Hoping to find some inspiration and direction in life, an aimless young woman buys a top hat at the estate sale of a magician.
Music: “The Superiority” by Andrew Sitkov
[Video Description: Trailer. Duration, 32 seconds. Music: “The Superiority” by Andrew Sitkov. Digital drawing, tinted blue. A young woman seen from neck up, facing front wearing a top hat and bow tie. Above her is the story title. Below her is a text card with the words “Short Story” and “Genre: Mystery & Myth.” Her right hand pops up from the text card, fingers flourished. A butterfly is perched on her index finger. A flock of butterflies emerge from behind her right shoulder and fly to upper left. The image is reflected below the text card. The text card and story title fade as the image morphs from the center out to show the full drawing in sepia tone. A young woman at center seen from knees up, dressed in top hat, ruffled shirt, and a jacket with coattails. She stands facing forward, turned slightly to the right, arms raised and bent, hands flourished. From her right shoulder, a flock of a butterflies fly up to upper left corner, one of them perched on her right index finger. Bottom right corner, waist-high to the young woman, stands a classic style robot made out of blocks and circles, with right arm raised, see from mid-section up. A watermark of the word “storyfeather” appears over the image. Words appear over the image staggered from top to bottom: “Water. Wonder. Blood. Breath. Mystery. Light. Change.” As the last word fades, the image colors shift from margin to center, displaying the negative of the original image, and shift again displaying the full color image. The title reappears at top. A text appears at center reading “Available to Read Now storyfeather.com” A watermark of the site URL appears at bottom right throughout.]
Welcome to Year 9 of Storyfeather
Every year’s short stories (mostly) follow a theme. This year, I will turn the Wheel of Fiction to help me decide what to write. There are thirteen spokes on this wheel. Eight are occupied by the eight themes from the previous years of stories. One is a prompt to turn the wheel again. One is a wildcard (hmm…curious). And three are covered only in question marks. I suppose I’ll find out what’s beneath those questions as we go along.
Welcome to the WHEEL OF FICTION
On this spin, the Wheel of Fiction landed on OBJECTS OF POWER. I didn’t write down what made me think of a top hat. But one of the first things to come to my mind on seeing a top hat is stage magic, and stuff coming out of a hat. So I thought about a top hat with a large storage area inside, which would allow the magician to really pull things out of it. But that didn’t seem interesting enough. And a hat taking someone to a whole different magical world seemed a bit too much (maybe a bit too easy?). I needed something in between. A place where magic resided, but magic that was learned, earned, and constructed. A place that might have something to offer a young person searching for their destiny.
[Video Description: Duration, 8 seconds. Choice wheel made on the Spin the Wheel application. Thirteen spokes or slices in various colors, labeled as follows, clockwise from the top: Objects of Power (the “of Power” is not visible), Prompts, Definitions, Turn Again, Elements, Creatures, S.T.E.A.M., Wildcard, Revisitation, (alternating question marks and apostrophes), Challenge, Draw!!!, (question marks). The title at top reads “The Wheel of Fiction V2” and below that the words “Spin the wheel.” Below that is the date of the spin, 2/16/2022. At top left corner is a flag icon labeled with the letter “F.” This represents a function of the application which interferes with true randomness by reducing the probability of receiving the same choice twice in a row. The wheel turns and lands on OBJECTS OF POWER. As the wheel stops spinning, a top hat appears at the center of the wheel and the band displays an animated shine.]
Genre: Mystery, Mythology, Science Fiction
Tags: BUTTERFLY, DESTINY, MAGICIAN, RO, ROBOT, TOP HAT, TRANSDIMENSIONAL, WORKSHOP
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