Writing Prompt #1
Workshop 1: Simple Story
The only rules for this one are as follows: have a guy and a girl, they have to be broken up and the guy has to die.
That's all that needs to happen. Your submissions can be in any literary form, as long as they follow those guidelines.
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This is just a first draft that I wrote in one sitting, but I kinda like it...
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What was it that the man had said to me? Asked me something, I think. It’s right there, not quite in the back of my mind. A little blurry, a thought so close it feels like memory; I try to remember but it slips out of reach. Like a dream upon waking, the thoughts slip as vapor through a closing fist. I know that it’s useless. Things like this can’t be forced. My best chance is to let it go and put my mind elsewhere. It will come to me in time, suddenly no doubt; at the moment when I have just finished forgetting. I don’t have that kind of time.
To an outsider it would doubtless seem strange that my thoughts were on the man at a time like this. I admit it seems strange even to me. My thoughts should be on her. They say that as a person approaches death his thoughts turn inward, backward, their life played before them. A flashback in slideshow, or maybe the memories move, shit I don’t know. Right now I don’t really care, nothing like that is happening. What’s the big deal about my life, anyway? Hers was the only one that ever mattered to me. I hope she knows that. I never told her, but I hope she knows just the same.
So it’s got to be flashbacks, then? Well, what’s a flashback if not simply a vivid memory? And in a mind of perfect memories, there is none more perfect and preserved than that day we met. Except, perhaps, the day she left. I saw her on a train. It was the blue line, southbound to Forrest Park. It was my train, always had been. A lot of the fellas at work wondered why I didn’t take the red line; it’s just as close, just as fast. I would only shrug my shoulders and reply: It’s my train. Always has been. Most days I would stand, even when there were seats open, just off from the doors, one hand gripping the tall steel bar the other fingering my bag. I carried books with me wherever I went, but never actually read them. I carried a journal too, an empty book thick to the bindings with potential. I don’t know why I carried them, maybe so I would have something to hold onto. Funny why people do things. Most days I would stand, watching from off to the side the people who were riding my train. A lot of them were regulars. Some were nice, some were not so nice; or so I imagined. Of course we never spoke, but you can learn an awful lot by watching a person when they think nobody is looking.
This day in particular, watching my passengers from the usual place, a girl happened to catch my eye. I suppose that I felt you before I saw you. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but standing on that train I knew something was different. In a situation of total familiarity the out of place becomes unnatural. You sense without knowing that something is wrong. Intuition? Maybe. Whatever it was, from the moment you stepped onto my train I couldn’t stop staring. But even more unnerving than my reaction to your presence was your reaction to mine; you stared right back. Riding that train day after day I had long ago become an expert in being invisible. I’d mastered the art of standing amongst a group of individuals and passing completely without notice. People didn’t look at me. People didn’t talk to me. I liked it that way. You didn’t seem to care what I liked. And maybe because I never really liked it that way after all, I broke my own rule. I let go my grip on the pole, left my world of just-off-to-the-side, and asked for your name.
It’s amazing how quickly life can change. For the better. For the worse. One day I step onto a train and my life is changed forever. One day I step into our apartment and my life is changed again. I was never a jealous man, and perhaps that’s why I didn’t see it coming. Still, I don’t blame you. I always knew I didn’t deserve you. Truthfully, I was amazed you didn’t seem to know it too. Our relationship came with an expiration date; that much was always clear. But what’s a man to do? The romantic idealist within me kindled the hope that we truly were forever. The prosaic realist demanded it couldn’t be so. And so while we began our dance to the resounding trumpets of love and ended to the aching violins of betrayal, I remember it only for the symphony it was: harmonious, enchanting, and beautiful.
I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to understand. I didn’t mean what I said that day. Those were words born of anger and despair. I wanted to say I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
That’s what it was. That’s what the man had said. See, I knew I would remember. Just in time too, I didn’t think it would come to me in time. I suppose it won’t matter anyway in a few moments, the flashbacks are just about finished. I’m sorry... I’m sorry... What an oddly perfect thing to say. Sorry for what? Sorry that you ran the light? Sorry that you didn’t see me in the intersection? God has a sense of humor, there's no arguing that. This is the first time I’ve driven to work in three years.
I should have taken the blue line. It’s my train. Always has been.
