The writer had set herself a task. She would write a story each week, a piece of microfiction, based around a number. She would apply herself with the same discipline as an athlete and the same dedication as a scientist. Only through practice and determination would she realise her dream of being a real writer.
Except by the fifth week she had a problem – working five days a week at her day-job, traveling home late, battling the small but insistent details of life, her creative energy was running low.
She was out of ideas.
She wandered the city, looking at skyscrapers and office towers, at the faces of those in coffee shops and on public transport. She saw the well-dressed rich and the harried working poor. She saw moments of anxiety and moments of content. She saw couples in love and couples in denial. The more she wandered, the less important she herself became, just one more human being in these vast, anonymous metropolis.
At last she came to the Botanic Gardens of the city. She lay down on the grass and stared into the summer sky. A leaf fluttered to the ground and landed by her side. It had five points. Five birds rose from the palm trees and circled over her. Five friends sat laughing on the lawn. Her creativity had not gone – its source was all around her and she had learned to see again.
* * * * *
An exercise in micro-fiction – stories which run from zero to fifty
click here for zero, one, two, three and four!
© 2014 M. C. Dulac
11 responses to “5. The leaf with five points”
This is a cool idea. I love challenging myself with words. I enjoyed your writing, too!
That’s great to hear! I used to be very precious about writing and think that I should store up my strength. Now I realise that its like anything else – if I want to improve I just have to buckle down and practice. Writers write, as they say!!
Thanks for stopping by the blog!
I love this story MC, it is beautiful 😀
Thanks Luciana! I’m so glad my lack of inspiration, led to inspiration!
Nice job! It’s easy to feel like all the creativity has been zapped, or that you only have a limited supply of it. Glad she learned to see it again 🙂
Thanks Jennifer! My creative batteries have been running low lately! I hope my creativity returns soon!
It is almost mid-March, and needless to say, I have still not set up my Twitter profile, or done many of the things I decided to do. I wonder what the cut-off on New Year resolutions is!
Mine have been low too, when it comes to my blog. I’m starting to wonder, what else can I possibly write about??
Don’t feel bad. I set up a Facebook account to claim my user name and that’s it. I haven’t friended anyone or even added a profile picture. And my Twitter account has cobwebs. Sigh. I say we have until the end of the year.
Keep writing! I love your posts!
Maybe it’s just an ebb-and-flow thing. Strangely, I always seem to be more inspired in the second half of the year than the first! (That is the weird planetary based explanation).
The cyber cobwebs of Twitter sound like an intriguing idea!
Five is my magical number (my birthday is 5th June!). I love this story. It shows that inspiration can be found everywhere if we open our eyes. I was walking along happily with this character.
Five is one of my favourite numbers too! 🙂
🙂