Chaotic Garden

This is a fiction piece written in response to this week's Red Writing Hood prompt from The Red Dress Club.

Julie pulled on the gloves and sighed. The sun was already getting hot and she had a long morning ahead of her.

The day her realtor brought her to this house, Julie was hurried and barely interested in the listing. It was smaller than she wanted, in a neighborhood she wasn't familiar with and the price was slightly above her budget. When she walked through the front door, into the open, airy living room that looked straight through the dining room and into the modern kitchen, her mood brightened.

It wasn't perfect, though. The upstairs needed some work. The bathroom hadn't been updated, the closets were practically non-existent, and the bedrooms needed a new coat of paint. And then there was the postage-stamp sized backyard.

It was an absolute mess, an eye-sore, really. The ivy and honeysuckle vines were taking over the fence, covering almost the entire length of it. There was a pile of broken bricks in the back corner, and an overgrown patch of what seemed like purposefully placed weeds along one side of a small, cracked patio. The chaos of it seemed to reflect the chaos of her life. All she could see, though, was the flower garden she could put in along the fence. The herb garden she could grow where the wild patch was. The bistro set she'd place on the patio so she could drink coffee and read books in the sun. It was the potential of the small backyard that sealed the deal.

Three years later, she still hadn't tackled the project of tangled vines, weeds, broken bricks and cast-off items. It was still a mess. After the honeymoon period of painting and decorating and unpacking was over, she just hadn't found the time or energy to pull out the gardening tools and trash bags and transform the yard into something she could enjoy. She had purchased the bistro set the weekend before as an incentive. It only needed a place to go.

The weather was getting warmer, the days were getting longer, and Julie refused to go another summer drinking her morning coffee and reading books indoors. She picked up her trimming clippers and got to work on the vines. This messy, overgrown backyard was an oasis waiting to be uncovered.


This post was written in response to the new weekly prompt at The Red Dress Club created to help develop memoir writing skills.

Write a short piece, either fiction or non-fiction, about something ugly - and find the beauty in it. Word limit is 600.

Constructive criticism is welcome.

Washed Away

This week's response to the Red Writing Hood prompt is an exploration of my (somewhat fuzzy) memory of a day during the summer after my junior year in high school.

Early summer afternoons at the Harbor Market could be extremely boring or very busy. It was hard to predict from day to day. On this day, it wasn't particularly busy. I stood at the cash register, methodically keying the prices of a customer's grocery selections into the machine and bagging each item. I took the customer's money and quickly but carefully counted out the change.

"Have a great afternoon," I said, smiling.

As the customer walked away, the phone rang. "Hi honey," my mom said. "You're not alone there, are you?"

My heart beat faster, pounding in my chest. That question never preceded good news.

"No, Stacie's here. And Penny. What happened?"

"There was an accident at the jump off. Tom and a friend were swimming with some girls and the water's really choppy today," she said.

I interrupted her. "Who was the friend?"

"I don't know his name, honey. They didn't say, but I think it was the one he's always with."

"Marc? Was it Marc?" I asked, frantic to know the details.

"I'm not sure."

"What happened? Are they okay?"

She paused for a moment, probably wondering how much detail she should give me. "Tom and the girls are fine. Shaken up, but they're okay. The undertow was really bad...it pulled the friend under. Tom tried to get him, but he lost his grip. He couldn't hold onto him. Search and Rescue is looking for him now, but the chances aren't good."

I just listened, silent. It couldn't be. She was wrong. This was a mistake. I knew it was Marc. It had to be. But he was too young. I just saw him. They'd find him. But what if they didn't? What about Marc's brother Todd? What about his parents? How would that survive losing him?

My mind raced with logical explanations and dozens of reasons why Marc couldn't possibly have drowned. I don't remember hanging up the phone, or even leaving the register. I found my way to the back of the store where Stacie and I held each other and cried, waiting for more news. Waiting for confirmation that Marc was gone.

They found Marc's body, which I never saw again, along the rocky shore of the harbor. The water had claimed him, taken him violently from us. That summer our small high school, so many of whom knew Marc personally, said good-bye to a vibrant, fun-loving young man in the prime of his life. We said good-bye to our invincibility, to our innocence. The water washed them away, along with Marc's last breath.

It was as if Marc's death came with a message: "Life is hard. The world is full of threats and danger, and we are all vulnerable."

How could we not be when even our beautiful, peaceful lake could take our loved ones away without a second thought?

This post was written in response to the new weekly prompt at The Red Dress Club created to help develop memoir writing skills.

Water gives life. It also takes it away. Write a short piece - fiction or non-fiction - inspired by one or both of these statements. Word maximum is 600.

Constructive criticism is welcome.

Leftovers

I hadn't opened the drawers in that dresser for months. Not since we'd cleaned out what few of his belongings he'd deemed unnecessary enough to leave at my house while he continued to live in his own apartment. We had placed all his things in a single trash bag while I cried hot, heartbroken tears. It's fitting that we used a trash bag to pack up the things he'd left behind over the six years we dated. It felt as though I was throwing away everything by sending him away.

Eight months later, I finally decided it was time to move my own things into the dresser I'd adopted from a friend especially for his clothes, hoping that he would feel more, what? Obligated to move in? Comfortable with the idea of cohabitation? Whatever I had been hoping for, it never happened. And so I pulled out a few of the empty drawers and began transferring socks and tee-shirts and pajamas. When those drawers were full I pulled out another and found myself staring into a pile of stuff I wasn't prepared for. A work uniform, tee-shirts, a sweatshirt.

Sitting there on my knees in front of that drawer, I didn't cry. I didn't hold his shirt to my nose, hoping for a whiff of his scent. I didn't even consider the future I had dreamed up for us, the one that never materialized. Instead, I pulled the clothes out of the drawer and piled them in a box, making room for my own things.

Later, when I was putting away some books, a folded piece of paper floated to the floor. Before I opened it and reread my words, I knew what it was. A letter I wrote to him on the last anniversary we celebrated together. I read it a second time, feeling not sadness or regret, but a lighthearted distance, a gratitude for my ability to love another so deeply and a hope that I'd be writing letters like that once again.

On another day, I opened the closet in the guest room looking for wrapping paper and found a tie he must have missed when folding his suit and adding it to the trash bag. The suit I bought him so he would come with me to the wedding of a friend. I laughed at the memory of the two of us struggling with that tie in the parking lot for so long that we were almost late for the ceremony.

The memories rarely elicit tears anymore. They are facts of my life--nothing more, nothing less. Oh, there is that DVD we watched together on one of our first dates. Here is a plate he borrowed from his mother to bring me dinner one night. A pile of greeting cards I gave him that he never took home to his apartment. A purse, a sweater, a necklace he gave me for this holiday or that celebration. The emotion I once attached to these things has dwindled. The memories have become soft around the edges. Not neutral, but not negative either, and rarely sad.

They are leftovers, plain and simple. Like bread crumbs trailing behind me on the path of my life, they remind me of where I have been. But I leave them there for the birds. I don't need to find my way back.


This post was written in response to the new weekly prompt at The Red Dress Club created to help develop memoir writing skills.

Write a piece - 600 word limit - about finding a forgotten item of clothing in the back of a drawer or closet. Let us know how the item was found, what it is, and why it's so meaningful to you or your character.

Constructive criticism is welcome.