The Sky Festival

Hello everyone! Although my birthday is actually the 30th of January, since that's a Monday we decided to celebrate it today. Been hanging out with my best friend and such so I didn't have time to write a story for today so instead I'm putting up an old story of mine. Before this blog I did a story a day for a few months. The story below was actually written on October 19th 2009! It's one of my favorites from my first story a day. I think you'll find interesting on how my style and craft has changed over the years.

The Sky Festival

            An origami kingdom floated in the sky, the whispers of the wind being the only thing that held it up. Angels lived in this kingdom, their magic wings kept them light as air so they could walk the land of the kingdom safely. Crowds of angels gathered at the edge of the kingdom preparing themselves for the Festival.

“I’m so sorry I’m late!” the angel Jasmine said as she ran up to her father, her magic paintbrush in hand.

Although Jasmine’s father had told her over and over to not be late for the Festival, he decided that he wouldn’t lecture her just this once. “Jasmine, you’d better hurry along, the birds are about to leave. You wouldn’t want the painting to start and be birdless right?” Jasmine, quite happy that she dodged another lecture, ran off to find some birds.

Thousands of living origami birds flew into the kingdom, feeding on the bird feed the angels had left out. The angels would then each catch one. The chasing and catching was the angel children’s favorite part of the Festival. The adult angels’ favorite part was the painting of the birds. After a quick sleep spell was cast on the birds the angels went to work painting on them as a canvas. The children painted mostly doodles with their magic brushes, but the adults took the Festival far more seriously and drew beautiful works of art on the birds, things that struck the soul with their colors and shapes.

Jasmine put a lot of effort into her drawing, and created something quite remarkable for her age. Although blotchy she managed to recreate the Festival on one of the birds. Right as she did the last stroke the bird woke up and flew off, startling her. It tried, just as all of the birds did when they woke up, to shake off the art. But once it realized the futility of its actions it decided to ignore the beauty on its back and fly away. Immediately after it flew off Jasmine missed her work.

“Don’t worry Jasmine, just like every year newborn birds will come to this spot for us to paint. For now all can you do is stare into the sky looking for your past works, but be patient, the next Festival will be here soon.” Her father gave her a big smile, the Festival was really the only time he was truly happy.

“Okay…I’ll wait.” Jasmine frowned a little, she wished the Festival was everyday.