30 Day Writing Challenge: Day 2 - Lasting Words

Day 2 of the 30 day writing challenge: "Write something that someone told you about yourself that you will never forget".

This one is a difficult assignment because generally I don't pay too much attention to what people tell me. Most of the times it's usually criticism or complaints.

"Why are you looking at me?" "You're creeping me out!" "Stop touching me." "Quit looking in my bedroom window." The usual stuff.

We can rule out things said before, during and after coitus. We know in the heat of passion things are said that aren't sincere.

"Is that all there is?" "Stop touching me." "Are you ready to start? You already finished?" "Hey mister, that's $50 bucks in advance."

All kidding aside for this is a serious subject matter. What you say to someone could result in misery or phobias for that rest of their life. I won't dwell on what my parents have said to me over the years especially growing up. I'll leave that to the day when I finally go into psychoanalysis. One thing I will share is on my Father's death bed he told me he was proud of me and all his children. Of course, I didn't have the heart to say it would have been nice to have heard that a few times as a teen or even a young adult. I'm dwelling.

What I do recall is a non-familial person, my Senior High School Creative Writing Teacher, telling me this and recently my sister repeated something similarly. I'll paraphrase it here.

"You have a great ability to write dialogue between your characters." 

This same teacher also read one of my stories to the class and remarked how he liked how I brought the scene to life. He said he could imagine the wintry scene in the story as if he was there.

Unknown to me, some writers have a hard time with dialogue making their characters interact in conversation that makes it interesting and compelling. I imagine the interaction in my head and using personal experiences flesh out the conversations. So, I'll demonstrate my ability with this story. Forgive any punctuation faux pas. I need an editor. Think of this blog as a two-fer. Blog and short story.

Molly, Lolly and Dolly

Three friends, Molly, Lolly and Dolly, were at the 5th street playground. They were doing what young girls like to do on a sweltering day at the peak of summer vacation. They swung on the swings. They teetered and tottered. They laid flat on their backs staring into the azure blue sky naming the puffy white cloud shapes.
"That one's a dog," exclaimed Dolly.
"Which one?" asked Lolly.
"The one on the left. Next to the one that looks like Mr. Nedermyer."
"That doesn't look like old Mr. Nedermyer. It looks like a stoopy man," stated Molly, who was not really paying attention to the clouds. She was off in her own little daydream.
"Well, it looks like a man who slouches a lot, like old Mr. Nedermyer," said Dolly defending her Rorschach cloud.
"Hey, you know what we can do?" Molly exclaimed as she jumped to her feet.
"I don't like the sound of this," groaned Lolly.
"What?" Dolly asked all full of curiosity.
"Why don't we go over to the high school and check out the boys' football practice," Molly said more as a statement than a suggestion or question.
"I don't like boys," Lolly snapped.
"I already have a boyfriend," Dolly glowed dreamily.
"It was just a thought," Molly whimpered, scuffing her pink Puma sneakers against the macadam playground floor.

Not far from the girls, Tolly had been taking this all in. As they all lived in the neighborhood and attended the same middle school, he knew them. They knew him too.  And fancying himself as a tweener Lothario, Romeo, Valentino and Beiber all rolled into one, he approached the girls.

"Well, hellloooo, ladies. Why would you want to go alllll the way over to the high school to see a bunch of sweaty, fat football players when you can stay right here and be with me?" Tolly beamed.

The three girls jumped at the sound of his voice as they had not seen or heard him come up to them.
"I don't think so, Tolly," Molly guffawed, quick on the attack.
"I have a boyfriend," Dolly whispered, clearly not over the start Tolly gave them.
The best Lolly could do was a comedic exaggerated gag reflex which got all three girls giggling that transitioned into outright gut busting laughter.

Tolly stood there with his hands in his pockets momentarily speechless. A short distance away from this, twirling on a swing sat Solly. Solly was much younger than the others, but was by far more wiser. Wise beyond her years one might say. She stopped her twirling and jumped off the swing and skipped over to the kids.

"Now Tolly," she addressed the boy. "You know no one is buying your bull poopie here." The other girls in unison folded their arms across their barely developed chests and nodded their heads in agreement.

"Not only that," she continued, "You look like a mentally challenged scarecrow, whose face was pressed against a cheese grater." She paused. "Aaaand...you smell like bacon fat. You should just go home and leave the rest of us alone."

Tolly was taken aback to the point that whatever he was going to say left him altogether. He was trying to say something but it came out more like a stammer than words. His mouth was moving but nothing was coming forth. At that point the girls in chorus yelled "Just GO!!!!" This was a turn of events he had not predicted. He quickly pivoted showing his back to the girls because he felt the tears welling up in his eyes. He did not want them to see him cry. He slowly slunk away toward home dragging his feet and his wounded ego.

On the other side of the park in the direction Tolly was heading, a white van with out of state plates was parked. As Tolly reached that end of the park, the man grabbed Tolly and tossed him in the back of the van and took off. No one ever heard from Tolly again.

The moral to the story is: Girls are poison.


Feel free to critique. I probably won't read it or listen to you anyway.

Next: Day 3 - Pet Peeves