Write a brief bit of fiction involving a stone.
Friday Fiction is your opportunity to write a short (short, short, short) story. Many participants use more than one minute for Friday Fiction prompts, and I open up the One-Minute Writing of the Day contest to entries of various lengths.
Click on the "Friday Fiction" tag beneath the post to see more examples of Friday Fiction writings.
One-Minute Writing of the Day:Writer: kvsmmSTONE
Mom was in the hospital. She was in the hospital every few months for all of my life. She had seizures that had progressed from a second of starring into the distance to full blown fall down, convulse, foam at the mouth seizures. The doctors tried to find the cause while always giving her more and new medications.
When mom was in the hospital I went to Northern California and stayed with my dad. When I was a little girl, I loved him and he loved me. As I got older, like mom’s seizures, our relationship changed for the worse. He didn’t want the responsibility of a preteen daughter and I didn’t want a father who smelled like Jack Daniels and who screamed at me.
I went for a walk in the deep woods with my cousin, Wanda. We came to a creek traversed by a new wooden bridge. We could see pollywogs in the crystal clear mountain water. I leaned on the rail to get a better look. The bridge was brand new, not finished, and the rail hadn’t been nailed in place. I fell head first into the frigid water; hitting the top of my head on a stone.
The water was shallow. I sat up dazed and saw Wanda holding her hands across her mouth, her eyes wide and terrified. Then I touched the top of my head and watched as my hand and the water turned red.
We ran screaming to the house. My dad’s face went pale as he scooped me into his arms, nearly threw me into the back seat of the car and raced to the hospital.
I remember fragments like, “Mild concussion”, “Open skull fracture”, “Very lucky little girl”. I remember that my dad held me on his lap that night. He kissed me good night as he pulled the covers up and smiled at me. For the rest of my visit, we loved each other like when I was a little girl. No Jack Daniels, no yelling…just me and my dad.
Mom died, dad returned to the bottle, I moved to family in Pennsylvania. I saw my dad once in my twenties. He was back on the bottle, eternally angry, and I chose not to see him again.
I have a permanent dent in my skull from the stone, and the memory of a month when my dad and I loved each other again.
Congratulations, kvsmm! This is a truly beautiful story. Thank you for sharing it. Feel free to put a One-Minute Writer WINNER! button on your blog.Note: The One-Minute Writer has a Facebook page! You can "Like" it by clicking the button below.
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