Day 2

Day 2 —Tell about a character who lost something important to him/her.

I’ll make this personal because I’m not sure how I even fully understand loss. 40 years of life lived without experiencing the death of a close acquaintance that really shook me to my core.

Always just missed. Just enough degrees of separation to leave me feeling spared. How much of this is me, distancing myself from others so I don’t have to really feel? The number of lives that my heart is really terrified of losing could be counted on fingers and maybe a few toes. In a world of chaos, keep the list short and keep moving.

There are, of course, hundreds of losses I would feel, hundreds of social media, work and life names that I’ve come into contact with over the years, but would there disappearance from the world be a hit to the structure of my world? Should it? Does this make me different from others, or is this how we all make it through?

I can tell one pain of getting older is the list known names gone from the world. It’s not necessarily the closeness of the names on that list, but the length of it. As the list grows the days are surely to feel shorter.

Day 1

Day 1 —Select a book at random in the room.  Find a novel or short story, copy down the last sentence and use this line as the first line of your new story.

Until it was nothing more than a gray paper moon, hanging in the sky. Glenn stared. The moon swung. Lurched really. Side to side. Too far. It was beyond time to go home. Suddenly his feet were carrying him down the sidewalk. Listing like he'd imagine some drunken pilot ship would. Had never been on a pirate ship, but had certainly been drunk. Lots of beer and good times. Tonight even more so.

"We have to hurry to make the last train," his friend complained. Chris was always whining. Anxious. There was no reason for it really. That was him though. He was wound too tired. Glenn was unwound. And maybe stumbly.

Walking drunk was an experience Glenn had. He was a professional. Objects around him seemed to lose their balance, but he never lost faith that somehow foot would follow foot and he'd get where he was going. To the random observer, he looked like a master of some clumsy ballet. Could this be? The most relaxed, sloppy walk you've ever seen performed masterfully by someone with a complete control of the form and function of their body.

They did make the last train that night. The combination of Chris's anxious drive and Glenn's impaired functionality carried them to their destination. Chris said goodbye, already anxious about his subway ride home. Glenn settled into his train seat, grateful for his friend's co-piloting which he knew he needed but would never admit.