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.
#30Words30Days 28- clan April 28, 2023
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.
#30Words30Days 27- meeting April 27, 2023
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.
#30Words30Days 26-native April 26, 2023
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.
#30Words30Days- 24 clique April 24, 2023
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?
#30Words30Days- 23 ritual April 23, 2023
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.
#30Words30Days 22 adjacent April 22, 2023
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 21 Ideology April 21, 2023
#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.
#30Words30Days 20 Guest April 20, 2023
Prompt for day 20: Guest
“Perhaps it would help,” her mother suggested, “to think of the fetus as a guest who’s returned home? Their visit was enlightening, though too short?”
“No, Mom. That doesn’t help.”
#30Words30Days- 19 stranger April 19, 2023
Day 19 prompt: stranger 30 days of writing a 30 word story each day. #30Words30Days
.
Which was stranger,
falling in love with an unexpected, imagined future
or being devasted by losing that dreamed of life?
Possibilities shuffled like playing cards.
Which one will they keep?
Shawn L. Bird 