Uncle Joe- inkwell prompt: sailing

source

Alla was a happy child, sometimes mad, but she found joy in little things like swimming in the house pool and eating sweets like chocolate candies. Alla’s uncle was coming to town from a long voyage at the sea and he was visiting the Miller family.

“He must have so much stories about his adventures to tell us” Alla said to her mother thrilled.

“Yes, he comes every 5 years, you were just 4 when he visited us last” Agnes Miller said to her daughter happy and excited.

“Every time he brings a painting, which we hang on the wall, they are all unique and about his most exciting adventure during a five year period. He asked us to keep them for him, we don’t know what he is going to do with them. He started this when he was 20 years old, now he is 35, so it means that he has two paintings here in the house, let me show them to you” Agnes said to her daughter who was attentively listening to her mother.

On one painting, there was a sea monster, sort of an octopus looking creature and a small ship with people on its deck shouting, and a clock floating on the water that showed 3 o'clock, on another one there was another sea creature that looked like a big snake next to a small ship, with a clock floating on the water that showed 6 o'clock.

It was finally time for uncle Joe to come.

The door knocked and everyone were so excited to see Uncle Joe after years being gone traveling the world with his little ship.

What Alla observed was a man with light brown hair, small eyes and a backpack along with a painting.

“Maybe he brought us magical sweets from a faraway island,” she thought.

“So, you must be little Alla” Uncle Joe said smiling.

“I am not little, I have all grown up, I make my own bed, and clean my own room” Alla said a bit annoyed.

“Oh, I’m so sorry” Uncle Joe laughed out loud and everyone laughed with him.

“What do you have in your backpack? Sweets?” Alla asked Uncle Joe curiously.

"let me see..... I have one chocolate candy for you" Uncle Joe put his hands into his backpack and brought out a swiss chocolate candy with caramel sea salt flavor and gave it to Alla.

Her eyes flashed with excitement and she took the candy.

After greetings, they sat at the dinner table. All through dinner, all Alla was thinking about was the painting and the story uncle Joe promised to tell them.

There was a painting of a man-eating sea monster that looked like a starfish with a big mouth and shark like teeth; and a ship while a storm was coming to get little people painted on the ship's deck. They were screaming and there was a clock floating on the water that showed 9 o'clock.

It is after dinner and they all sat to hear the story of the painting.

“It was raining cats and dogs, I, Jake and Sara, they are my longtime friends by the way who accompany me in my journeys, were at the Pacific Ocean heading towards Paris. We suddenly saw a big shiny purple starfish in the ocean. It was so bright that all of our surroundings was lit as it is daylight and the sun is shining. It was coming for us and we didn’t know what to do to quench its thirst for our flesh.

There was something in its eyes that made us uneasy, he was a smart starfish, and it sensed things. So, I brought my bow and arrow, I just had one arrow, it was a long shot but I took my chances and aimed straight at its eyes, its heavy body fell on the ocean and we were relieved” uncle joe told his audience with so much excitement in his tone of voice.

Everyone kept silent for a moment until Agnes broke the silence by saying “who wants desert?”

Alla jumped from a long silence and yelled “ I do”. She loved deserts and sweets.

After they had desert, it was Alla's bed time, but she didn’t want to go to sleep.

“You always make me go to sleep when I want to be awake, this is not fair” Alla said stubbornly hitting her right foot on the floor as a sign of objection.

Agnes tried to calm her down, and she finally succeeded by saying “ Tomorrow morning your uncle is leaving and if you don’t sleep now, you won’t be able to say goodbye to him, you don’t want that, do you?”

“Uncle Joe is leaving tomorrow??!!, I thought he was going to tell us another story, I want another story” Alla said while she got a bit sad and after a while she went to bed.

Its the next morning. She eagerly made her bed and got ready to say good bye to her uncle accepted the fact that he had to leave.

“Why do you go to long journeys, isn’t life here not exciting enough?, every night Mom makes delicious desert, ”Alla asked just before uncle Joe was leaving, .

"Because I need action in my life. Life is too short. I don't want to lose any time. Life doesn’t give you second chances Alla, you have to enjoy every second of it. You have to figure out what you need, navigate through life. You’ll never feel living in the now by being mad at your parents. Little by little it adds up and you look at the mirror and realize you’re not happy anymore, then you’ll come to know that you need change. Monsters of life come and go, but the only thing that will stay is you and how happy you are with how you react to the things that happen to you" Uncle Joe said smiling and left Alla thinking deeply.

He said good bye and he went on to experience his next big adventure.