A Visit to Nana's

The spare room at Nana's was much nicer than my room at home. It was spotless. No clutter. No toys. The bed was too hard, the pillow too soft. The hardwood floor too cold, the rug I swung my feet onto too tickly.

Something drew me to the window. I climbed onto the windowseat and gazed out.

Several shining somethings in the bushes caught my eye.

I tiptoed through the sleeping house and ghosted out of the back door. There were tiny people roosting in the bushes! Perfectly still, eyes closed, standing to attention on the twigs. In a flash, I remembered where I'd seen them before. Why were Nana's Christmas tree decorations out here?

With shaking fingers, I plucked them, one by one from their perches. They felt peglike to my fingers, surprisingly hard and smooth for how real and alive they looked. The front of my pyjamas made a good enough makeshift carry-sack.

Nana's old jewellry box had been relegated to the guest room because the ballerina inside was broken. I nestled the nine little figures into the velvet lining, admiring their tiny clothes, and tinier lashes. At last, back in bed, I lay balled up under the covers, wide eyes fixed on the jewelry box in the half-light.

Morning took her sweet time. Angry little chitters broke the thin veil of sleep that barely fluttered over me.

When I lifted the lid, eight of the tiny people shrank back, but the ninth stood and faced me. She was bigger than the others, her robes finer and a brilliant red. She had long black hair, braided down her back, and an imperious manner. Angry at being imprisoned, she demanded their release.

How badly I wanted to keep them! There was something irresistable about their smallness, their vitality. But they'd hate me, they'd think me a bad person. I'd be a bad person.

I apologised tearfully and set them down in the dewy grass before anyone else woke up.

That afternoon, gifted notepaper and a pen by Nana, I sat at her table and inked out a story about the strange little people roosting in her garden.

My cousins exclaimed over my imagination. Nana winked.

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Word count: 366! Six for six!

Submitted on: 6th January at 00:23 AM

*Author's Note*

Thank you for reading! Your engagement means a lot. I try to reciprocate all reads, so please leave a comment to make that easier.

The story behind the story: This is a rough re-telling of a story I wrote at my Nana's house. In the original, they weren't Christmas decorations, though.

Prompt: Sentient Christmas decorations. This is not where I thought I'd go with this one. I could see them planning an elaborate escape mission so they didn't have to be locked up in the loft!

A Story Every Day in 2024: I'm writing a microfiction every day in 2024. This is my sixth. With Vocal being down yesterday, yesterday's is still in review! It's only a little after midnight, but it's technically the 6th, so I'm submitting it now in the hope it will actually be published at some point today.

If you are joining me in the "story every day" lark: please do comment with a link to your story. If you think, "bugger that for a game of soldiers" but you think you could do something with this prompt, I'd love to see what you come up with.

Here are my previous "story every day" stories so far:

1st January - A New Beginning

2nd January - The Other Guy

3rd January - One Day, I Just Disappeared

4th January - The Wages of Sin

5th January - Where Am I?

Please consider reading Rachel's story for today!