Day 37 Writing Short Stories

Spaces Between Numbers

The endless office buildings stretched across the city, taking over every inch and pushing away any greenery. The city was made of forms. Forms for every aspect of your life. All manageable, removing the uncertainty away from those with minds fired up, such that every deviation was a cause for flight or fight. They had hijacked everything—even my mind. I could do without the rules and regulations. I wanted an ounce of uncertainty in my life. There were praises to be said for wildness. Yet, like the others, I was part of the bureaucratic machine that made us tick. And somehow, I had become a bureaucrat in gray clothes, with strict routines. I, who detested the whole thing.

But I would be lying if I said it all was bad. The thing was that, in the spaces between the numbers and columns, something odd happened. It was where all the creativity and life had escaped, and in my madness, I nurtured it. I made the spaces bigger, and here and there, trees began to pop into existence between the majestic buildings. On my way home, I saw cracks in the pavement—something I had not seen in eons. The dandelions pushed out, continuing the fight I kept in motion.

One day, I was startled to find a painted pink door in the hallway of my apartment building. I smiled and made the caps at work bigger, stretching the lines with every document that passed my desk. One day, they would find me out, but until then, I would fight the fight to keep uncertainty alive. Otherwise, we end up with a monotonous existence.

—

I couldn’t get the comic tone in. I had every intention of doing it, but it never made it into the story. The idea was too there for it to be added. What I got today was a comic, a magical realism guest, done in first-person. This was fun to write. I think there could be more here. I would love to break from the magical realism genre into something else.

And again, there will be a pause from writing these things. My family is visiting me. They arrive today and will be here until next week. See you then.

Thank you for reading! Have an uncertain weekend with all its tentacles reaching to the unknown where the happy coincidences exist ❤