Laurie

• Jacqueline Feldman , Grade 11, Crestwood High School -
• Short Story
• 2020

Excellence Award in the 'The Inside Story 2020' competition

It was every Thursday afternoon that Laurie committed himself to exploring his muddled, disorderly mind - for the very purpose of un-muddling. Most days proved ineffectual, and he’d make his way home with an unworn pen, yet another blank page in his notebook, and a $7 coffee which he only realised was a bad investment on the train ride back to his flat. And yet, Laurie always repeated this unavailing rendezvous. Perhaps he could complete this task without trekking all the way to the same car park outside the same meagre cafe with raucous jazz music and inflated coffee prices, but it had become a habit - and successfully following a habit made him feel a little less incapable.
Laurie settled down on the glossy wooden bench that he sat on every Thursday, just outside of the shop. It was sturdy but one of it’s four legs was missing. He wondered how that came to be - but not urgently enough to write about it. He also wondered if he’d ever find something urgent enough to write about. Habitually, Laurie took out his pen and propped the notebook against his knee. He thought about his day ; how he burnt his toast, how he spent 14 minutes looking for his expensive oxford shoes that he bought on impulse (they were under the couch), and how his students were going to amount to nothing if they continued ignoring the work he assigned. Why did nothing seem worth writing about?
Laurie was staring at his notebook so intensely that fuzzy splotches started to decorate the page. He blinked harshly and averted his eyes to his surroundings. He acknowledged how different the people he saw now were from those that he saw last week - and the week before and the week before. An elderly man was reading the paper in his car and two teens, one with obnoxiously bright pink hair and one engrossed in looking at her eyebrows through a pocket beauty-mirror, were discussing some scandalous gossip as they sipped on iced mochas. Laurie was about to call it another fruitless day, until he saw the certain entity that walked by.
There was a man with expensive oxford shoes and a woman with citrus-coloured hair, walking a dog in a pet-costume. It looked shoddily made but peaked his interest nonetheless. Was it supposed to be a lion, or perhaps a bear? Was the chihuahua actually a spy infiltrating the lives of the humans before him? Perhaps he was tired of pretending, like Laurie was?
He felt his fingers itch with inspiration, and wanted to chuckle at the silliness of what he finally wondered about urgently. He figured that maybe it wasn’t about finding the most sophistically curated subject matter, or even about waiting around until he was randomly inspired. He realised that all he really needed to do was get over himself and let words chaotically embellish the page like ugly, purposeless sequins on a dog costume.
Laurie picked up his pen and began to write.