A Figment of my Imagination

On a Sunday morning, in quite a warm-sunny setting, Pamella was sitting in her easy-chair. She would prefer being called Pam today, just for the sake of avoiding the wastage of breath on that one much-awaited peaceful holiday. One could even hear the pleasant breeze whisper “sleep, be lazy, you have the Right to procrastinate today- it’s a Sunday!” Pam could finally take rest today. Pam would definitely ease out today.

Pam was about to doze off with a magazine, which she was barely even reading, lying upside down on her belly when suddenly her daughter Mia showed up with an anxious eye.

“Ma can we please get our Netflix subscription renewed?

Pam frowned and asked Mia to “get a life”. This was followed by Mia getting a 5-minute long enlightening lecture on how to “live and let live” and apparently, how disturbing her mommy on a Sunday morning was very impertinent of her.

“But can we please do something exciting today, Mom?” asked Mia curiously as Pam snubbed.

Mia went back to her room thinking about the interesting things that she could be doing to make her otherwise very dull and monotonous summer holidays interesting.

She finally decided that she would draw, colour, and paint her heart out to take stuff in her stride. She was about to get the paints, brushes, and her other stuff when her father showed up along with her little sister at the entrance door.

“Pam, Mia, rise and shine guys! Can you please help us with the shopping bags?” asked Tom.

Pamella took at least a minute and a half to get up from her cozy-comfy chair while Mia was still upstairs thinking about her potential revolutionary piece of art that would take the world by storm, not to mention, would help her kill her boredom, to be put a bit more accurately.

After being called out of her room about thrice, she finally decided to help her Dad with the grocery bags first after which she would bring her fantasy to life.

“Hey look Mia we brought new rackets! We can finally play tennis outside,” exclaimed Mia’s little sister Elle.

Mia smiled and excitedly took the racket in her hands just before getting spooked out by the worm on the plastic cover.

“Eeeeeh!” Mia threw the racket away.

“Mia! Why would you do that?” cried Elle.

“You know how insects make my flesh creep, Elle. I am sorry. All the more, I don’t want to play anything right now. I just want to paint in peace and bring my artistic side out today. Just wait until you see my marvel”, said Mia as she started walking back to her room.

Elle became furious and snapped back at her. “You literally had to break my new racket to say that? And yes, I’ll definitely wait until you throw the paints away in frustration as well, as we all know how bad you are at drawing. And artistic? Don’t try to put this fake artsy side on. Be real.”

She had to be hard. Elle thought, she had to got to be harsh, even though she regretted saying that instantly as those hurtful words came out of her mouth.

“Easy there girls!” said Pam as she made a half-assed attempt to try and clear the air before going back to sleep in her out-of-reach but not yet forgotten easy-sunday chair.

Mia went back to her room. She gathered everything she needed- paints, brushes, canvas, her scrunchie, and most importantly, her apron to keep her clothes clean. She started scribbling on the canvas, trying to make something aesthetically breathtaking which actually appeared something more like a random doodle.

She went on for about an hour to sketch something that wasn’t at par with anything that she had in mind.

“This is it.” All of a sudden she got the perfect idea. “A figment of my imagination- that’s what I’ll call this painting” said Mia to herself.

Such an amazing way to give meaning to a mess, indeed. What’s going inside our heads, anyway? Constant overthinking, confusion, thoughts that we shouldn’t be pondering upon, stress, and of course- this mess! Nobody thought Mia’s painting would be such an accurate depiction of our real imagination. Apart from the constant worrying, we keep building castles in the air, too. What would it be like? Well, Mia knows it. She’s drawing it. It’s a figment of her imagination, too.

Mia splashed literally every colour on the canvas. Some of it went on the Canvas, some of it went straight to the walls, and the rest on the floor. At this point, Mia dropped the idea of even using the brushes. She continued to make the mess messier until her clothes couldn’t soak in more paint, let alone speak of the apron. After about another hour or so, Mia sat down to look at her extraordinary creation- a perfect disarray of colours.

This moment being followed by a moment of self-introspection that led to a sunburst of emotions. Mia sighed. She could recall Elle’s words. She might have been partially correct- Mia did actually throw the paints everywhere, definitely not in agitation, though.

She got up to take a shower when she suddenly slipped and tripped over an empty bottle of paint.

“BAAAMMM”-

Mia fell over a wooden box that made more noise than all the empty bottles of paint combined. Everyone rushed to Mia’s room.

Pam opened the door, slipped over the paint as well, and came down tumbling to her daughter. The noise was louder this time.

To the very least, Mia’s artsy day had literally taken their house by storm, if not the world yet. As Tom and Elle helped them stand and clean up, Pam tried to make a painful attempt to bring a few words out of her mouth. They might have been there on her mind. They must have been there on her mind all this time.

“Mia, I bought the Netflix subscription”, said Pam at last, as everyone laughed.

What a Sunday!