‘Whitney, you have clothes to cut out and sew!’ Yelled my younger sister from the sitting room.
‘What are you doing, so glued to your phone this morning?’ Asked my mum as she brushed wistfully her spiked stranded hair in front of the mirror in my room.
She looked so vibrant and young in a low cut, cutting off at least 10 years from her age. I felt so proud to be responsible for that. A day’s trimming and retouching made that.
‘I am reading mummy.’
‘You know you have closed up deadlines and so little time?’ She said as she hurried off to work.
All curled up on my bed with folded knees, I read through the inkwell posts of beautiful reads on the prompt ‘book’.
It tugged at my heart the fears I had built and swelled over.
I know now I have been avoiding this community and staying away from books for this very reason; fear.
I never thought myself to be a perfectionist and seeing other exceptional writings made me want so badly to write like them; ‘I could never measure up’.
I sunk inwardly reminding myself about my first love. I fell in love with books in my first year at high school and always had my nose in books for years, just not this one.
The walk to a magical dreamland, the exposure and my favorite part, taking the place of a character I love and rooting for her/him.
‘How has thou been bewildered so treacherously by the hazardous atmosphere?’
My older brother rolled his eyes in exasperation at my failed attempt to ask why he looked gloomy after I read an interesting book.
I always seem to take up and most times speak like the characters till it wears off. My siblings face the brunt of my experiments.
I delved so deeply into my subconscious, bringing to life unexpressed dreams in writing. The pages of golden knowledge untapped and tales of the many stories locked within seeking an outlet.
I stretch my curled-up legs out to relieve the numbness.
‘Whitney!’ screamed my persistent sister.
‘Oh, the clothes! I'm coming!’ storming out of my room.
®Whitney Alexander
The picture is mine.