Final prompt for the 30 Word story challenge in April! Belong.
I did it! I wrote thiry 30-word stories this month. If you scroll backwards from 1-30, an over-arching story connects all 30.
They embrace amid their families. “We’re not alone. We are loved. We will survive this. When we’re ready, we can try again.”
“Until then, we can be thankful for love.”
29th prompt is company. Thirty 30 word stories in April.
Hushed whispers: “Me, too”
She’s astonished. “I had no idea so many relatives have known this loss.”
No one wants to be in this company. But there is comfort here.
Day 28 prompt for the 30Words30Days story challeng is ‘clan’. I interpreted that as a large family of extended relatives.
Her mother phoned. “We’re having a funeral. You both need a formal acknowledgement of this loss. I’m calling the relatives.”
Bouquets.
The ultrasound picture.
Speeches about lost futures.
Communal grief.
27th prompt for the 30Words30Day microfiction challenge is “meeting”.
Their eyes met over the breakfast table.
“We have some decisions to make,” he said. “Can we move forward? Or will we be stuck in this grief forever?”
She wept.
Prompt #26 for the 30Words30Day story challenge is “native” I’m using the meaning of ‘innate’ and that term.
Is it an innate response to avoid someone else’s pain, even when it’s the same?
Does sharing double the grief or halve it?
He can’t decide, but staying feels important.
Day 25 prompt: initiation for the 30Words30Days challenge
He phones home to talk to his father.
“It’s a hell of initiation into adulthood,” Dad sighs.
“Got any advice?”
“Not a damn thing, kid. Just keep on keeping on.”
Day 24 of prompts for 30 word story. Today “clique”
At the grocery store, there are mothers and babies wherever she looks. Bulging, expectant bellies stab her heart.
What she should be. What she isn’t.
Will this ache ever stop?
Another prompt for 30Words30Day challenge. Today’s ‘ritual’
She tries to bring normalcy to their days by making everything a ritual. Make breakfast at 7:30. Do laundry on Mondays. Shop on Wednesdays. Eat at 6:00.
It doesn’t help.
30Words30Day challenge to the prompt ‘adjacent’
Toddlers ‘parallel play’ rather than interact. He feels that same disconnect.
They’re side-by-side, like they’re floating on the waves, pulled apart, fighting back to each other.
Adjacent grief is exhausting.
#30Words30Day prompt for April. Day 21: Ideology
He held her while she wept, and hid his tears from her. What was this patriarchal crap that didn’t let men show grief? He could bathe in his unshed tears.
Shawn L. Bird 