Janustory Wrap Up 2017

Well, we've come to the end of the long road that has been this short story. I've really enjoyed the challenge and it has been a good reminder to create art every day. To carve out time for creativity is so important and give me balance. I will attempt to keep this blog up weekly, but as you can tell from past history, life does tend to get in the way. So does gardening, but that is a good thing. I decided to include the whole journey below. Enjoy!

1. Falling.
2. Sliding down.
3. Pillow catches me.
4. Weird room all yellow.
5. What is this sticky stuff?
6. I catch a glimpse of sky.
7. The walls are too slick to climb.
8. The sticky liquid is sweet and quite delicious.
9. My prison trembles and shakes – what is happening now?
10. Bumblebees are terrifyingly gigantic from a tiny brown ant’s perspective.
11. The miniaturization process worked, but I am trapped and very afraid.
12. Although I have sufficient sustenance, I have been separated from the team.
13. The sticky yellow petal walls of my prison are closing in on me.
14. I have been startled awake by the inquiring probe of a long bee tongue.
15. The petal slit, I can now escape, if only I could find a way down.
16. After crafting a braided rope from the calyx fibers, I’ve freed myself from my narrow prison.
17. How am I ever going to find the other members of the team with my radio broken?
18. As I inch down the stem’s thick buoyant hairs, a deluge of water nearly knocks me into space.
19. I cling aching and helpless as a summer shower tries to drown me, each heavy raindrop a merciless waterfall.
20. At last I have reached the leaf litter below and I pause to take in this strange huge new landscape.
21. Each crooked stem, green leaf, and grain of gritty soil has become an entirely new country and I am a foreigner.
22. I wonder where my other intrepid team members landed after our laboratory shrinking and if they are entirely lost or also exploring.
23. I have achieved an open patch and looking up to a brilliant sky swept with clouds, suddenly feel that all is not lost.
24. A warm breeze ruffles my hair as the sun begins to set and I’m going to need to build a shelter for the night.
25. The last golden orange rays of the summer sunset are fading beneath a clear sky studded with stars while my new fire burns and crackles.
26. Luckily, I have managed to snare a dinner meal of some kind of white grub, if only I can find the intestinal fortitude to swallow it.
27. Until this daring misadventure, I have never realized just how loud the song of crickets can be when you have been shrunk down to their size.
28. Under the rosy blush of a new dawn, I am slowly awoken by the distant call of different song birds and wonder if now I am considered prey.
29. Stretching each and every muscle so I can be ready for immediate flight into the foliage, I sip fresh drops of dew from the stem of my yellow flower.
30. Suddenly I feel an electric tingling all over my body, and as I rise to my feet, my world swirls into a myriad of colors before dissolving into dazzling confetti.
31. I step from the remains of a broken terracotta container brushing bits of plants and soil from my clothes and find my four colleagues hale and hearty, if a bit rattled.