Member-only story
The Spark Within
Finding Creativity
Lena sat in front of the blank canvas, the brush in her hand like an artifact from a life she had forgotten how to live. The studio, once a sanctuary, now loomed like a silent judge, its shelves filled with old, dried-out paints and half-finished pieces that whispered accusations of neglect. She sighed, pressing the bristles lightly to the canvas, then hesitated. Nothing came. The colors that used to dance so effortlessly in her mind were gone, the inspiration that once surged like a tidal wave reduced to a stagnant puddle. She had lost it — whatever *it* was.
Her fingers clenched around the wooden handle, frustration building. She had been an artist once, hadn’t she? The kind who saw beauty in the cracks of the pavement, who found poetry in the way light slanted through dusty windows. But now, all she saw was an unyielding void.
With a huff, Lena dropped the brush and stood. She needed air.
The city was alive with the hum of life — cars rushing, voices rising, neon signs flickering their siren calls. She wandered through the streets, her mind a tempest of self-doubt. Maybe she had been fooling herself all along. Maybe the creativity had never really been inside her; maybe she had simply borrowed it from the muses, and now they had taken it back.
