Sonya J. Day, Author & Artist - Blog

I’ve been remise with my blog as of late. My apologies. You know how life gets crazy and passes you by without your knowing? Yeah, it was something like that, along with a pandemic thrown in. As a piece offering, I’m giving you a short I wrote. I wrote it for a contest where I had to create a story with 300 words or less and include: a comfort food, a song lyric/reference from the 70s, a mountain range, a new year’s resolution, and a horse reference. Can you pick out them all?

Hope you enjoy!

Unknown

“Stay,” he said.

She stuffed in one last box. Metal numbed her fingers as she closed her car’s trunk. She inhaled, drawing in the cold and hardening her resolve.

He sulked, but followed as she strode inside.

On the table, bowls of macaroni and cheese congealed. Crab dotted the surface, trapped in the yellowed paste. She scraped her nail around one chunk, catapulting it free. Jealousy towards the crab overwhelmed her.

He misconstrued the slight uplift of her mouth and embraced her. “Stay.”

She breathed in his scent, woody and warm. Familiar yet foreign. His lips brushed hers, savoring. A tear pooled in her lashes, and the riot within her began anew. She pushed him away before it ripped her in two.

A new year, a new start. She’d sworn it.

His shoulders drooped and his face paled. “Stay,” he murmured. “Please.”

The yearning in his voice choked her, and the tear slid from lash to cheek. She bit her lip. He searched for signs of concession.

Instead, she cut the tether. “We’re superficial.”

“We’re not.”

“Your code is still symbols on a screen,” she said, “and my Van Gogh is still splotches of paint. We’re everyday aliens, you and I.”

Her finality unleashed his resentment. “Why don’t you come to your senses?” he said. “You’re not getting any younger.”

“I won’t die unknown.”

She grabbed her keys, but paused at the door. “One day, I hope you understand,” she said.

As the Cascades shrank in her rearview mirror, the road flattened and opened before her. Out the window, she spied a mustang, wild and unhindered. Its galloping feet drummed the rhythm of a new day. Pressing her foot against her pedal, she smiled and hurled herself into its dawning.

As soon as I walk in the door, the begging starts. A blur of white fuzz and wagging tail, Walter flitters from my feet to wherever he thinks I’m headed and back again. I linger too long by the entry, or connect my earphones to my phone, and the jumping starts.

He knows.

After a slight wrestling match to attach a leash, we head to the great outdoors. In our neighborhood is a large park, consisting of walking trails and tons of green. Breaking the rules (Shh! Don’t tell!), I let Walter roam free. He adores it. He explores everywhere with excitement; a newborn experiencing sensations for the first time, despite the countless visits we’ve made.

And everywhere he goes, he pees.

It struck me on our last walk that this is how writing should be. With each new story, every time we touch our fingers to our laptops (or take pen to paper), we should approach as a newborn. Our imaginations are made to be explored and we should never approach the world of our stories expecting. If we expect something to happen, we will force it, contrive it. If we go in with a game plan, without the leniency to change and explore possibilities, our words will become trite.

We go to the same park, but Walter sees it afresh. This trip had me thinking maybe we would craft better stories if we do the same. Go to the worlds we created, but see them with new eyes.

And then pee everywhere.

Explore worlds, but then leave our mark. Make it ours. It is an old adage that no story is new. Everything there is to tell has been told a million times. But not by you. Not by me. We create something new when we make it ours. We pee all over the plot lines and character motivations, the subtext and dialogue, and suddenly we have something unique.

We have a compelling story.

As you are sitting at your laptop (or with your pen and paper) this week, try looking with fresh eyes on your writing. Throw out all the preconceived notions, attitudes, and beliefs. Find something afresh that thrills you, moves you, floors you.

Create with the wonder and excitement of the newly born and leave your mark all over it.