We are thrilled to share another piece from one of our writers who submitted to the annual WGI Invite to Write Challenge! 

For this year, we asked our talented cohort to create a new piece on this prompt: Write a story where the end is also the beginning.

Next up, we are sharing Sara Klar’s piece entitled, “Magically A Necessity.” Stay tuned, as we will continue sharing the submissions throughout the fall!

You can learn more about Sara and find her other works on her website: SaraKlar.com

Magically A Necessity

GNINNIGEB EHT OSLA SI DNE EHT EREHW YROTS A ETIRW.¹ WRITE ETRIW A A YORTS STORY, WHERE EREHW…..EE AR EWH YROTS – oh Vorts. upside down, right side up turn around front to back pick yourself up no good staying down. “TURN AROUND
ETROOW YES BEGIN AGAIN”.

Etroow also known as the Starter Upper, looked bemused. Why must he yet again start again, and again and again yet again? He didn’t want to. Angrily he stamped his foot permitting himself this illicit pleasure as he felt the ground rise up to join him, hold his hands, and utter, clasped together, “IT’S OK. WE ARE HERE WE WILL HELP YOU.”

Etroow, such the starter upper, always chin up tears pushed down, sidled up to his sigh inside, that wished so much to escape and declare “I’M AT MY END! NO MORE”, instead Etroow whispered to his sigh inside, “It’s horrid I know, but please sigh quietly for no one but me can hear you. After all, we do have our name to live up to.”

So quiet was the sigh. But magically magical it was. Because as Quiet sighed, the grass waved, the winds harmoniously cooed soft velvet, the butterflies clapped their gossamers together, and Quiet’s sigh went far out past the confines he was told he had to respect, and truly wanted to. To help Etroow who so valiantly tried to be the good being he humanly,
humbly, was born into.

The sigh was picked up by the convening mountains that circled, and for them indeed a sigh was a very good thing. A time to pause a time to reflect, a time to sing out the very good things that Starters and Stoppers could only conceive so blind except in the moment of things.

For it was the middle that was hard. Really hard. The start up adrenaline’s red shot “hark the horns the hunts on”² long faded and at the finish, the sun low on the horizon line the promise that beckoned where finally one could stop, illusory or to be counted on?

If experience was the teacher and time the pupil, one never ever could know. An intention of attention so bold in its utterance filled with, what hoped, an always forever, took a long time to molt. And in process there was lots of messiness. Droppings that stank, litter everywhere landing, the paper constantly, screaming for changing. Sounds before so sweet, a come on like honey, now more higgy-ick burps. At life’s beginnings, skin pristinely blooming, in this middle phase bumpy scummy pussy crust.

The middle was hard. But it was the middle where if you had the stamina, the grit, the bit right tight between your teeth, “HANG TOUGH” in the iron-like grip, where life got interesting. Because only there, and you had to get there and figure out how to stay there, where eventually you would find the shining matter.³

“NOT THE GOLD, GOD, WHAT A CLICHE”, that’s not the matter. In fact that was what was the matter these days, when the matter was expected to be the whatever that rose on the Internet swing. And swing it did, so up so down so quickly you could feel the elephant in the ring, land the sting when it pushed against the walls and the whole edifice shook like a fish on
a hook, the elephant, no, he was not going to perform any longer. He was aware what a disappointment this was to his handlers, who had counted on his holding up his end of things, from beginning to completion and again but. No. More.

For there was a totally other type of matter to explore. Alchemy Freudian subconscious Jungian shadow neuroscience right brain sensations the unconscious. This was the driver of all things, that lay in the body that lay in the wake that wanted, panted, to finish the matter, “when will this end when will this begin?” “SILLY ETROOW IT’S ALWAYS THE SAME OLD
THING”.

The swing swung. Quiet Sighed. The grass waved. The winds harmonized, their coos soft velvet. The butterfly’s gossamers clapped. The elephant snorted. The mountains dulcetly clamored,

“SILLY ETROOW PLEASE YET AGAIN DO REMEMBER. IT’S ALWAYS THE
SAME OLD THING”.

1. The sentence, “Write a story where the end is also the beginning” beginning with the last word first, each
word is spelled backwards.
2. A reference to a traditional Fox Hunt’s high excitement at the start initiated by the blowing of a horn.
3. A reference to alchemy where it was believed that matter, a material such as a base metal could be
transmutated to a metal more noble or of high value such as gold.