Prompt: A Brand New You, Effective Tomorrow
Tomorrow you get to become anyone in the world that you wish. Who are you? You can choose to be anyone alive today, or someone gone long ago. If you decide to stay “you” share your rationale.
I awoke in the new year to the sound of a wood thrush trilling its morning greeting from the forest. A tray of hot tea and toast, with fresh butter and strawberry jam, awaited me on the bedside table.
When dressed, I took to the stables, where my horse, a dappled grey, his hot breath frosty in the cool winter air, awaited me, brushed and saddled. He nodded to me, and my gloved hand felt his soft snout, and he took the apple from my palm.
We rode as we usually did, athletically and passionately on the journey to the copse at the top of windy hill, where I dropped the reins and allowed him to nibble on frosted grasses, while I set up my easel and painted, for the hundredth time, the valley with the green river, now, today, bordered with dark leafless lime, oak, and birch.
Our journey back took the long route, leisurely skirting the green river, startling a young stag,
Gordon greeted me by the fireplace, a smile on his ruddy face, as usual, and as was right for a man so deeply content.
“The carriage is here,” he said.
“Time to go save the world?” I asked.
“Yes ma’am.”
“As long as I’m back for classes,” I said.
He bowed slightly, and in a few minutes he joined me in the carriage for my ride to town, in silence, as we preferred.
- Oil painting by Holly Golson
Fluffy Pool 