The only rules for this one are as follows: have a guy and a girl, they have to be broken up and the guy has to die.
That's all that needs to happen. Your submissions can be in any literary form, as long as they follow those guidelines.
---------------------------------------
This is just a first draft that I wrote in one sitting, but I kinda like it...
---------------------------------------
What was it that the man had said to me? Asked me something, I think. It’s right there, not quite in the back of my mind. A little blurry, a thought so close it feels like memory; I try to remember but it slips out of reach. Like a dream upon waking, the thoughts slip as vapor through a closing fist. I know that it’s useless. Things like this can’t be forced. My best chance is to let it go and put my mind elsewhere. It will come to me in time, suddenly no doubt; at the moment when I have just finished forgetting. I don’t have that kind of time.
To an outsider it would doubtless seem strange that my thoughts were on the man at a time like this. I admit it seems strange even to me. My thoughts should be on her. They say that as a person approaches death his thoughts turn inward, backward, their life played before them. A flashback in slideshow, or maybe the memories move, shit I don’t know. Right now I don’t really care, nothing like that is happening. What’s the big deal about my life, anyway? Hers was the only one that ever mattered to me. I hope she knows that. I never told her, but I hope she knows just the same.
So it’s got to be flashbacks, then? Well, what’s a flashback if not simply a vivid memory? And in a mind of perfect memories, there is none more perfect and preserved than that day we met. Except, perhaps, the day she left. I saw her on a train. It was the blue line, southbound to Forrest Park. It was my train, always had been. A lot of the fellas at work wondered why I didn’t take the red line; it’s just as close, just as fast. I would only shrug my shoulders and reply: It’s my train. Always has been. Most days I would stand, even when there were seats open, just off from the doors, one hand gripping the tall steel bar the other fingering my bag. I carried books with me wherever I went, but never actually read them. I carried a journal too, an empty book thick to the bindings with potential. I don’t know why I carried them, maybe so I would have something to hold onto. Funny why people do things. Most days I would stand, watching from off to the side the people who were riding my train. A lot of them were regulars. Some were nice, some were not so nice; or so I imagined. Of course we never spoke, but you can learn an awful lot by watching a person when they think nobody is looking.
This day in particular, watching my passengers from the usual place, a girl happened to catch my eye. I suppose that I felt you before I saw you. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but standing on that train I knew something was different. In a situation of total familiarity the out of place becomes unnatural. You sense without knowing that something is wrong. Intuition? Maybe. Whatever it was, from the moment you stepped onto my train I couldn’t stop staring. But even more unnerving than my reaction to your presence was your reaction to mine; you stared right back. Riding that train day after day I had long ago become an expert in being invisible. I’d mastered the art of standing amongst a group of individuals and passing completely without notice. People didn’t look at me. People didn’t talk to me. I liked it that way. You didn’t seem to care what I liked. And maybe because I never really liked it that way after all, I broke my own rule. I let go my grip on the pole, left my world of just-off-to-the-side, and asked for your name.
It’s amazing how quickly life can change. For the better. For the worse. One day I step onto a train and my life is changed forever. One day I step into our apartment and my life is changed again. I was never a jealous man, and perhaps that’s why I didn’t see it coming. Still, I don’t blame you. I always knew I didn’t deserve you. Truthfully, I was amazed you didn’t seem to know it too. Our relationship came with an expiration date; that much was always clear. But what’s a man to do? The romantic idealist within me kindled the hope that we truly were forever. The prosaic realist demanded it couldn’t be so. And so while we began our dance to the resounding trumpets of love and ended to the aching violins of betrayal, I remember it only for the symphony it was: harmonious, enchanting, and beautiful.
I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to understand. I didn’t mean what I said that day. Those were words born of anger and despair. I wanted to say I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
That’s what it was. That’s what the man had said. See, I knew I would remember. Just in time too, I didn’t think it would come to me in time. I suppose it won’t matter anyway in a few moments, the flashbacks are just about finished. I’m sorry... I’m sorry... What an oddly perfect thing to say. Sorry for what? Sorry that you ran the light? Sorry that you didn’t see me in the intersection? God has a sense of humor, there's no arguing that. This is the first time I’ve driven to work in three years.
I should have taken the blue line. It’s my train. Always has been.