By Rhiannon Butlin

Creativity: A Short Story

If creativity was a person they’d probably carry lots of stationary. They’d probably carry said stationary slotted into their hair, or cocked behind an ear. Creativity turns up a lot at SCA. He (or she, in the interests of gender neutrality (peace y’all)) probably wakes up every morning to a pile of invitations stacked up beneath his letter box, each one furiously hand written by Marc the previous night. 

He (or she) arrives every morning, and circles groups of students, introducing himself (or herself) to the lucky few before abandoning them for some other lucky soul. He’s a fickle f*** creativity. Students fight viciously for his (or her) attention, ‘what’s your twitter handle creativity, I’d love to hit you up on twitter’, ‘hey, creativity, I’ve got an extra ticket for *insert award ceremony here*, are you free perchance?’. Creativity swats them away like flies and promptly turns on his (or her) heel and strolls away. 

But that’s not enough for Marc, because now we’re supposed to invite creativity back to our place, after a couple of drinks maybe. We slide the key into the door as quietly as we can possibly manage, praying our housemates are all asleep. ‘Come in’, we mumble, red-faced. We’re already desperately aware of what a momentous mistake this all was but its already far to late. Creativity’s right there, draped over our unmade bed, dressed in nothing but (his, or her) birthday suit. 

We ignore the internal screaming, or the profuse sweating. Marc wants a passion project, well a passion project is what he’ll get! So with much hesitation we shuffle into bed beside Creativity…

…Three minutes later and we’re sat up in bed, hugging the covers around us, ‘I swear that’s never happened to me before’. But it’s all too late. Creativity’s already buttoning up his (or her) shirt.

His (or her) mouth twisted into a sneer.