Monday, October 30, 2006

Writing Prompt

I wrote this from a writing prompt I received in a writing seminar over the summer. Lately, I haven't been able to stop thinking about this girl - who she is, what she's doing. I'm going to revisit her and her story, but I wanted to start with her here. What follows is just what I wrote on the spur of the moment in class.

If there was an answer, she'd find it there - there where the road met the state line - that place that for so long had only existed in her imagination - that place where the sun always used to sink below the horizon. She stood there looking - looking out, over and beyond. She wasn't completely sure what it was that she was looking for, but she knew it would be there. She took one more trepidatious step forward as if it was at this point that someone would finally be there. Her second step - the one that actually crossed the state line - was a little easier. By the third step, when she had clearly and with all of herself entered Nebraska, she finally noticed the weight of her backpack and thought to herself "I can't go back now." She trod forward, wobbling slightly with the weight of her expanded belly, the weight of her reason to walk three days in worn-out sneakers and cutoffs, her dark hair darker with dirt and sweat, the sun beating down on her face, arms and exposed parts of her shoulders. The answer - she was still looking for an answer. An answer to her blackened eye, to her throbbing left knee. "If there is an answer," she said, "I will find it here."

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I'm realizing more and more that actual age is relative.