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Closed Third Person
May. 6th, 2019 12:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nola_lucyShe'd found it at a flea market: an enormous antique wardrobe, in horrible shape but gorgeous beneath it all. Hazel couldn't believe the owners didn't ask more for it; she haggled it down another twenty-five dollars just so they wouldn't see how eager she was to take it home and raise the price. It took a phone call to a friend with a pickup truck to get it and a few other pieces home, but it was hers.
Over the course of months she sanded it down, repaired it, added new feet to it, refinished the outside. She completed other projects around it, using the little available space that was left to her in the shed she used as her workshop. Every once in a while she questioned what she was going to do with it; the more time she spent with it the less she could imagine selling it, but it was so big she didn't know where she'd put it inside, either. Maybe that was what kept her from finishing it--not wanting to decide its fate. Or maybe it really was just the wonderful distraction that was the rest of her life: friends, Kyle, Katie's mural, her own other work. Her self-imposed deadline slid by, but she was too happy to feel bad about it. Some kinds of procrastination were good for you. Sometimes you just had to wait for the right moment.
The right moment came early one morning, when she woke up from a dream she couldn't quite remember, and immediately went out to the shed to get to work. No coffee, no food, still in the tank top and boxers she'd been sleeping in, she climbed into that huge wardrobe and started painting. She did eat at some point, though she didn't have any distinct memory of it; everything was a fog except the wardrobe. Hazel worked for almost a full 24 hours, lying on her back to get the ceiling, kneeling to reach the far upper corners, crouching just outside and leaning in to get the details at the bottom. It left her covered in splatters of a dozen different colors from every conceivable angle, but when she finished, she was left with a satisfaction that had almost nothing to do with a job well-done and finally completed.
Narnia. It was Narnia inside her wardrobe; she'd found it again.
Over the course of months she sanded it down, repaired it, added new feet to it, refinished the outside. She completed other projects around it, using the little available space that was left to her in the shed she used as her workshop. Every once in a while she questioned what she was going to do with it; the more time she spent with it the less she could imagine selling it, but it was so big she didn't know where she'd put it inside, either. Maybe that was what kept her from finishing it--not wanting to decide its fate. Or maybe it really was just the wonderful distraction that was the rest of her life: friends, Kyle, Katie's mural, her own other work. Her self-imposed deadline slid by, but she was too happy to feel bad about it. Some kinds of procrastination were good for you. Sometimes you just had to wait for the right moment.
The right moment came early one morning, when she woke up from a dream she couldn't quite remember, and immediately went out to the shed to get to work. No coffee, no food, still in the tank top and boxers she'd been sleeping in, she climbed into that huge wardrobe and started painting. She did eat at some point, though she didn't have any distinct memory of it; everything was a fog except the wardrobe. Hazel worked for almost a full 24 hours, lying on her back to get the ceiling, kneeling to reach the far upper corners, crouching just outside and leaning in to get the details at the bottom. It left her covered in splatters of a dozen different colors from every conceivable angle, but when she finished, she was left with a satisfaction that had almost nothing to do with a job well-done and finally completed.
Narnia. It was Narnia inside her wardrobe; she'd found it again.
