LAS Pieces: A Thousand Words & How a Bear Looks (in Need of a Home)
These are the first two stories for originalfic_las that I submitted.
They haven't actually been edited in anyway but they probably will be eventually :)
Title: A Thousand Words
Author: writing2death
Rating: G
Notes: Written for the Last Author Standing Prompt Change.
A Thousand Words
There’s this little girl I think I knew once - the kind with brown pigtails and big eyes and a chubby face. She grew up in an old house that you’d have to drive through winding gravel roads just to find. There are still white handprints on the front steps in paint that hasn’t quite been worn away yet.
If you’d look to your left, there’s an apple tree. It used to be smaller, of course, and never really produced any apples. But it was pretty to look at. There was a stone at its base. She buried her dog there, when she was seven.
She did her homework upstairs, in her room sitting at her desk and she practiced piano on her cardboard keys, sitting cross-legged on her bed. Hid her diary under loose floorboard by the far wall, where her brother would never ever find it.
There are things people say in life: if no one hurt anyone else…, or you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, and especially you can’t go home once you’re gone. Clichés are clichés for a reason.
I’m sitting at my kitchen table remembering that little girl, and wondering exactly what happened to her to get her where she is today - through high school and college and working some job that makes her moderately satisfied and maybe watching her family as they grow up in their own house, hopefully happy and whole -
I have a shoebox of her pictures. She’s kept everything. There are a lot of pictures of that house.
I think she’s remembering the same things today.
Memories, after all, last a long time.
Title: How a Bear Looks (in Need of a Home)
Author: writing2death
Rating: G
Notes: Written for the Last Author Standing prompt Abandoned. I wanted to try and do something happy for it. This quote was also used for inspiration:
At sales every other toy looks simply worn, dilapidated, grubby. A bear looks lost and abandoned and desperately in need of a loving home - Helen Thomson
How a Bear Looks (in Need of a Home)
“Mommy, can I please go outside to play?”
“You know it’s raining, Rebecca.”
Rebecca pouted and scrunched up her nose, because that’s what her mom said half an hour ago, and she was really hoping something had changed between now and then. It had been raining all week and it made for a really boring time inside. She couldn’t even walk to school anymore - mom insisted on driving her.
And she even liked the rain. It wasn’t fair, she thought, watching the drops hit the glass of the window.
The next morning didn’t look very different from the previous. The pavement was wet and dark and the clouds hung over them like they were threatening to burst into tears at any moment. But it wasn’t raining. It wasn’t dry, but it wasn’t raining.
Rebecca’s mom dressed her in her yellow rain coat and her rubber boots with the ducks on them, and made her promise to carry her umbrella with her. “Mom, I’ve walked to school before,” Rebecca said, and her mom gave her that look that that was often accompanied with the words “don’t whine, Rebecca”.
There were puddles all over the sidewalk and Rebecca carefully hopped over all the cracks, laughing as the water splashed over her boots. The next second she was on the ground, her arms flying out to catch her, and her palms skidding against the concrete roughly.
“Ow…” she muttered, tears in her eyes. Her jeans were getting wet but her hands really hurt too, and she didn’t want to get up.
There was something sticking out from under that bush. Rebecca wiped her palms on her pants to get rid of the small pebbles that stuck in her cuts and crawled over to the grass. She knew she was going to be in trouble when she got home, because she had mud all over. Whatever was under the bush was more important.
Rebecca reached under and curled her hand around it. It was soft and damp, and she tugged. Sitting in her lap was a soggy teddy bear.
Someone had abandoned a teddy bear on the side of the road.
Rebecca frowned, using her fist to wipe away the last of the tears from the fall and looking at the stuffed bear in her hands. He was old and his ears were fraying at the edges, his pink nose beginning to brown. His eyes didn’t shine anymore.
Rebecca sniffed quietly, looking at the way the stitching on the bear’s mouth made him smile. He seemed lonely.
Very carefully because she didn’t know how hurt the bear might be she unzipped her backpack and set him in next to her math homework. She didn’t zip it back up all the way - he had to be able to breathe, after all.
Rebecca pushed herself off the ground and hugged the backpack to her chest. He was obviously a special bear. He’d helped her when she was hurt, and that had to count for something.
