Story Time
by Kara Donadt
My office chair complains as I lean back legs outstretched in front of me. The low din of the fluorescent lights and electronic equipment is hypnotic. With my eyes closed I allow my mind to wander through the dusty corridors of the past, brushing away the cobwebs of my history I return to a time of pure imagination, a child’s imagination.
I see a woman in her twenties sitting on a large bed surrounded by three young children. We’re curled up close to Mom, my younger sister’s body leans on me, shifting and moving, all the while her anodyne thumb firmly suctioned in her mouth. My brother lies on the opposite side, his pillowed head resting on Mom’s outstretched feet. Mom is propped against the wooden headboard with everyone settled into a cozy nest. She reads from a hardcover book.
“The Secret Garden,” Mom announces, the spine crackles as she opens the book. I gaze at the girl on the cover, clad in a red coat with yellow hair spilling out from under a matching cap and wonder what mysteries lie ahead.
Mother had an exceptional way of reading and with every word she made stories come alive. Vivid realms of goat eating trolls and musty kingdoms with burnished brave knights and malevolent queens, so real that I thought I was a part of them.
Until I started school, story time was our afternoon tradition that was put away like other toys I had outgrown. However, the writing seed was planted and for over forty years it grew like a redwood, slow and steady, life experiences feeding it, authenticating it. Now I want to commit the worlds that swirl in my head to paper, developing my skill so that others may want to read and enjoy my stories.
Kara Donadt is a wife and mother of two. She lives in Spruce Grove, Alberta, where she writes from her home office.
Copyright remains the property of the author.
