Write Now Prompt (Feb 12)

I haven’t done one of these prompts in a while, but I can’t think of a reason not to do them as a warm up exercise on a night of writing or at the least as an opportunity to write when I might not have otherwise.

This prompt is from February 12, so I’m a few days behind.

They listened to their grandparents stories of the good old days, never sure if the stories were made up or true.

Annie, completely enamored with our grandfather’s words from the old wars, rarely stopped to think about their validity, but I wasn’t blessed with such innocence. She hated when I called out the areas I felt were holes in their stories; she resented me for interrupting them.

“Why can’t you just let him tell the story? Why does it always have to be just the way you want it to be?” she had said to me one day, when we were heading to Grampa’s house for another afternoon of cookies, milk and stories.

I shrugged. “If the story is true, then he wouldn’t be changing the details from one moment to the next. If the story is true, then he’d have all of this sorted out before he told it.”

“Did it occur to you that maybe his memory is fading? That maybe he can’t remember all the details? Grampa is old, and I’ve heard Mom and Dad talk about his memory. Who knows how much more time we have with him…” Annie started to sob.

“Oh please. Grampa is only sixty and his father only passed on two years ago. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Maybe that’s all the time in your book, but it isn’t all the time in mine.”