The Humble Life: A Wordle Inspired Short
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: Yesterday's Wordle answer was "homer", and it inspired me to write todays short story "The Humble Life", a sweet window into the life of a humble homer pigeon with the titular question, is a quiet, "unexciting" life really so terrible?
The Humble Life (05/05/2022)
Ledecky’s quiet frown as she preens the leaves on her rose
bush is so familiar and calming, H.P. can’t help but smile as he approaches her
white-fenced garden. Her flowers wave up at him, bright and colourful. Although
clearly arranged meticulously and ordered, to him their dance still seemed wild
and messy. Sometimes they lean over the fence, hands extended out towards the passersby,
shaking hands and waving hello.
Stooping lower, he sounds out a cheery caw, a practiced greeting he hopes no longer grates half as much as they did when he first began.
Ledecky looks up at him and her face lightens. She smiles, lifting up her finger. “Oh, hello, Humble. Do you have a message for me?”
He does.
When he lands on the arch of her finger, careful not to dig too hard with his claws, she guides him to a fence post and begins to unwind a piece of parchment from where the birdkeeper had tied it to his leg.
“Oh, it’s from Bradley,” she says, unrolling the paper and peering at the unknowable markings inside.
H.P. tilts his head. Blankly, he scans the paper beside her, but as always, he can’t make the least bit of sense out of the scribbled letters. Even so, he smiles to himself, his eyes slipping shut and chest puffing out.
“If you wait here, dear, I’ll be right back with some crackers. I’ll be sure to write back to ol’ Bradley tomorrow, which should give you some time to rest! I can’t imagine the journey you’ve had. So, get a good night’s sleep, Humble!”
Crackers had and elderly women thoroughly entertained, H.P. flutters up to the roof. Overall, it is slanted and pointed, the deep, sloping sides covered in a bosting red slate, but at one end, a small, flat area juts out with a screen door going in towards the attic and a tall, dirty bird house into which H.P. could slip inside through a small, arching hollow.
In one of the straw nests, among the spider webs and white bird droppings, Franky watches him enter with a relieved sigh.
“I thought you were a cat!” he says, “Well, I’m glad you’re not. I’ve just had the worst trip. There was this great, big old hawk down by George’s farm and he almost got me! I’m talking about this big, H.P. –” He showed with his wings – “This big!”
H.P. settled into his favourite nest, the sunny one in the corner just by the great human’s door. His wings fussed a while, trying to fold nicely and straighten the green-purple feathers that made a faint bow tie on his neck.
“You know, that hawk got me thinking, H.P.,” Franky continued, feathers ruffled all over - well, except for the long, grey stretch of his neck, which was as smooth and un-patterned as ever. “I just … I feel like I’m meant for a different path – and no not a flight path but just a different life path entirely! Something more ambitious. Something that gets my heart racing like that hawk out there. God, you know how much I hate it here. I wish I could … you know! Do something! Make people happy! Make a difference somewhere, no matter how small! Do you get me, H.P.? … H.P.?”
But H.P.’s eyes were closed, and he could already feel sleep seeping in. Ledecky’s crackers really had been good today, and he was glad, too, that he’d made it back to Lethia Town with no hawk sightings, no strange hiccups, and absolutely, perfectly on time, exactly as he always did, day after day, after wonderful, happy day.
This ones definitely a little more cutsie than any of our Wordle Inspired entries yet! And you may have noticed too that the title of this one doesn't involve the Wordle answer that inspired it, but I thought "The Humble Life" is probably a lot more digestible than the "Homier Homer".
In typical fashion, I also drew on a Pinterest-found quote as well. Today's memorable line is from Fyodor Dostoyevsky: “You sensed that you should be following a different path, a more ambitious one, you felt that you were destined for other things but you had no idea how to achieve them and in your misery you began to hate everything around you.”
Now, this one's interesting, because I disagree with it! (Anyone who connects with this quote is, of course, perfectly valid and should be respected!) However, I tend to steer clear of people who "beg[in] to hate everything around [them]", or help them steer away from this attitude where possible for the simple reason that its destructive and unhelpful. You can end up hurting a lot of people, yourself included but not limited to, by spiralling into this thought process, and I'm not interested in perpetuating it.
Additionally, I think it's strange, this constant drive for ambition in our capitalist society. It seems to be the default to success. We have this idea that we need to "achieve" something. And I want to challenge that.
If there is one woman with a stable family and kids and another who is a self-employed business owner, single and financially independent, which one is truly the most successful? Neither. They're both doing what they want to do in life; they are where they want to be.
Now, I don't think the Fyodor Dostoyevsky is necessarily treating ambition like the default state of mind (its just the reverberations from his use of "you should be"), but I feel obligated to make a case for the simple life, the humble life if you will.
So, here is my premise.
H.P. is a homing pigeon who brightens other people's days, relishes the small delights in life and garners a great deal of job satisfaction. He's well looked after and appropriately appreciated. What more can he ask for? What more does he need? Is there really anything shameful in living a happy, fulfilling life, however that may look for you?
Although, as an aside, rereading that quote a few times and contrasting it to my own point of view, I do genuinely think there is merit in exploring that feeling, that idea that you're destined for more, that doing anything less would be wasting yourself. And I think that's just an indication that you need to keep pressing forward, seeking opportunities and jumping on them, and exploring who you are, what you want and where you want to be: may this be in the penthouse of a swanky flat or a humble, raggedy old cottage in the middle of your hometown country-scape.
What are your thoughts on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's writing? Do you think I handled my concept well and argued a good case through my own writing? Let me know down below! (VV)