That's why this piece didn't make the cut. It's actually the first idea I had when I heard the prompt but when I wrote the story the first time it came in at over 800 words. And that was with a lot of self editing as I wrote. By the time I got it down to the 600 words I felt like it lost too much. When I decided to post it here I had to decide if I was going to add back in the parts that I cut or just give you the 600. I went with giving you the 600. I feel like this shows you what happens to a story when you have to cut and cut and cut. You can see where I was going, but how I ran out of road to get there. Writing a story with limited words can be a real challenge. Even for someone like me who prefers to write short pieces. You have to be very precise in your word choice, in what you leave in and what you take out. And sometimes you just can't make it work.
And now that I've given you every reason not to want to read it I bring you:
Cleaning Out the Attic
“Mom, I think this box must be yours.” Judy pushed the dusty
box out of her pile of things to sort and back towards her mother.
Joyce looked at the box marked dorm room, “Oh gosh, if it is
I don’t even remember putting it up here.”
“Open it up and let’s take a look. I’m ready for a little
break anyway.” They had been sorting the attic all morning getting Judy’s
things packed and ready to move in to her new house.
Joyce looked in the battered cardboard box at the jumble of
items. Ticket stubs from long ago concerts, pictures of friends, scribble notes
about classes and events, things that had once been tacked to a bulletin board
in her college dorm room, papers written long ago, books from classes she could
barely remember and at the bottom of the box an old letterman’s jacket. “Not the best packing job, but it was the
last day of class and we needed to clear out quickly.”
Judy took the stack of pictures from the box and started
looking through them. She stopped on one and handed the photo to her mother,
“And who was this, hmm?”
Joyce saw a much younger version of herself wrapped in the
arms of Eddie. Eddie smiling at the
camera wearing his college letterman jacket that he was so proud of.
“Ah, Eddie, he was the last boy I dated before I met your
father. “
“He’s cute.”
“He was and very charming. I remember at the slightest breeze he would take his jacket off and wrap it around me making sure I was warm. I faked a lot of chills.”
“He was and very charming. I remember at the slightest breeze he would take his jacket off and wrap it around me making sure I was warm. I faked a lot of chills.”
Judy laughed, “Mother, really! I would've never thought of you as that kind of girl!”
Joyce smiled at her daughter, “I wasn't. But something about
Eddie made me feel like I could be.”
“What happened to him?”
“We broke up. I’m not a dainty little girl that likes being taken
care of. He needed someone who was. It
all worked out for the best.”
Judy looked in the box and saw the jacket folded in the
bottom. “You still have his jacket? You should get in touch with him and let
him know you found it! How excited would he be to get it back?”
Joyce smiled at her daughter and started putting the old
pictures and mementos back in the box. “He would be surprised, that’s for
sure.”
She hadn't been completely truthful with Judy about when she
had packed that box. She had been in a hurry to get out of the dorm room but it hadn't been the last day of class. It was a month before school let out. Stopping by her room in the middle of the day
she had walked in on her roommate and Eddie making out. Eddie tried to calm her
down, “Babe, it’s not what it looks like.” She hated being called babe; it made
her think of the Blue Ox. She had told
him that over and over. She yelled at him to get out of the room and her
roommate wisely followed. Seeing his jacket tossed over her desk chair she had to
fight the urge to throw it out the window. Instead it went in the bottom of the
box and she ignored every plea from him to return it. Denying she even had it.
Thirty years had passed, maybe Judy was right and she should
get in touch with him and let him know his jacket had been found.
“Babe, it’s not what
it looks like. “
Or maybe not.
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