Driftttt

A short descriptive essay written for English 3. **may be elongated into a short story eventually

As a breathing man, John’s favorite place on Earth was the few cubic inches inside his own head. With such a brilliant and cunning mind like his, there was no reason to search for entertainment. He could invent fantastical worlds, first for himself, than on paper. However to do such a task now has proven impossible for John. Without a solid body to hold a pencil, what was a writer?

John had found himself in quite a predicament. Now floating somewhere above his body, faint memories of his previous life were washing in like the high tide of an ocean. Brief glimpses of what was and what could have been, so suddenly appearing and disappearing that they were almost never there at all. He could manage to retain one detail and that was of his cottage home tucked snugly in the valley laying before the mountains - which mountains, he did not know. Curiosity drove him to abandon his fear of leaving his body that now lay cold; he travelled there.

The small structure was just as he remembered, one of the only things he remembered in his present state. The stagnant odor of tobacco still lofting in the air to the great, redwood grandfather clock towering in the back corner, all was in place. John drifted about the room for a while wondering if this is all he had, if he was even a good writer. These thoughts eventually lead him over to the black ROYAL typewriter sitting on a crudely crafted wooden desk. In front of him was a mess of clutter ranging from crumpled up paper to kneaded erasers. Looking upon the mess, John felt like a caged animal, he could want to unfold the delicate sheets and examine their contents, but he was faced with the fact that he was no longer a part of the physical world. This is when he realized, with a heavy heart, that he was reduced to a mere observer when his soul left his body. He was raped of his ability to lay a finger or voice an opinion on anything. His gaze was shifted from the papers to the picture window that was ahead of him and the white wonderland beyond that.

His mind was now pondering the apparent absence of life when he began to see small shapes dancing in snow. He made out the shapes of elves with dainty pointed ears, merrily playing about the pine woods, sparkling with the reflection of the sunrise against the snow in the places where the forest allowed light to be let in. Dressed in brilliant pinks and golds, they stood out so clearly. Echoing across the woods and into the cottage was their chiming, bell like voices. John could’ve sworn for a moment there really were elves, but the bell tones were growing harsher and louder...louder…louder…

As if being woken from a trance, John snapped back to the reality of his not-quite-there self and the little cottage room. Steadily ticking in the back was the culprit of the noises he mistook for voices; the grandfather clock, its face reading six o’clock. This forced a silent chuckle out of him for he was now certain of one thing, even in the afterlife he had the power to create. This humble abode was not all he had, it never was. In fact, he had infinite worlds just waiting to be brought to life all inside his favorite place.