This is my entrance to the fast and furious task of the fifth day of the Theinkwell festival. The festival challenges writers to write a post based on a creative stimulus.
The proposal is:
Lee has been found and he is going to meet his parents for the first time in thirty years. Your story is going to be about their reunion. Think about the setting and how you could describe it to convey how Lee or his parents are feeling. Try to include some dialogue that tells us a little about the characters of Lee, his mum and his dad.
Make a few notes about the story arc - we have three characters. Do they want to see each other? Is the long time apart an obstacle or is there another obstacle for one of the characters? How will you use the reunion to resolve the conflict created by the obstacle?
As this is a fast and furious writing practice exercise and there isn't much time, you may want to concentrate on one aspect of story telling - perhaps only revealing character through dialogue, or describing the setting or developing your own writing voice.
Perhaps someone has given you an idea or some feedback in the comments on one of your posts and you want to explore that, or you might want to try out a new technique - use that for your story about Lee and his parents.
When you have finished writing your story about Lee, you might want to include a few sentences about how you found the task, and anything that you noticed or learned through completing it.
Taken fromm: Theinkwell
My job is:
DISCLOSURE
At first she thought it was a macabre joke, but then, in the rush of thought, as confused as she was immediate, she doubted that her husband was capable of playing with a subject that was an open wound exposed to saline solution.
-What are you talking about? -she asked-
-About our son," said her husband. -The Dallas police made the confirmation. Now they are making arrangements to move him here. Tomorrow morning he will be home again.
She felt a ball of fire in her stomach. She rubbed her face. In a barely audible voice she said something her husband couldn't hear and hung up.
She walked from the office straight to the elevator. Suddenly the world, the things of the world, seemed incomprehensible to her. She didn't seem to understand anything. Nothing at all: he did not understand the reasons for things, for men, everything began to be senseless, absurd.
She left the building and decided to walk without a definite direction. Then the traffic lights, the vehicles, the signs, the uniforms and the monuments, all the things, he noticed them so separated from the sense of the world, as if there was a necessity, a consequence that linked them one to the other. In one sense it all seemed natural to her, yet it gave her not tranquility but torment.
She took a cab that took her to her house. She entered it as if she were doing it for the first time. She found it convenient to look at the whole house. She approached the window, from which she could see the intimacy of her neighbors, the small domestic tragedies, the furtive loves, the brief moments of happiness, the news of which she had never had time to perceive or which had never reached her senses.
When she reached the living room, the silence gave him an ambiguous sensation. She put on some music and lay down on the sofa. She slept with a jerk, as she had not been able to do for years. When she woke up, she looked at the lamp, at the ceiling. She turned his face. She got up with vertigo.
Once again the dream repeated itself: she found himself in front of a blinding light that hit her squarely in the eyes. She can't see anything, she can't distinguish what's on the other side. But she knows there is someone. A man carries a flashlight that lights her way. But she never reaches the illuminated place, which is always in front of her. She shuddered at the memory and noticed that her back was covered with cold sweat. She took a long shower.
When she got out of the shower she met her husband.
-It's not my son" she said.
She breathed a sigh of relief. In a while I'll go out, she thought.
-I'll buy some fruit," she said.
-Fruit and a cream and chocolate eclair," said her husband.