Earful Of Woe

• Tessa Horrocks, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2022

The days were slow and hard. I felt every breath come to life from my lips, rising up. Valleys and hills and meadows followed me to my sleep. I felt their feathery tips and I tore them in halves. A wave of butter and warmth. The nectar and the sounds of them saying ‘hi’ and bristling in the wind.
And though the night came with drooping eyes, I found myself in a drought of sleep. It didn’t stop them, it never did. They twisted in my head, spiraled in the sky, and sat in my mind’s eye.
The old mossy brick wall that sat, often block my whimsies frightened me. No matter what I did it was always there. And if I focused too much it was all I could see. I would put my brush to the canvas, but my mind blackened, and the words came stumbling in, stumbling at first, but then gushing.
There were small reprieves.
I loved the young lady, sat on the tiled street side. She reached out for my hand, and I gave it. We danced a softly sung song with words strung smartly elucidating a hoax eloquence and intelligence. I envied the sky and all it beheld, as I read my novels in the back corner of the library, crow’s beaks would crack open, and they’d screech and laugh and fly off as I chased them.
But when my brother came, I felt the worst of it all. I snatched and pecked away at his money, promising piles in return. The hope squandered along with my reputation, a drought of sleep, but a surplus of dreams.
I tried; I didn’t stop. For all hours of the day.
Dark clouds came swarming in the sky, serendipity, serendipity, please bring me serendipity. I wish for mountains to move, I wish for waves to crash, and I wish to talk amongst the sunflowers with someone. But I know what I wish is too grand. For what I am will always between us stand.
If I could just rest my head and be done. When your insides eat you out, there are only so many days you can stand to stand the exhaustion.
Eventually I reckoned with it, that was the day I walked out.
Into the fields lined with green blades that lashed out at my bare feet and ankles. I walked my way out to the flowers and fell down into the soft comfort of the yellow petals, warm. Never alone again I shall be. Closed away into the homes of the field faeries, the glimmer of the sun against sun.
Though the sparkle was short, it closed in and ended, now the sparkle is no more, yet a beam of warm light stays with me forever.
Held down no more. I am free, every smidge of my twisted head and heart is untangled and clear. The love I receive is noticed, and so I send ample out to you.