If You Missed A Day: A Wordle Inspired Short Story
We all surely know by now that Wordle has taken Twitter by storm and become a hugely familiar face among the writing community online. Over at OverWoods, we truly love the game and as a kind of pseudo tribute (and a not so subtle way to remember to keep up that Wordle streak!), we've decided to use each daily, 5 letter answer as the inspiration to a short story or poem this May!
*Of course, we wouldn't want to reveal the answer of the day's Wordle prematurely and ruin the experience for others. So, every Wordle inspired short is brought to you the day after its inspiration hit your screen. This is a no spoiler zone! We promise.
This short is brought to you by our blogger, Megan Oberholzer.
Author comment: Today's prompt is "story". Now, I don't have to tell you how difficult it would be to write story about a story and make it entertaining or remotely interesting to read, so I didn't do that. Instead, I took a few more nuggets of inspiration from all around the internet and came up with something I hope you'll find equally strange and reflexive as it is whimsical.
If you missed today, there was always tomorrow. If a year went passed, she’d still be there. As the thyme withered and the rosemary fell, she still waited, lavish and smiling, white dress billowing in the wind, the dry leaves cascading like cherry blossoms and crowding the chair legs by her feet.
If you left and never came back, the hills would still be watching, the ravine would keep on screening her hollowed cove and shield you from all those who were passing. The sun would rise once more and once again the wood would start greening.
The past comes to you in hews of yellow, orange, red – the sun in autumn, spring and summer: rushing low through white branches, bursting through the open canopy, flying to the rivers edge and dancing to the waterfall’s heart. And there she’d be, waiting still, pink parasol in hand and a sweet smile just for you.
You never denied it, yet you never said it, how enchanted you were when the petals caressed her soft hair and the spray glistened among those pale freckle constellations.
She’d have half a mind to resent you, but she never resented anyone before you. She knows, children, whims, the whimsical, so easily she fades into a dream. Was she ever even real? Between the clanging doors – shouting – hate you – never come back again – you bitch – there she was, warm and slow, willing to hold you to the skirts against her knee and weave stories out of the grass and hummingbirds.
Was it even real? Can anything be so perfect and so required?
Sometimes, you dream of going back to her, when the work gets hard and the people you love leave you the loneliest you’ve ever been before. When did a missed day turn into a year, into a life? If you went back, would she still be there, as beautiful and as loving? If you went back, would she still want you, as grown and horrible as you are?
If you went back, would it be like just another tomorrow, like just one day was ever missed?
I think this short definitely has a little bit of first draft syndrome, and if I was to critique it, I'd say it's really in need of more salt. If I could have more time to flesh it out and a greater word count, I probably would be able to tidy up some of the themes and ideas I put into here and shape them into something more coherent and interesting.
As it stands though, "If you missed a day . . ." is a solid entry to Wordle Inspired IMO and definitely worth spending some time sitting with it and unpacking it.
So, how does it relate to my prompt?
Firstly, I used the word "story" in it, and that alone counts enough. Inspiration doesn't have to be a strict commission. It can just be the spark that lights the inferno. But if you want some mumbo jumbo nonsense on how I justified my premise today well:
I deliberately put the narration into the past, as a memory or backstory - ha, ha, got you - definitely ticks the box of writing about a story. But I also did this because it relates to today's Pinterest quote (which I source randomly, please be advised).
The post in question was by a DIANA SCUTELNICU:
And if you missed a day, there was always the next,
and if you missed a year, it didn’t matter,
the hills weren’t going anywhere,
the thyme and rosemary kept coming back,
the sun kept rising, the bushes kept bearing fruit
- Sunrise, by Louise Glueck
You can see from this quote where I sourced the second person narration as well, a great deal of my imagery (including but not limited to the mention of thyme and hills), and of course that titular line "if you missed a day", although I hope you agree that I put enough of my own spin on that.
Maybe you prefer the original quote (not sure if it was already formatted as a poem) or if you prefer mine. Let me know! I'd love to learn from it.
That being said, it wasn't just DIANA SCUTELNICU's post that I drew my extra inspo nuggets from, but one of the comments left underneath it - I know, Pinterest has comments, that's so weird. One user wrote:
"This is how childhood felt"
Do I agree? Do you agree? I don't know, but I thought it was interesting., so I thought I'd write about an event - a story - from someone's childhood and refract from that.
I sampled ideas around the "bigness" of life as it seems to a child, the naïve concept of object permanence - of course, you're role model will never change, they will always be there for you - and the perhaps more bitter reality of adult life, the loss of both that wonderful "bigness", that eternity of living, and of the memory of the small delights and the people that consumed your thoughts, as if they were everything.
How did "If you missed a day . . ." make you feel? If it made you feel anything at all? Let me know below! (VvV ~more arrows~ vVv)