Homework Assignment Ten: Extra Credit!

Well, here we are, finally finishing the series of writing exercises inspired by Susan Breen’s The Fiction Class. Today’s assignment – extra credit! For more information on the book and this series of posts, please check out the original book review here.

Extra Credit: Write a short story (just a few paragraphs*) with this proviso: you can only use words of one syllable.

One Last Chance (excerpt)
She knew it was dumb. She knew she could get caught. She did not care.

She was not quite young and not quite old, not in years, that is. She was not quite as cute as she had been. Life had not been kind. She had run on miles of bad road, and her face had tread marks. But she did it. She went back home. When you hit your last turn, your last choice, when you have to go back to start fresh, back to a dead-end town full of old friends (and not-friends), when you know you risk their smirks, you have to let your pride go and just do it. Quick now, no time to think.

She did not have a job. She did not have a car. She was not a wife – not now. She had no kids. She had no cash. She did not have much to lose – not much but pride, and that ship was set to sail soon.

So she did it. She went back home. Back home to the drunk mom and schlub dad she ran from ten years back. Back home to the life she knew, the dull black sheen of it like oil on a dirt road, slick and sure to lead to a bad end. She knew what she would find. There was no big twist, no gasp, no “oh wow!” – just an old, crap house with old, crap stuff and an old, crap life, the same each day, no new bits, just the dull black sheen.

That is why she did it. She could not stay there. Two days in she was sure she would snap. She knew any choice had to beat this one. So she chose.

*This was supposed to be an exercise of a few paragraphs. It became a story. It was tough to write in only single-syllable words, and since I have been told I have a tendency toward big words, I thought it might be a good exercise for me to try to do an entire story in mono-syllabic verse. I have only excerpted it here, but if you are curious about the rest, let me know… 🙂