Day 148 Writing Short Stories And Openings

Folly

There’s no folly like taking life seriously. There’s no folly like trying to control every outcome. There’s no folly like forgetting to experience everything.

It had been her mother’s mantra. She had become the opposite. The pencils on her desk were neatly organized. She had done nothing deviating from the plan she had made for herself when she was a kid. And now her mother was gone, dead, and all the control felt pointless. Her head was spinning into chaos, and she didn’t understand the urge to do things. Or that she now sat on a tattoo chair, getting her first tattoo. It felt enormous.

She watched herself get a tattoo. Speak to the artist. To interact like a normal person. Yet inside her, there was no one there. There was just a need. And for the first time, she wasn’t afraid to follow that need.

Pink Elephant

His head was hurting. The constant chattering behind him was making him want to stab someone. He wished the voice away. It remained. It had been there for weeks. It was the pink elephant that seemed to be able to fly. No one else saw it. He had gone to the doctor for the headache and the chatter, but the man had spoken about psychosis and medication, and he had hurried out of the quack. The pink elephant was real, that much he was sure. It was just that he wished it would stop talking. He had come to realize that pink elephants saw the world in Technicolor, painting everything pink.

A depressed blob would have been better than the always cheery elephant.

He sighed as the elephant followed him into the subway. It was singing a song about open hearts. “That’s where all the good things start,” the elephant sang.

He drew a forgotten magazine at it. The thing thudded on the floor, and he got mad glances towards him.

He crossed his hands and looked out of the window into the darkness.

Then he hummed the tune and sang along with the elephant, the song it had been singing all day, receiving even more glances in his direction. But he didn’t care anymore. If he was doomed to see pink elephants with cheery attitudes, then so be it. It wasn’t going away or turning into that dark blob that had been his company from childhood.

Sheep

There came a baa. And then another one. He opened his eyes and saw a close-up of sheep muscle. He scurried up and felt the rush in his head, almost passing out from the sharp pain.

He was in a field covered with sheep. All making a horrible sound that felt like nails in his head.

He had no recollection of how he had ended up in the field. He had been out drinking with his mates, and then nothing. No memory. It was time he stopped drinking and got better friends.

The Prompts are from the book A Year of Creative Writing Prompts.

I meant to write the prompts all day yesterday, but I couldn’t find the energy. I finished my sci-fi book yesterday and felt the vast emptiness that comes with the end of every creative project. It was as if I didn’t know what to do with myself. I have experienced it before, but the emptiness felt more substantial yesterday than before. It was not a bad emptiness. It was like seeing the world anew, stopping to wonder at every single detail, much like opening a faucet. I’m not sure what I will write next. Shall I continue the Glorious Mishaps series, or will I write another sci-fi novel? I know that I want to write.

Though the want didn’t move to the prompts, I had difficulties writing today’s prompts. Not sure what to do with them. Also, I’m dreading going back to work tomorrow. It has been almost two months since I have been at work—first my summer holiday and then my sick leave. I just wish I didn’t have to go to work. I know some of the kids had missed me, but still, it’s work. I just want to continue writing. The two months off from work have been a blessing for my creativity and my mood. I feel like I can breathe. There are no schedules, the constant hurry, the constant full attention to my clients, and being able to shift that focus to a new client.

I manage. I always do. I just have to find a new schedule and give up the one I have created for myself.

Thank you for reading! Have a wonderful day full of pink elephants — the good kind ❤