Now all he needed was a name.
They haven't actually been edited in anyway but they probably will be eventually :)
Title: A Thousand Words
Author: writing2death
Rating: G
Notes: Written for the Last Author Standing Prompt Change.
A Thousand Words
There’s this little girl I think I knew once - the kind with brown pigtails and big eyes and a chubby face. She grew up in an old house that you’d have to drive through winding gravel roads just to find. There are still white handprints on the front steps in paint that hasn’t quite been worn away yet.
If you’d look to your left, there’s an apple tree. It used to be smaller, of course, and never really produced any apples. But it was pretty to look at. There was a stone at its base. She buried her dog there, when she was seven.
She did her homework upstairs, in her room sitting at her desk and she practiced piano on her cardboard keys, sitting cross-legged on her bed. Hid her diary under loose floorboard by the far wall, where her brother would never ever find it.
There are things people say in life: if no one hurt anyone else…, or you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, and especially you can’t go home once you’re gone. Clichés are clichés for a reason.
I’m sitting at my kitchen table remembering that little girl, and wondering exactly what happened to her to get her where she is today - through high school and college and working some job that makes her moderately satisfied and maybe watching her family as they grow up in their own house, hopefully happy and whole -
I have a shoebox of her pictures. She’s kept everything. There are a lot of pictures of that house.
I think she’s remembering the same things today.
Memories, after all, last a long time.
Title: How a Bear Looks (in Need of a Home)
Author: writing2death
Rating: G
Notes: Written for the Last Author Standing prompt Abandoned. I wanted to try and do something happy for it. This quote was also used for inspiration:
At sales every other toy looks simply worn, dilapidated, grubby. A bear looks lost and abandoned and desperately in need of a loving home - Helen Thomson
How a Bear Looks (in Need of a Home)
“Mommy, can I please go outside to play?”
“You know it’s raining, Rebecca.”
Rebecca pouted and scrunched up her nose, because that’s what her mom said half an hour ago, and she was really hoping something had changed between now and then. It had been raining all week and it made for a really boring time inside. She couldn’t even walk to school anymore - mom insisted on driving her.
And she even liked the rain. It wasn’t fair, she thought, watching the drops hit the glass of the window.
The next morning didn’t look very different from the previous. The pavement was wet and dark and the clouds hung over them like they were threatening to burst into tears at any moment. But it wasn’t raining. It wasn’t dry, but it wasn’t raining.
Rebecca’s mom dressed her in her yellow rain coat and her rubber boots with the ducks on them, and made her promise to carry her umbrella with her. “Mom, I’ve walked to school before,” Rebecca said, and her mom gave her that look that that was often accompanied with the words “don’t whine, Rebecca”.
There were puddles all over the sidewalk and Rebecca carefully hopped over all the cracks, laughing as the water splashed over her boots. The next second she was on the ground, her arms flying out to catch her, and her palms skidding against the concrete roughly.
“Ow…” she muttered, tears in her eyes. Her jeans were getting wet but her hands really hurt too, and she didn’t want to get up.
There was something sticking out from under that bush. Rebecca wiped her palms on her pants to get rid of the small pebbles that stuck in her cuts and crawled over to the grass. She knew she was going to be in trouble when she got home, because she had mud all over. Whatever was under the bush was more important.
Rebecca reached under and curled her hand around it. It was soft and damp, and she tugged. Sitting in her lap was a soggy teddy bear.
Someone had abandoned a teddy bear on the side of the road.
Rebecca frowned, using her fist to wipe away the last of the tears from the fall and looking at the stuffed bear in her hands. He was old and his ears were fraying at the edges, his pink nose beginning to brown. His eyes didn’t shine anymore.
Rebecca sniffed quietly, looking at the way the stitching on the bear’s mouth made him smile. He seemed lonely.
Very carefully because she didn’t know how hurt the bear might be she unzipped her backpack and set him in next to her math homework. She didn’t zip it back up all the way - he had to be able to breathe, after all.
Rebecca pushed herself off the ground and hugged the backpack to her chest. He was obviously a special bear. He’d helped her when she was hurt, and that had to count for something.
Now all he needed was a name.