Day 224: No Idea!

No Idea!
by
Matt Zurbo

 

Some day’s you just don’t have any ideas.
(Kid sitting up in bed. Hair ruffled, waking up.)

Nothing.
(Kid, tired, PJs still on, looking into mirror.)

Tommy usually had a LOT of ideas!
(Kid tilting head over empty box with the word “IDEAS” on its side.)

So he went to see where they might have gone.
(Kid, scratching head, walking out front door. Weird creatures, and living toys poking heads out from hiding spots behind him, watching him go.)

Tommy looked high…
(Kid, shielding eyes, looking into empty sky. Odd creatures hiding in holes in ground, looking at him.)

He looked low!
(Kid on strings attached to small gears and cogs powered Zephyr, using binoculars to look down. A few weird creatures on top of Zephyr, sitting happily.)

He found some old ideas.
(Dusty, poorly lit room with grey, broken down robot, lifeless grey tiger on roller skates, grey house on stilts, grey soccer ball with grey goldfish in it.)

“Maybe I can make them new?” he thought. But they just fell apart.
(Sitting in dusty pile of broken ideas bits trying to join together a motorised trumpet and sleeping frog in a tutu (dancing frog).)

He thought of a few bad concepts.
(Dumb monster releasing a rope that is holding an anvil over its own head. Bike with square tires. Kid trying to fly with wings made of monkeys. Grey dinosaur on snow skis.)

Had a few scary thoughts.
(Kid looking nervously over his shoulder as scary creatures hang out, like a gang, staring at him.)

But nothing else popped up!
(Mopping along street, head down, not seeing amazing flying machines above his head.)

Tommy even laid idea traps!
(Kid setting a series of traps with bait of brains in a jar, or cheese, or pizza. Various ideas watching him from behind poles and over window ledges.)

But no NEW ideas came into his head!
(Head and shoulders image of kid, top half of head popped open. He is using curling binoculars to look into it. Only two small moths are coming out.)
“Even some small ideas would be nice,” he confessed.

Tommy went to the circus and asked other people for their ideas. Nope.
(Kid sitting, bored, in booth with sign: 10c for good ideas!)

Many people had ideas, but were keeping them for themselves.
(Kid walking through circus, hands in pockets, down and blue. Other people walking with their weird creatures, and lifelike spinning tops, and rainbow shapes, and giants, hearing them away from kid.)

And every time Tommy did have an idea, someone else would have a better version.
(Kid on scooter with hotrod motor, and flame exhaust. Bigger kid on a maxed out version, with two layers of board, and automated pushing foot, mirrors, and speakers blaring music.)

Tommy was scared! “What if I never have another idea!?”
(Kid, horrified, biting clenched fingers.)

“You’re trying too hard,” Silly Sally said. “Just relax. The ideas will come to you…”
(Kid in hammock, leg over side. We can’t even see her face. Her hand, while holding an ice slushy, is pointing to another hammock.)
“Relax?” thought Tommy. “How do people do that?”

He waited…
(Lying, stiff, wide-eyed in hammock. We can just make out a few weird creatures watching from basement doors in grass, and windows in trees.)

And waited…
(Kid in hammock, face starting to turn red with frustration. Creatures starting to creep along ground towards him.)

And waited…
(Same image, but kid’s face now really red, steam coming off him. Ideas/creatures now have crept very, very close.)

Until…
“GAHHH! I CAN’T THINK OF EVEN ONE IDEA!”
(Kid yelling in red-faced frustration. Creatures everywhere bolting away, leaving small puffs of dust.)

All this thinking and stressing without any ideas was too much for Tommy.
(Kid collapsing face first into his bed, feet dangling off the end.)

Then, in the middle of the night… Ding…! An idea came into his head.
(Kid upright in bed, finger pointing up. Bulb above his head.)

And the next day he started drawing a kid’s book.
(Biting tongue in concentration at breakfast table, drawing on paper. Creatures and ideas trying to peek a look from hiding places.)

About a boy who couldn’t think of any ideas!
(Holding page out to look at it, smiling broadly.)

(Final image is the same as the one at the start, of a sleepy kid sitting upright in bed, but drawn and written in coloured pencil, with the words: Some day’s you just don’t have any ideas.)

 

The End