The Day The Chalk Ran Out, Guest Post by Flo Selfman

I had been practicing for three months. The composition was perfect – three horses running across a field, manes and tails blowing in the wind.

I worked out all the colors. The strokes of my practice blackboards fairly flew – I could almost hear the hoofbeats on the ground and an occasional whinny. I did exercises so I would be able to squat while drawing.

The big day came. I Madonnari – the annual chalk festival outside the old Spanish mission in Santa Barbara. My debut – my very first chalk festival.

I crouched down, chose my background colors and started drawing. The greens of the field, blues and white for the sky, yellow for flowers.

I began drawing the first horse – a glossy black one. The next one, white. And the last one, brown. And then…I reached into my chalk box and there was no brown! I moved my hand around in the box – no brown. What to do?

I outlined the horse and decided, Ok, whatever color chalk I pull out will be the color of the third horse. It was….

Title is a prompt from Ina's Weird Prompts™. More stories on this theme in the book Stories From The Heart, vol. 3.
Story © Flo Selfman, PR Consultant, Proofreader-Copyeditor www.WordsalaMode.com, Immediate Past President (2003-16), IWOSC – Independent Writers of SoCalif www.iwosc.org. Reprinted on InaTheMemoirCoach blog with permission.