Dear Visitor,
I hope you’re well! I’d like to share two things with you that I spent the last few days working on – on and off.
Using fifteen of my own photos, I created a collage. Then I challenged myself to write a tiny story about the final piece. Both the collage and the story are a little strange 🙂 but I got a kick out of the creation process – and the outcomes.
I hope you in turn enjoy the result.
This is a ‘paid subscriber’ type post I’ve made available to everyone. If you enjoy it, please consider becoming a monthly subscriber.
Take good care.
Lisi-Tana
On a train ride back to where I’m staying, a woman sits across from me. The train is empty except for us but she avoids making eye contact. She carries an umbrella, a capacious purse, a gift bag and a plastic shopping bag. In this plastic shopping bag is a slender bunch of flowers, their long stems pushing the blooms to the opening of the bag. Irises.
As the train clack-clack — clack clacks along, I imagine her taking her flowers into her house and laying them down on her kitchen counter. She searches for the right vase – tall, with a small mouth. Then she arranges her irises just so, moving them around until they’re perfectly balanced.
She puts on the kettle to boil and changes into something comfortable and cozy. After, she brews a small pot of tea – genmaicha, perhaps. While the tea leaves and rice settle gently in the pot, she carries the vase to a small table by her front window. A candle, she thinks, would be perfect. So she lights one. The flickering light bounces happily on the warm ceramic vase, dancing and shimmying in the evening glow.
She brings her pot of tea and a cup to the window and sinks into her favourite armchair, not before moving the curtains aside.
Perhaps today would be her lucky day.
In another train sits another woman. She too carries an umbrella, a capacious purse, a gift bag and a plastic shopping bag. From the plastic shopping bag, the gift bag and her purse large flowers push their way out. They spill over her arms and onto the seat beside her. As the minutes slide by other flowers slowly emerge. They’re heavy, the woman thinks as she shifts them in her arms.
The train speeds into the late afternoon snatching and eating the watery autumn sunlight flashing in through the windows. The woman wonders vaguely how she’ll manage taking all these flowers back home but decides she’ll figure it out once the train arrives at her stop. There are still five or six more to go.
Peering around the flowers, she spots the cat who stepped onto the train just after she had. The cat stares unblinkingly at the snippets of life popping past the window.
“Psst, Cat,” the woman hisses.
It feels strange talking to a cat but the two other people in the car don’t look up from what they’re reading so she tries again.
“Psssssst, Cat! Hey. I know you can hear me. I need some help.”
With great deliberation, Cat turns towards the woman.
“Yeah! What’s up?”
“I can’t manage these flowers on my own. Think you can help me?”
Cat regards her coldly. “Why did you buy so many if you knew they would be too much for you to handle?”
“I didn’t,” the woman struggles to keep the whine of indignation out of her voice. “I bought only two. But when I sat down in this train, more just started growing.” She whispers desperately, “Growing out of my purse and these bags. I’m not sure what’s happening.”
Cat holds the woman’s gaze for a long time, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“So you’re Yuki!” Cat says almost to herself.
Now it’s the woman’s turn to stare. “Yes! But — how do you know my name?”
Cat turns once more towards the window.
Perhaps today would be her lucky day.
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I love the cat 🐈