The soft crinkling of pen against paper is almost all that can be heard. Back and fourth, curving and arching. She sits in bundles of thick soft blankets, holding a sketchbook close. Her back leans against the wall, sitting upon a half broken bed shoved into a corner of a room. There's a clear, white light illuminating the cold space. The old house doesn't have heating past the set of stairs, so living on the top floor can get a little chilly. The girl pauses and switches pens. There's a soft pop as she pulls off the fresh cap and applies the tool to the worn paper. She continues from where she left off. The smooth motions make the black ink dance across the paper. She pulls the blanket closer and shifts, sitting atop the bed. The girl leans down and looks at her floor. At least saying that it's a floor is probably a little forgiving. The true color of the carpet beneath her is unknown. It's buried under layers of old clothes, papers, folders, markers, paints and other tools. Her fingers scrape the floor and knowingly pull out a colored marker. Somehow, she's memorized that the red markers are under the heap of socks two shirts left from the dresser.
She tucks her head down, enveloped in the smell of vanilla and fresh ink. She reaches across a small white cabinet and fumbles, hunting for a paint brush. The tiny table at her bedside is covered in stains of coffee, tea, ink, paint and other dubious liquids. It's coated and surrounded in a ring of junk. A set of erasers, a pair of scissors, a jar of nails, some broken paper clips, scraps of colored paper, a shell full of sea glass, and seas upon seas of other oddities. The girl insists it’s not hoarding. It's being a resourceful artist. Hours tick past, and the golden sunlight fades into dusk, which shifts into enveloping night, which transforms into early dawn and the girl stays huddled in her blankets. The soft crinkling of pen against paper is all that can be heard.
