Coffee Break 12/30

Coffee Break, collage/acrylic, 6 x 6

Elizabeth W. Seaver

Millie floated down from her favorite tree, holding a freshly brewed cup of coffee between her wing tips. She didn't have to go far--just being out of the office for a few minutes morning and afternoon broke up the day, along with lunch of course, when she usually flew to a nearby spot for a few grubs over mixed greens.

But, her favorite part of the day (and the reason she put in her eight hours of tweeting and singing for her supper and being early to get the worm) was when she returned to her other life. The night time one she hadn't told anyone about--secretly, she painted.

As she sat over her coffee, the images flew through her mind like geese at fall migration. She could hardly keep up with them. They came in groups, sometimes fully drawn as if she'd already applied the last brush stroke. Sometimes just a flicker of an idea popped in and then melted away, sunset behind mountains. Millie never worried that those ideas were lost forever because she didn't have paper and pencil with her, or her sketchbook. She knew they were hiding down there in the dark of her workaday world. She would see them again in her tiny studio when the smell of the paints and brilliance of the mixed colors shone light into those dusty corners and incubated inventions moved out of the shadows and onto her canvas.

Leaves rustled and twigs lightly snapped as the office slowly came back to life over Millie's head. She sipped the last of her coffee and bid a temporary farewell to the pictures in her head. Smiling and refreshed, she squared her shoulders and flitted back onto her perch. After clearing her throat, she opened her beak and began singing again. The sparrows, jays and cardinals stopped to stare at her. Millie warbled a complex aria unlike any they'd heard from her before.

 

The mockingbirds wondered what was in her coffee.