Jenny Matlock’s Saturday Centus is my favorite meme. Each week, Jenny posts a “prompt” around which we are to write a story using only 100 extra words. You can always find her button my my sideboard. This week’s prompt was longer than usual, sixty words, so there was already a style embedded in it. I tried to write in that style, really get outside myself. Did I do it? Can’t tell. You will see the prompt in bold italics.
Almost Home
I organized and packed my things. Did Thomas Wolfe have it right when he wrote, “you can’t go home again?” Twenty years had passed since my high school class graduated and fled Medford for college or jobs in the city. Would many of them attend the reunion?
I tried to make the best of the trip, but driving six hours is a long time on the road. Six hours spent singing car-aoke and taking in the picturesque scenery, but mostly reminiscing about the good times. But those days were long gone and my mind was in a different place now. Or was it? My pulse quickened as I passed the road sign which read "Medford 27 miles."
Good times, really? What about bad times, being labeled a nerd? I sighed to myself. “It’s here, the day you have been dreading, the day you travel back in time.........”
I turn around in a driveway and wasted six more hours on the road.
This post is linked to Saturday Centus
5 years ago
17 comments:
oh you turned around too! YEAH! I do think you pegged the style in the prompt and carried it though! I loved that you were a bit sassy "wasting" 6 more hours. very cool.
There is a little bit of chicken in each of us...a fine take on this week's prompt...Peace and blessings
I never went to any of my reunions. I pretty much didn't see the point talking to people I never talked to in high school or didn't care for. Your centus reminded me of it, I liked yours a lot and made me reminiscence, ha.
Interesting take on a class reunion. Why is it so painful for many? Like your character remembering the nerd label...people just can't get away from those formative years...you caught that well here.
Very nice!
But a word on reunions. In my experience we all eventually grow up and reunions really are a great way to reconnect. When I was in high school I was so full of angst. I felt I was the nerd, the smart one, the one no one knew, nor wanted to know. I've been to 3 reunions since. Every reunion I have attended since graduation over 30 years ago have been so much fun! My opinion of myself was so not the opinion of others!
Oh, yes! You turned around! In my opinion, you should have never left the driveway in the first place! :) Reunions...blah! Very introspective piece. Thanks. I enjoyed!
Malisa
C.H.I.C.K.E.N.....
Ha ha! Great way to 'DO' this prompt.
I was a wild child in HS and never went to reunions until a few years ago. It was 40 years since I'd left and NO ONE KNEW ME! Not even my best friend that I'd lost contact with. So if nothing else, I had fun wandering around and letting them all wonder :)
I was half expecting the end to be that you were writing as Bill Gates!
I did a high school reunion story, too...but very different from yours - I showed up!
LOL! You absolutely nailed this, CJ! This was perfect! Funny that you picked up the reunion theme too. My 30 year high school reunion is this week and all the money in the world couldn't get me to go! I'm with you, lady, turn the hell around! Great job!
I couldn't turn round! I'd have to go in! Really enjoyed this!
This really felt so true. But personally, I'm such a nosy Nellie that I have to go and see what happened to everyone. If nothing else, it can be great fodder for the next thousand or so Saturday Centus posts :) Kat
I love how you came to your senses! MWAHAHA! I went to one high school reunion and that was more than enough to last this girl a lifetime!
@ Everyone - Gotcha! My character was, well, she was made up, a fictitious chicken. I? Well, I've attended all my reunions and had a BLAST! My husband looked forward to them as much as I did. I had a circle of funny, smart and very cool friends, and now we get together every five years instead of ten. Our next - the 45th - will be next June.............cj (Fictitious Chicken)
Good choice turning around. I only bothered to go to my tenth, and they were still the same jerks as in high school. Not for me, thanks! I agree that it was harder when a style had already been established, but you did a nice job.
This brought me back. I have a 35th this year and probably won't go. This is part of the big why.
Nice twist that your turned around. I went to my 10 year reunion, but none since. I figure that's a closed chapter of my life that I don't need to keep reliving.
Cee
I love this! It's so interesting to see how these words invoked reunion to so many of you.
And fascinating to me how even though there was a prompt and a common theme you each did such a different take on it!
Wow!
I love this link!
Post a Comment