[EDITORS' PICK]
Joyce Blackbird is a bored aspiring writer who just entered her adult years. The world around her frustrates her and disrupts her inspiration to write.
Chase Journey, musician, is the first person she's interested in. Through the cl...
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"Did you hear about the girl stranded on top of a building?"
Joyce stopped scribbling on her notebook and tilted her head to the side, her lips pursed. As soon as the pen lifted off the page, her mind drifted back to reality.
It's so easy to get lost in your imagination, she thought, especially when you jot down seventeen notebook pages.
But, as she examined that last sentence and couldn't make any sense of it, she thought it might be a good time for a break.
She put the pen down and lifted her head. The poorly lit coffeehouse took some time to regain its antique brass colors after her eyes spent so much time fixed on the notebook.
She felt like she was being watched, and she was right. A man at the bar was gazing at her, brows furrowed.
Joyce sneered at him. He wasn't staring at her, per se, but at what she was doing. His phone was still turned on in his hands and, when he met her gaze, his eyes ran back to it.
At once, she remembered why she was losing herself in her imagination, in the first place. Never seen a notebook? she spat inside her head, or is it a pen you've never seen? She tapped her foot. Can't you find pictures of these things on your phone?
She let out a harsh breath and the guy glanced back for a quick second. Getting worked up over these things made no sense, she thought. Especially now that she was nineteen, so technically stepping out of the teenage years.
She nibbled on her bottom lip and stared at the notebook page, as she drew in a mix of croissants and fresh coffee. The pen danced in her hand for minutes before she decided her inspiration had vanished. She put everything in her backpack, stood up and left.
It was warmer outside than inside. The sunlight streaming between the tall buildings blinded her, so she put on her old rose aviator sunglasses.
She gazed around, cars rushing left and right, flocks of people moving in a frantic pace, nothing but engines roaring and indistinct chatter.
The nearby buildings had a lot of open windows. The sudden heatwave in the midst of fall had taken the big city of Okin by surprise. People crave cold, she thought, after the allegedly warmest summer in recent memory.
Joyce found it nice. She loved to feel the warmth on her skin and that salty ocean air she probably imagined. Just as much as she loved to look between the tall buildings and catch a flock of birds rising up and flying away all at once.
