Down the well, Sasha glimpses a bucketful of starlight. Up above, the tree canopy hides most of the sky, but the well is directly under a gap in the thickly-woven branches. Sasha gazes up and notices the moonlight caught in the frozen drops at the tip of the trees’ fingers. They glisten at the slightest of Sasha’s swaying motions, shooting whiteness in a universe of greys and blues.
Turning westward, Sasha sees the tawny orb of the moon like an old friend, sleeping undisturbed amidst the spray of stars. Sasha winks at the silent presence and, turning to the well again, searches the coat’s pockets for treasures to align on the edge of the stone mouth. A pair of broken glasses, a pinecone, a glass bauble that lost its elf, and a forlorn earring. Sasha hums a crisp melody, admiring the decorated edge of the well. How cheerful to see these solitary things keep each other company.
Only one thing is missing. Sasha retrieves from another coat pocket a candle stub. It nestles against the bauble and, as Sasha lights it with a finger-flick, the flame sends a glimmer skipping on the round belly of the bauble, bounding on the broken bridge of the glasses, twinkling along the earring’s post and finally hiding within the depths of the pinecone.
This short piece was written during one of Kimberly Taylor-Pestell’s guided creative retreats. The first prompt was a haiku by Horiuchi Toshimi:
Winter well: A bucketful Of starlight.
From this we had to create a piece using our medium of choice. Kimberly made sure we never ran out of material by providing additional prompts as we were working, in the form of words of pictures to draw from.
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