A Margaret Atwood Inspired Short

Intro: In September I participated in the Colorado Springs Writing Marathon. I’d just finished reading Atwood’s Good Bones and Simple Murders (reviewed tomorrow) and really, really wanted to try something small and twisty like the stories in that book. The following is the result:

The Crayon

It’s robin-egg blue and hidden behind a potted plant. The boy who left it behind used it to draw clouds on his napkin at the restaurant. The napkin sky was white, and the clouds robin-egg blue. He liked his picture because it was different from real life – where sticky sweet smells meant beer instead of cotton candy. His backward drawing was brighter, because white skies let in more light than blue skies. You just needed blue clouds for a bit of shade here and there, like polka-dots. Before he left the restaurant, he managed to grab hold of his napkin with its imaginary sky, but he lost the crayon, which was found later, by a writer looking for inspiration and she wrote about the boy and his cloud.


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3 responses to “A Margaret Atwood Inspired Short”

  1. Deniz Bevan Avatar

    Oh! Neat. I like circular stories like that. And the glimpse of the boy's world – beer instead of cotton candy – is such a sad one.

  2. Jenny Maloney Avatar

    Good Bonesis filled with very cool circular stories that I LOVED. This little attempt is nowhere near as cool as what Atwood does in it (but then, who else could do what she does?). It's super-short, you can finish it in a day, and I highly recommend it!

  3. Debbie Avatar

    Love.

    And it's even cooler, because I was there.

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