One Word a Day

Joshua stared at the blank canvas. He hadn't painted in months. His last works had been so bland that he'd decided he needed a break. The spirit of his work had gone stale, but he wasn't sure how to breathe life back into it. Every time he'd begun to sketch, he'd become disgusted by his lack of inspiration and stop.

Eric sat down to work on his essay, reading the simple prompt for the hundredth time: How has conformity impacted your life. He groaned, running his fingers through his hair. How could he respond to such a simple prompt without sounding like he was stating the obvious? When he was a kid he wanted to fit in, so he'd conform to the schoolyard standards. And then in middle school he'd gone through the standard noncomformity phase, before settling into a rhythm with himself in high school. But that's what everyone went through right? How would this paper not just be boring?

Zoe stared at the blank postcard. She'd stared at it on many occasions this week, while twirling pens between her fingers trying to decide what to mar its pristine surface with. It was a one way trip to an anonymous member of a fan community. All she really had to say was hi I'm from Atlanta. And yet it felt like she needed to do more than that.

Several times this week, I've had to sit down and ask myself if it's worth it to react the way I'm reacting. Is the energy is takes to feel this way worth the result? And almost every time the answer has been no, it's not. And there is something so rewarding about letting go of a feeling when you believe it is not serving you any longer.

Alison loved the zoo. Something about seeing the animals and walking around in the open air for hours was soothing for her. Even though there had been a time where she had to take a break from visiting because she was just to sad to get out of bed. The zoo had actually served as a great motivator while she was getting help. She knew, when she was better, she'd get to enjoy the animals again.

Every flat surface was ornamented with something. Tables had decorative vases or dishes. Walls had paintings and tapestries hung on them. Even the doors had ornate hooks or mirrors hung. It was such efficient use of space that it felt cluttered and claustrophobic.

I dropped the bags on the gray carpet and stretched. It'd been a long treck from the train station, and my back was killing me. I crossed the small room and opened a window, a puff of dust bursting into the air from the sill. I coughed, waving my hand to clear the dust as the fresh air swayed the musty curtains. The wood paneled walls left the room feeling small and dark, but I was going to have to make it homey. I had a long way to go.

The color of the walls felt like a drain on her eyes, almost the way that a ringing in your ears is a drain on your mind. It was tedious and loud to look at, and inescapable. Why would they cover the walls like this in a place where the people viewing it were already unstable?

Volunteering to host a bachelorette party had to be among the stupidest decisions I've ever made. My house was a disaster. Plastic cups and cutlery and paper plates strewn in every room of my house. I'm going to need to hire a professional to get the stains our of the carpeting, I don't think a rug doctor will cut it. And I'm going to have to scrub the wine of the walls in my living room. Who even throws cups of wine? And the number of undergarments I have found strewn about is absurd. Like did people bring extras?

Being in the dentist office was always vaguely uncomfortable. The rooms were too bright, the walls and floors to white, plus the pictures of mouths and teeth everywhere weren't exactly warm and inviting images. And the staff were always just nice enough; not actually friendly, but cordial in a way that could almost be mistaken for camaraderie.

I'd driven for Uber for a few months, but had never been a passenger before. It made me feel instantly conscientious of my car as I subconsciously judged my ride's. I noticed the interior needed vacuumed, and that there was a bit of garbage on the floor boards, shoved beneath the front passenger seat (I need to look under my seats when I get home). The windows had smudges and finger prints on them (when was the last time I windexed my windows?). My driver didn't have a mount for their phone, and so they kept picking it up to check the directions, which was honestly pretty scary; especially when they swerved into the rumble strip every time.

I remember this one time, when I was a pretty young kid, that my sister let me surf down the stairs in our house on a baby gate. By "let" I mean that she was supposed to be watching me and she didn't so I ended up slamming myself against the baby gate at the top of the stairs until it gave way. It was quite the tumble into the drywall at the base of the stairwell.

She'd been to a lot of haunted houses in her time, but this one was different. It didn't have the shadows and strobing lights and darkly painted walls. No gauzy curtains or faux cobwebs. Not even any people in costume to pop and spook the guests as they walked through. In fact, it looked picturesquely normal. Disquietingly normal. Like the image in a homes and gardens magazine, but lacking the smiling family. There were small things that made it unsettling. A knife on the counter at an odd angle. One tile in the entryway with a spiderwebbing impact fracture. A bottle of bleach with the cap off in the laundry room. There was a story here that you were meant to put together, but it was presented in such subtle hints that it tied her stomach in an anxious knot.

It felt weird, being the sole survivor. Sometimes it was as if the city streets were just eerily quiet rather than deathly empty. That's why Jamie liked to walk the streets in the odd hours, like 3 AM. It was a little easier to believe that everyone else was just asleep. The lack of people was probably the easiest thing to come up with an excuse for though. The building were beginning to show wear and be taken over by climbing ivy and tall weeds that had been fought back for years with a veritable army of gardeners. The sidewalks and streets were cracking, full of the holes and unevenness that accompany lack of maintenance. And the perpetually dusty air that blotted out the sun was hard to ignore when the sun was up, so Jamie avoided it altogether.

I hated going to the lake. The lakehouee dad had bought was in shambles at best, and was looked like a slice out of the 70s. The carpets were musty from the constantly damp air, and the drywall had spiderwebs of cracks everywhere. The wooden porch was rotting in some places, and the dock was downright dangerous to walk on at all. I didn't understand why we insisted on coming here to be exposed to the elements and the insects inside the shambling corpse of a house.

I've been obsessed with the ocean for as long I can remember. So when my friend sent me a listing for a seaside property that was in my price range, I barely even hesitated to view the house before I made an offer. It had giant bay windows and sliding glass doors making up the wall that faced the Pacific Ocean, so it felt like the beach was just part of my new home. The walls had been painted light blues and creams to keep the house light and neutral, and all of the oceanic decor I'd been collecting for years fit right in on the built in driftwood shelves. I'd never felt more at home then I did my first night in that house.

He never saw any reason to invest in nice furniture. No one ever came over, and the furniture he had was good enough. He'd replace a piece if it ever broke, though most of it was already pretty broken down. He liked to think of it as broken in though. It knew his body and he liked that. And furniture was just so damn expensive.