Day 344 Writing Short Stories

Seed

He buried the seed in his grandmother’s garden, far away from the townhouse his parents lived in. They had no use for magic. The city was for things to be calculated. Here in the countryside, there was still room for slow summer days and unconventional wisdom. No one came to Granny’s place anymore. His parents, uncles, and aunts had abandoned the old house now, as Granny was sent to a nursing home. He was tasked with keeping the place clean and cutting the yard for summer pocket money.

It was perfect. He loved it here. More so now, as he had found his granny’s garden journals. He could still remember the bloom of his grandmother’s garden from his childhood. It was a thing of magic. He could still remember the days he spent roaming the garden and the wild dreams afterward of long summer days with fairies and dragons. And now, now they were not only dreams and childish memories. They were real. They were in his grandmother’s journals, all the dragons, the gnones, the fairies, the little white monsters, and the spiders. His grandmother had created the garden for them, for magic to seep back into the world, and he was going to do the same. He was going to bring back the magical summer days.

His life could once again be about bloom rather than the numbers his parents wanted him to study. He was to become an accountant like his father was, but he would rather be a gardener and the keeper of magic.

Drought

“It’s a divine intervention,” he said.

The other farmer frowned and shook his head. The man didn’t believe in divinities. He believed in science, yet that science had failed him as much as it had him and his fields. The drought was there, testing everyone in the valley and the next valley over.

They saw bees exhausted on the ground from the heat. They saw the grass scorched yellow. One match, one careless act, and the whole valley would burn away.

There was nothing either of them could do, not through science nor through praying. Both have done all they knew to do, and the drought stayed.

The other man spoke of weather patterns, and he spoke of retribution and sins. Neither of them understood each other, yet both of them knew what the drought meant, not just for them, but for their families and everyone in the valley. If there were no harvest, there would be no food, no seeds for the year to come.

He offered the other man a cigarette, and both of them lit theirs, watching the sun setting behind the valley.

“Nevertheless, it is as it is,” he said.

“It is,” the other one said, and took a drag. “Be it a sin or weather patterns.”

Smile

A smile, that was all it took to alter the world. He watched its roll form lip to lip, and the frowns that had been there melt away. It was a superpower. It was the most genuine thing he had seen, and now it was for the world to have.

He curled his lips upward and gave a smile to the stranger walking past him. She looked confused, but then smiled back. He smiled for her to exist. He smiled at the granny to exist and then at the young boy with his headphones on to exist. So on and so on.

It was all he did. He sat there under the tree, on the concrete platform that tamed the nature in neat blocks on the road that led to wherever people were going. He smiled and then let it move on. It moved on. Smiles were made like that. Yet, they were so seldom present.

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

Today was about a bloom and small deeds. You know those Studio Ghibli films? I wish their magic could seep into the real world even for a second. I loved them as a kid, and I still love them as an adult. I rewatch them now and then, and they always bring a sense of magic and happiness back.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have a magical day!