Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

My Philosophy

“Leave it alone,” my father said, “it’s just a piece of trash.”

“But Dad,” I whined, “can’t I at least see if it’s real?”

“You heard your father,” my mother said, “besides; it’s probably been in someone’s mouth. It’s covered in germs.” She took me by the hand and began dragging me towards the mini-van parked on the other side of the street.

My sister was on my mother’s side. “It's all dirty and gross,” she said.

“What is?” my little brother asked, “I didn’t see it! Tell me what it was!”

“It was just garbage,” my father said, “now hurry up and get in the car, we’re going to be late.”

We had just finished eating lunch at Jue's Chinese Restaurant downtown. They had the best egg rolls and the chicken wings were to die for. Being only eleven at the time, I’m not sure if I knew the phrase “to die for”. Probably, I just thought they were really, really good. My sister had taken an extraordinarily long time to eat her egg roll. She just had to pick all the green bits out. Now my father was worried we wouldn’t make it to the L&M store before it closed, today being a Sunday and all.

“You didn’t tell me what it was! Tell me what it was!” my brother whined.

“It was solid gold,” I told him, “and I’m going to go back and get it.”

“You are not,” my sister said as she climbed into the back seat, “mom won’t let you.”

“I don’t care,” I said, “I’m going back to get it.”

When my father was busy putting my brother in the car and wasn’t looking, I ran back across the street and began to look around among the paper cups, candy wrappers, and dirty leaves. “It's gotta be here.” I thought.

“____! Get back here!” My mother yelled from across the street, “Get back here this instant!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming. Don’t yell!” I shouted back.

I had found the object I was looking for. It was dirty and wet and a little bent, but I knew I just couldn’t leave it there. This was my big opportunity.

Ever since that moment I have always believed that when a person comes to a fork in the road, they should take it. So despite my mother’s screaming, that’s exactly what I did. After all, how many gold plated utensils can a kid be expected to run across in one lifetime?

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