Hello, friend.
Today I bring you a story–a short story I wrote based on the picture from Instagram you’ll see below.
Who doesn’t find Instagram inspiring?
Sometimes I see a photo in my feed and think of the story it could tell, what could have happened around this photo, who were the characters, what were they doing, how were they feeling. I have a few photos in mind to write more stories for, but this first one is inspired by Designlovefest*. I immediately thought of morning when I saw it.
Here’s her tale.
Morning.
It unfolds in a breath, a quiet stream of emerging light and sound. The pink-orange sun swells beyond the landscape before my eyes; the trilling of a tumescent bird, her warble a welcomed string of notes, a burst, a cry no longer captured by the night.
You are here.
You arrived near 2am with flowers. A cast of pinks, purple, a spray of orange petals; their leaves and limbs extended between us, you in the doorway with your tired eyes and lopsided grin, me at the window in a nightshirt and frizzed hair, encased in the flickering glow of an indecisive street lamp. You said ‘Hello there,’ and I drank tea, smiled into the steaming cup.
A stretch of sun falls through the window, collides and breaks across the curtains, the flowers, the floor, the sheet above your exposed ankle as you sleep. Your parted lips move—open, close, open—a silent discourse as I lift my head from the pillow and sit upright.
Dust floats along the water in a polka-dotted glass. A hairclip of jewel-toned stones rests in a ceramic dish. They sit on the window seat where you first kissed me, first slid the clip up and along my temple to catch the wayward hair about my face. ‘Do you remember’ I whisper but you are still asleep. I hear your breath, the slight whistle of your exhale, and lay back beside you, my leg across yours.
We’ve had mere hours yet tonight you will leave again. It is a necessity that causes my heart to beat in a different way, a hiccupped stop and stutter until I forget your absence, bury it in the busyness, the mire of everyday. Until I am no longer stupid, (oh, to remain so unaware) at the crosswalk, in the grocery line, in the shower, at the park—a quiet moment erupts and there you are in my mind, unforgotten.
Tonight your side of the bed will contain only a dip, the imprint your body has left behind. Your scent will stay a day or two, weave in and between the layers before it fades.
But until then, we have this morning.
It unfolds in a breath, a quiet stream of emerging light and sound.
*Image by Designlovefest. This story was not sponsored by nor does it represent actual events in the lives of Designlovefest members. It’s fiction, kids.
You can find more fiction here.
