The Ceiling Fan

May 24, 2025

A short story inspired by real life—about time blindness, task paralysis, and the everyday chaos of getting things done.
We all know the feeling: a to-do list full of good intentions, and somehow... nothing gets done. Minutes turn into hours, distractions multiply, and the day slips away. This story captures one of those moments—the kind we’ve all experienced, where productivity takes a back seat and focus feels just out of reach.

Photo credit: Jen Jones

The ceiling fan spins. It's not fast — not really — but it feels fast. My eyes follow the blades in slow, lazy circles like they're chasing something just out of reach. There's a to-do list on the counter. I saw it this morning. Black ink on a yellow sticky note, the corners curled just slightly. I even remember writing it. "Call dentist. Answer emails. Fold laundry. Finish report."

That note is the whole reason I laid down — just for a second, I thought. To plan my next move.

But then the fan started spinning.

And the song started playing. I don't even remember pressing play, but there it is — some sad folk song with a voice like worn denim and chords that ache just a little. It's been looping for... I don't know how long.

Maybe ten minutes. Maybe an hour. The music drapes over me like a heavy quilt — familiar, soft, too comforting. It turns the whole room sepia.

I hum a bar. I think about switching the playlist. But I don't.

Now, time leaks out of me like air from a balloon I wasn't holding tight enough. I know I should get up. I want to get up, but my mind keeps looping. Did I water the plants? Did I take my vitamins, or are they in my pocket again? I should clean out the fridge. Have I always had that knick on the coffee table? Was I supposed to text someone back?

Each thought brushes past the other like pedestrians on a crowded sidewalk, close enough to see, never long enough to hold.

I glance at the clock. It says 11:12. I swear it was just 10:40. I blink, and the numbers have leapt ahead like they've been sprinting without me. That's the thing no one tells you — time doesn't tick when you're not watching it. It folds, skips, warps. You lose an hour the way you lose socks in the dryer — without realizing, without even understanding how.

It's not that I don't care. It's not that I'm lazy. I feel the weight of every undone thing, each one stacking up inside me like unread messages, blinking and blinking. But here I am, stuck between impulse and action, thought and motion. My body is heavy with stillness, but my mind is electric.

The fan keeps spinning.

The song plays again—a gentle, haunted loop. It should be annoying by now, but instead, it's become part of the air—a lullaby for a brain that won't sleep even when it's wide awake.

“I'm too much. It's too real.

Stuck in the mud. Spinning the wheels.

We're going nowhere and everyone knows

That's just how it goes.”

The words land soft but sink deep, like footprints in wet ground. It's like the song knows me — or maybe it's built from pieces of me. I hum along without meaning to, the chorus echoing around my head like another fan blade turning. Turning. Turning.

It's strange how something so simple can hold you captive. How can you know what needs to be done and still stay lying there, mesmerized by motion that goes nowhere?

I whisper to myself, Just move. Just get up.

But even that thought spins away, caught in the current of everything else. And the song plays on looping back to the chorus.

Song lyrics from ‘Homemaker’ by Next of Kin