Delicious Placebo

Today in our last group we had a creative writing instructor come in to help us all work on expressing ourselves. We played a few games with word association, did a mad-lib, and did phrase association. Then he gave us a sentence and our goal was to write something short that started with this sentence. The group read theirs aloud, and mine was the most morose of them all. I felt a little bad after reading it because this somberness seemed to fall over the group. It was nice though that several of them applauded for me after I read. I got a bit choked up trying to read it but I ended up getting it all out. Here it is, for your enjoyment. The first sentence is the one given by our instructor.

The sunshine at Ocean City was brilliant that day. It was the last day I remember being happy. The sunshine now seems like a distant memory. A lie from a life I once lived. Now all I see is the clouds, the darkness, and the shadows. Going back to the ocean only serves as a painful reminder of how I used to be able to feel happiness so freely. Happiness that now slips through my fingers like sand through an hourglass. My thoughts fill with dread, as if the world is closing in on me. Will I ever be able to find brilliance again?