It was Saturday morning. Anne woke up to the sound of the alarm clock. For her, every day was a work day, except for today. She looked at her night table and saw the note with the address for the wool festival she was invited to join the day before. "At least probably I didn't just dream of it", Anne thought. She headed to the fridge to take a quick snack, grabbed her bag and hopped in the car. She entered the address in the GPS and left towards the countryside. As the old woman said, it was just a half-an-hour drive away.
The scenery was beautiful. Anne was trying to remember when was the last time she saw the forest and the fields. They are so close to the city, yet she had forgotten to keep in touch with nature. It felt freeing to her soul. As weird as the "wool festival" sounded, at least it was an opportunity to rethink life.
Soon, the car reached an open area with tens of other cars. It seems that people find such festivals so important that they travel from far away. Anne stepped out and looked at the tens of sellers at the open-air market. She started walking around and saw all kinds of artisan goods, handmade ornaments and jewellery, and, of course, wool clothes, gloves and hats. She rarely goes on a tour around the shopping centres to bring 5 more bags of new garments, but here, she felt obliged to buy all kinds of items. And, of course, nice homemade cheese, wild honey, eggs, fruits and vegetables.
By one of the last market stalls, someone said loudly, "I've seen you before! I'm so glad you came." It was the woman from the park. "I'm glad, too. It's amazing to be here. It feels like I'm in the wild, I'm free."
Was it simply luck that had caused her to go to this place? Anne was having a great time and before long, the day was coming to an end. She realised that she has to go back to home where tons and tons of work was waiting undone. The deadline has pretty much passed with nothing to submit to her boss. It was difficult to even think about going back to her car. It was going to bring back reality, and this beautiful day was going to be nothing but a memory. Did it even happen?
Anne was already stretching her hand towards to the door of her car when she heard a man speaking. It came out of nowhere, and she got startled. She didn't know anybody around (except for the woman who invited her - if this even counts).
"I hope you had a nice time, seems that you're bringing some stuff home."
Anne looked towards the bags she was carrying. It truly was more than she had bought at once in a long time.
"Did you get some of my friend Michael's cheese? It's fantastic."
"Umm... I got some cheese, let me see... Yes, I did."
"Good, good. You made the right choice. Native food tastes best."
"Certainly. It's been ages since I was at such a fair."
"We hold the wool festival every 3 months. You should definitely come again. There are more surprises on the way. Especially around Christmas. The sausages of Ms Jane are the best ever. Just look up the fair online. It's the first one that shows up in the search results. We're the best, you see."
"Awesome! I'll certainly do that."
These two parts of my story about Anne are inspired by the daily writing prompts by @mariannewest - "the wild" and "native food".
@mariannewest/day-1815-5-minute-freewrite-tuesday-prompt-native-food
The previous parts of the story are on my blog.
Below are some pictures that the Wombo Dream app managed to generate.
The following ones came to life with the prompt "the wild" combined with various different methods.
For the next artworks, I used the prompt "native food".
This story is (or will be) reposted on my other blogging and social profiles.