The Dance Of Creating

20250423

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

“Hmm.” Antonio rolled the ball of clay between his hands. “What are you meant to be?”
{I don’t know.}
“Not to worry.” Antonio gently flattened the ball, examining where it gave and what strove to hold its height. “Let’s see… A hedgehog, perhaps?”
The clay considered this. Feeling, through his fingers, the essence of what he meant by ‘hedgehog’. {I think… less round?}
“Aha. Alright.” Antonio tried forming it into a cube, then a cylinder. Possibilities flitting through his mind, a wordless conversation dancing between his hands and the clay.
He stilled as the answer crystallised. Aha. {A sleeping horse. With a foal nestled against its side.}
Antonio smiled and leant back, one hand still resting on the clay. His fingertips digging in ever so slightly. His other hand reached for the chalk and began sketching. Covering the slate with different designs, shapes, compositions. Each iteration drifting closer. Every time he wiped it all clear and started the next draft it felt better. More right.
Finally…
{That one.}
Antonio nodded slowly, a pensive hum rumbling in his throat and down his arm to the waiting clay. His mind turning the drawing over and over, until he could almost see the sculpture waiting to be born.
Then he bent over the desk and they set to work.

Prompt was “Write a piece centred around a sculptor and their clay.”
[Fantasy or allegory? I honestly have no idea. I suppose I could be lazy and claim it’s both. But I’m curious what you think.]