Last month, Nature Wise (a nature based well-being service) challenged me to write a six sentence story. I can never resist a writing challenge. The story had to be related to nature in some way but other than that I had free reign.
With a cup of Dream Catcher tea in hand, I sat down with one of my many notebooks (stationery is an addiction!) thinking I could rattle one off in fifteen minutes. I was so wrong. To write a story that short without giving in to penning overlong sentences, full of too much punctuation, is not an easy task. I faffed about with the sentences for ages, wanting my second sentence to be two sentences and itching to split the last two up. I could feel my MA tutor sitting on my shoulder, tutting.
Eventually, I swallowed my perfection seeking editing tick to offer this 6 sentence story. When I wrote it I had just been on, what had turned into, a dragon adventure with a group of children. Naturally, this meant my offering had to have a dragon flavour.
This teeny story has since become quite special to me and has flown off in a fantastical direction of its own in my very favourite notebook.
When the dragons came, the night was still. No leaves were rustling; no creatures were stirring. They came in threes, soaring above the woodland canopy and swooping expertly down onto the forest’s ferny floor. Only one small girl knew of their arrival.
The girl stepped out of the huddled shelter of a hollow tree and allowed the wings that she had kept hidden for so long, unfurl like the petals of a new flower. Her waiting was over – she could leave the confines of the world that had been suffocating her and return to a place where she knew her heart could be free.
