The Box
I grew up on Ficlets. There, the writer inside me had a home. I'm a teacher now, and a 4th grader who reminds me so much of myself asked, "Why don't you share your writing with us?" So, I come tentatively, searching for a place to stretch my writing muscles again.
"Whatever happened to that 20 minutes of decluttering thing you used to do?"
"I gave it up when you signed me up for hot yoga. The class time overlaps with decluttering by 15 minutes, and who can get anything done in 5 minutes?"
"Very funny." She moved up the stairs from the laundry room more loudly than she needed to. I wished she would just say what she meant. She'd been eyeing the box for days without saying anything. "I just thought..."
I took a deep breath, knowing that resistance was futile, and, deep down, that she was right. "Alright, dear."
She padded across the kitchen to where I sat, hunched over 3 weeks worth of lesson plans. Placing her hands on my shoulders, she reminded me of the tension I carried there. "I know it must be hard," she said.
She couldn't possibly know, though. She could imagine, but no amount of imagining would help her know. Her father was still healthy and bustling about the farm, not reduced to a stack of photographs and letters in an old copy paper box.
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Comments (2 so far!)
Average reader rating 5.00/5
remembrancer
His emotional and physical distance from his wife are so clearly described that his deep breath and , "Alright, dear." were jarring for me. I interpreted the subject to be heaving a huge sigh and pandering to her ridiculous desires but now I wonder if he was short with his wife, almost rude. A short(1-2 word) description of his tone may help.
The last paragraph is quite evocative. It was so poignant I read it several times.
- #1269 Posted 7 years ago
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Story prompt:
Include a stack of ... any sort of objects in the story. It could be planned, it could be under construction, it could be long completed. It could be sturdy or flimsy. Its members could be all of a type, or all varied.
Don't get stuck; just get stacked.
- Published 7 years ago.
- Story viewed 16 times and rated 1 times.
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slapdashmonuments
This is a powerful response to the challenge/prompt, and it hit me pretty hard.