Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

A Family Incident

A barrage of silence smashed against the iron door of noise that was expounded upon by my loud, ringing voice that refused to cease. The loud crash around the corner didn’t stop me from going on and on about the day that snail squeezed up to my front porch, asking for a place to sleep. The screeching cat racing around the corner didn’t stop me from explaining in great detail why I am no longer allowed into that bar on Broadway, and let me tell you it was entirely the waiter’s fault for taking my comment to heart. It was only when my daughter, with thick, curly hair and a twisted expression, thrust the camera pointed toward my sly grin to the ground and jumped up in a panic, pushing herself towards my back.
Confusion has been known to beset me, quite often in fact, and it definitely happened there, but don’t tell my granddaughter I said that. All she’ll go on about is how unreliable I am, and how goofy and how silly. And just so you know, I so am not! Everything I say is true, even though everything I say may not have actually happened.

The best part of life is when something crazy happens, and I am not in the center of it. So let me tell you that doesn’t happen often, but when it does, three guesses who is… And sure enough…

Later I would go on and on about that wonderful tape, that beautiful tape that shows my oh-so-graceful granddaughter trip over that fat marshmallow of a cat (the light tremor of the beginnings of a symphony), the cake flying (the violins crescendo in a massive wave), and the laughter of the party as the cake piece by piece drips off the ceiling, leaving a spectacular circle of chocolate stain in the sky as a wondrous memento of that magnificent day, simply hoping that no one would notice that confused expression that crossed my face as I realized the story of how I built the Great Wall of China singlehandedly was no longer the center of attention.

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