2023 Retrospective, Part 3 – Picture Window

In Which I was Rudely Interrupted by My Guides For a Story Idea

One evening, innocently watching “Press Your Luck”, my brain was invaded by a creative force, but not the usual spark I get. This was leveled up. I saw it like a movie, and I heard the soundtrack song, “Fluffy Little Clouds” by The Orb. I heard the birds in the trees, the creak of the swing set as the young girl played on it. It came some fast, I had to write it out on my phone notes to catch it all:

Very detailed stream of conscious of 9 year old girl on swing . She is wearing broken-in jeans, scuffed shoes she uses to play outside, and a shirt with a retro rainbow graphic on it. Stains of grass on her clothes from climbing and playing. Staring up at the clouds lying in the grass daydreaming. Sweet, happy.

Up (italics)

Thought

Down (italics)

Thought

Up (italics)

Thought

Title-picture window.

Swing set, pale blue house w/white trim. Playing in the summer. window from kitchen looks out to backyard. Mom is inside. Green grass.  Wooden painted fence, brick red paint. Big tree, a treehouse. Art in the treehouse, it’s where she is most creative. Year is 1953, as told from her signature on a drawing tacked to the wall.

Suburban utopia, anywhere, USA.

Something is happening inside the house; girl is lost in thought. Overly imaginative.  She sees everything in the backyard, she can see between dimensions, nature’s magic. A fantasy child-like scene builds around her, purely in her head

End with mom asking her to come back in the house for dinner, waking her up out of the daydream. “Coming, mom! Goodbye everyone!”

I typed as fast as I could to not lose the details. I added to it as it came to me, which was in the space of a few minutes. This download felt different– mediumship brought it to me. This young girl’s age, what she was doing . . . everything. It was all so vivid. The song that came with it told me that it was in Arizona, and I later got Phoenix. The year, 1953, as well. This moment happened to a young girl in 1953, and I confirmed that after asking my mediumship Mentor while in class. I have to wonder - where this person is in the world, and did I get it right?

My first impression of this moment was that it was, to my utter distain, so happy and joyful. This is not what I have ever written before, as a horror aficionado. Happiness in writing as a tone felt alien to me. Not that I have anything against happiness! Not at all! I just prefer writing with an edge. I don’t read gentle novels and stories. The very idea of reading a positive, happy story is not something I enjoy - it just bores me.

Around this time, I was also kicking around the idea of a novella. The concept was simple - I would pull 8 Tarot cards for the theme of each “life” a Preta (hungry ghost) progressively lives via reincarnation. The catch was that each life would be increasingly corrupt in some way, until it is punished for abusing the system, so to speak. His addiction to reincarnation will lead to him purposefully destroying the life he is living so he can reincarnate again and again. I initially thought this child’s life would be the first one, the innocence of a clean and healthy soul, before all the trouble begins.

I wrote out her little story, adding the details – her name (Charlotte), what she was wearing, the games she played with her imaginary creature friends. It came out of my head rather quickly. The underlying truth of this story is that childhood, if left to its own path, is magical. Children are open in a way that older people are not. They believe in magic, imagination, and play. I tried to capture this moment at its fullest. Then, I left it alone for a while to let it simmer in my brain. I started to think about the life she may have lived after and wrote it all out – all the key moments. I tried to make it work, but it didn’t have the magic of childhood. It was a lost cause.

My compromise was to snapshot a quiet moment after retirement and give the childhood story a space where she is thinking about her life. As an artist, she still has magic in her. The painting she creates is of the Greek god Pan in a forest grove. This one is close to me – he is my guide today. That trickster - he wormed his way into my story. I think what it became was just right. I wanted to give my girl happy moments. The title came to me immediately - and it refers to the view she has out of her tree house, surveying the backyard as her domain.

After all this happy business, it became clear to me that she did not belong in my novella. The tone is all wrong. This novella is going to be dark, and I felt that I would be doing a disservice to this happy little story by including it. So, I posted it as a standalone story. It is as it should be.

I hope you enjoy it. Writing this gave me a dose of much needed happiness, and I hope it does the same for those who read it.