Just as Real

The smallest things can spark a story in my mind.

Right now, the curtain rod in my study is creaking in the wind, a slow rhythmic sound that makes me think of screen doors swinging open on a hot summer night.

I heard a child calling 'Dada, where Dada' yesterday, and wove a tale of a young boy and his father inventing a game that the boy remembered his whole life.

I found a cryptic message on the wall when helping a friend paint, and decided it was a code that led to a treasure map.

In the window of a charity shop, I saw a pair of ceramic owls winking at each other and imagined them coming to life in the night, to take single pieces out of the puzzles and giggle as they hid them behind the cabinets.

However, in all these scenarios, it was easier to think of sad stories than happy.  The creaking curtain rod could have been in a haunted house...the young boy could have been searching for a father who never came home.  A crypic message left behind could be someone's last cry for help, and those owls could have been lost by someone who deeply loved them and has been looking for them ever since.  

Why do sad stories come so readily to mind?  I don't know, but I have decided to fight against it.  I will write happy stories.  I will think of heroes.  My imagination will be full of leprechauns and fairies and buried treasure, and somewhere in the story, there will be joy.  

Because joy is just as real as sadness.    

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