Wednesday's Three Word Wednesday

The words over at Three Word Wednesday are jolt, ribbon and zeal.

Space

The space smells of crayons that have been left in the sun too long.
A third-floor walkup, it’s utilitarian in composition. One great room. A small kitchen is pushed to one side. A smaller bath that’s often mistaken for a closet. Four cheery floor-to-ceiling windows offer views of a tree-lined street, the city skyline.
Lives have been lived in this cramped space.
The first, young lovers with a zeal for French chamber music and Sunday mornings spent in bed with pastries, coffee and the newspaper.
The recently divorced middle-aged woman who cried herself to sleep most nights and a fit of desperation plucked a gray-and-white kitten with a pink ribbon tied to its neck from a cardboard box at the subway stop to fill up her loneliness.
The artist who tortured himself with jolts of intravenous drugs and jugged wine until his long-suffering muse told him to fling himself off the George Washington Bridge.
A fresh coat of paint the color of eggshells awaits the newest tenant. A pilgrim from the wilderness with a few battered cardboard boxes and a beloved, battered IBM Selectric typewriter.
He picks absently at a flyspeck on the window with a fingernail as he watches life pulse in the city.
He turns from the windows and commits the crayon smell to memory, hoping one day to incorporate it into a story he’s yet to write.

Comments

anthonynorth said…
Ah, a great take on many a writer :-)
Oh, I love this! I love this! I love the introduction with the crayon scent... it is such a fine way to kick everything off.

Hmmm. A foreshadowing of the writer's beginning? Kindergarten-nature of the new tenant? I wonder....

Someone above me noted the crayon, too. Obviously it is a connection for us all.

I also got a quick image of the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun" where Frances lives for a time in the "Recent Divorcee" apartments in San Francisco BUT I don't sense this space was as drab as that one. Somehow the tree-lined street outside the spacious windows speaks to me of great hope.

(I better stop, I think this comment may be getting longer than the original post!)
pia said…
You hooked me with the first sentence. So original and yet I could immediately smell it. Loved the quick takes on the tenants
mark said…
Thom, this is one of the better sketches you've shared for 3WWW. Little details jumped off the screen, spoke to me...

Wonderful piece of work.
Andy Sewina said…
Phew, you took me back to my first school, I remember the 'pencil box' smell - great bit of scene setting!
Crybbe666 said…
Wow, dude, this is fantastic. Like everyone else, the crayons - and the memories they evoke - are wonderful but the whole thing just reeks of genius. Thanks!!!
Timothy P. Remp said…
The smell drew me in and the various people in the living spaces kept me there. It what writers do, we ponder and wonder.

-Tim
http://timremp.blogspot.com/2010/01/wiccan-rivalry.html
Lilibeth said…
I love the way you use the words so naturally in a story such as this, never showing any sign of their awkward randomness. What a clever idea--different tenants!
Tumblewords: said…
These characters are so alive - so wonderful in their diversity and the space is perfect.
Jay R. Thurston said…
The apartment has many stories to tell while the main character within only begins to ponder, fantastic irony.
Larry said…
Thanks for stopping by This Blog Of Mine.I think I would of came up with something different If I'd known what was going to happen with the earthquake.
larry
Dee Martin said…
I love how you made this simple "utilitarian" space take on a personality. I often wonder if places don't carry ghosts of people who have been there before. Like everyone else - the smell of crayons..wow.
peggy said…
This is such a lush piece for the word count--it puts the reader right into the room. I too, loved the room telling stories while the latest tenant is contemplating them.

Okay, stickler for details or you are truly masterful. I read these once for the sheer joy of the story, and the 2nd time to find the words if they didn't jump out at me. After four times through, I still can't find 'jolt'. Is it blending so well that I can't see it?
Lucy said…
this was beautiful Thom.. I may have imagined it.. but I took this to mean that the writer with his imaginative mind... Imagined all these previous tenants and their varied situations.. Did u mean that? or was that truly the history of the apt.?
either way.. very tangible feel.
Ann (bunnygirl) said…
This is beautifully done, both as scene and story. It's the details that make it come alive!
Stan Ski said…
Was the new lodger Sherlock Holmes...?
Anya Padyam said…
I can smell the crayon:)

an interesting room, I must say:)
having moved around a lot i was always curious abt the tenants before and what they left behind..cover it all up with white paint...not necessarily so...it is the simple unspoken that catches our eye..another great read thommyg...
mazzz in Leeds said…
Liked how you ended it - a bit like one of those mirror-in-a-mirror images!

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