltingly offered me her dismembered clown doll to hold. I can’t show you how she sadly moved away, her slow and staggering gait taking her in search of …something. Something…

The loss of my muse prevents the fact that I wore flashing devil horns, and Kevin wore yellow-green, flashing dreadlocks as we worked our way around the grounds to be forever lost to the world. The Bloodweisers that we drank will never be shared.

If it weren’t for Gather eating my muse, I’d have been able to share the haunted Medieval Marketplace. The ghouls, knights and bloody maidens that suddenly fell out of darkened corners to startle the unsuspecting in the thick fog, will be lost forever. I can’t share that we made the decision to make being a zombie on future Halloweekends and scaring small children a part of our retirement plans.

This is all Gather’s fault, and I’m not sure I can ever forgive it.