Tell Me A Story

; she wishes to be someone else. he has numbers on his hand. she lost her rose. he has nowhere to paint. all of them has nowhere to go.

"Ellie? That you?"
The girl wearing yellow called back. "I have some falafels," she said, putting her ukulele down.
Evan peeped out of his room. "Be there in just a sec." He fished a newly inked sheet from his typewriter and grabbed the rest of his finished stack.

            A steaming mug of hot chocolate was already waiting for him while Ellie prepared her tea. Evan plated their sandwiches and placed milk and sugar on her side of the table, along with his new piece.

            Ellie sat down across him. "It rained a bit so it was amazingly beautiful to play in restaurants. I'm absolutely knackered though"oh is this the new story?" She began reading Evan's new novel. "This is bollocks, Evan! All those sleepless nights for twenty pages?"

            "Don't judge without readin', lady. I'm as tuckered out as you are." He said. The steam from his hot chocolate fogged up his glasses, making it harder to watch Ellie's reactions. He didn't quite know how tired a street performer in Paris could be so he just settled on feeling grateful of how supportive she was. The rich taste of the falafel made it obvious that she played a lot that day. "Saw any lookers today?"

            She looked up from reading and smiled, "There was this brilliant girl at a coffee shop. But I looked a little scrummy so I didn't talk to her. Oh! And there was this cute lad too!" She talked a little too loud out of instinct. The orphanage was always so loud. It would've been scary for a little London girl lost in Texas.

            Ellie was eight, her parents didn't come back, she was pale and spoke weirdly"so she didn't speak much at all. One day she sat next to little Evan writing on a dusty typewriter and started adding a melody to a poem he was working on. She'd been his best friend ever since.

            "Oh my golly! A cute lad!" Evan gasped dramatically.
            Ellie laughed. "No, it isn't like that! It was the girl I really liked. The lad was just adorable." She sipped her tea, "We should take a break tomorrow. Put up Christmas lights on the walls. Maybe we'll cut up some letters and hang them too."

            Evan's books brought them here. A small publishing house wanted to work with him. Naturally, he brought Ellie along. She was unbelievably happy with the idea of being a street performer in France and he was content with his writing. Sometimes he'd join her on the streets and paint as she sang.

            "Redesignin' the apartment agaiiiiin? Whaaaaaaat," he said.
            Ellie grinned. "A good masterpiece is never done," she quoted him. "Speaking of which, your story is rubbish because it just broke my heart and I demand more chapters. Also, spotted some typos."

            He finished eating and took his book back. "How many?"

            "Just two."
            Evan refused to work with anything but his typewriter, making it especially hard to edit. Ellie never asked why. He figured she understood him; she never played anything but her ukulele and yellow was the only color she ever wore. "Typ-you for pointin' out the mistakes. If you'll be excusing me, I need two fix them. Chapter all, a masterpiece is never done." He gives a little awkward dance and jazzes back to his room.

            Ellie broke a little laugh. She was sure that she was the only one who found his terrible puns funny.

_______________________________

Evan sighed. So this was why Ellie wanted to redesign their apartment.

            "So this was the cute lad you were talking about the other day?"

            Ellie nodded, "Why yes!" She grinned. She was visibly excited. Beside her was a little boy holding a paintbrush. He looked well enough but starving. Evan saw why she would like the boy; he was smiling. Even when he wasn't, he was still smiling. The look in his eyes were exactly like hers.

      "Bonjour, monsieur écrivain. "  The boy realized he spoke in French and quickly corrected himself. "Hello, mister writer. My name's Leo. I'm Ellie's friend."               

      Evan glanced at Ellie. Leonardo Da Vinci was his favorite artist. This little Leo seemed to have a knack for painting too. Evan thought for a moment. He trusted Ellie's judgment but this was so sudden. He got down on one knee, "Leo, that's a real good name, ain't it? Why don't Ellie here show you my ouuuur aRT ROOM?" he struck a weird pose and pointed to their small studio.
      Leo's eyes widened and glanced up at Ellie, laughing. She smiled back at him and led the way.

     "See? I told you everything was just hunky-dory. You'll love it, there're so many paints and colours..."

      Evan stood back and just watched them. She was playing her ukulele and they were dancing around. He wouldn't mind this everyday either. But all the paperwork and the expense made him think.

     Evan wasn't the kind to bother with money, one thing him and Ellie had in common. It would take a whole lot of adjusting.              

     He was sure the boy was an orphan, Leo looked like a mirror reflection of Evan when he was little.

      He exhaled deeply and took in his apartment.

      This would be a nice place for the boy.

        The young man then followed them to the room. Maybe he'd get to know Leo for a while and then they'd all just take it from there.              

     Adoption, after all, was a process.               
     Sort of like painting a masterpiece. Ellie gave all the color he needed. One year of being married to his best friend and everything was already shining. His wife was really something.              
     Maybe he could take some days off for the little boy too. Evan would let his own story write itself. For now, he'd go to the art room and dance.

  ©2016 W.Greene, All Rights Reserved

Author's Note

Every writer knows the struggle.

There are too many things to write about but your hands aren't fast enough and your brain easily comes up with a new idea, lighting quick. Your whole body is a confusing paradoxical thing. Mine was, and is, no exception.

This isn't the first book that I wanted to put out to the world. But I can never find myself struggling to finish what I've started writing, I only end up writing a completely new chapter, a completely new book. I couldn't stay completely idle either (there's this thing that stops me from being completely stupidly still—it's called a brain.)

The whole process burned me out.

Someone suggested I try this app that gave out creative suggestions, it was to fuel the artist. "Draw something beautiful from something tragic," it challenged me. I didn't get to screenshot it but my mind already did that for me.

One day I scrolling through youtube, I found a song so fucking beautiful that I hated how it broke my heart—it was a perfect fit. That's how I started writing these stories.

Each one is inspired by a song I would hear,

Every story takes me days to write because I wanted to make people feel what these songs make me feel. Creating a story is easy, making people interested is fairly easy too, but putting out stories that would make them feel exactly how you need to? That's the thing I struggled with, and god damn it, I did struggle. I hated writing without passion, and writing a whole book can really make you forget the whole emotion you're supposed to put out. A feeling is strong, it punches quick but it's the aftermath that breaks you—just like a short story.

So here they are, love.

Enjoy my writer's struggles and my human's emotions. I hope you feel the songs in these chapters.


W. Greene