Colleen Wang, Period 8, 5/6/21, Day C

Colleen Wang

Period 8

5/6/21

Day C

Creativity & Fiction

• Craft a piece of fiction that addresses one or more of the following: 
• Literary elements (i.e. structure, tone, diction, mood, irony, and figurative language) to craft a narrative and/or poetry
• Structural features of drama (stage directions, character attributions/tags, dialogue, monologues, and/or soliloquies) to craft a script
• Multidimensional characters to develop themes and create socio-political metaphors.

Five O’clock

There aren’t many windows in my house. The ones that do grace our walls are usually shut tight against the neighbor’s car exhaust and boarded up by blinds to block prying eyes. Surrounding brick buildings obstruct most of the direct sunlight, leaving us in a constant shade of gloomy indoor overcast. But five o’clock in my room is a transformative time.

At five o’clock, the late afternoon sun breaks through at just the right angle to illuminate my little corner of the house. Hazy golden rays bounce off pastel painted walls, diffusing warm tones into the serene air. The noisy tenant above me is away at work, my usually bustling family members occupied, and the rest of the world steadily chugs through rush hour traffic. But I travel miles away in my mind.

Some days, I traverse the fictional lands of book characters. Other days, I blast music and attempt to fold laundry in the middle of a lip-sync concert. I will usually pick up my phone and scroll through the published lives of people from every walk of life. Or I might just lay on the sunny floor and think, and I enjoy that all the same.

When the sunlight cools down and cuts shadows across the wall, five o’clock is over. Sound rings out - of the upstairs tenant’s reverberating footfalls, the rustle of someone stacking groceries on the kitchen counter, and the noise of my own thoughts returning to me. And so I reemerge from my room as time resumes its regular cadence once again.

Five o’clock is a time to be enjoyed. It is a time to aspire, to act, or to do nothing at all. Everybody has their own five o’clock - moments where they become infinitely aware of their existence relative to everything else and the implicative consciousness of choosing to do something - for a short while, anyway.