This is a 30 minute piece of fictional story that C. and I are working on. She picks a word like ‘Newspaper’ and I write a 400 word story using that word as a central theme. I picked “eraser” for her.
We call this series: “I choose, you write”
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Rusty looked in the mirror and what reflected back was a unhappy young man, too tired from a late night drinking party with friends who were equally unhappy with their lives.
Rusty took a deep sigh, what am I going to tell the landlord? “Sorry Mr. Fowler, I will have the rent for you when I get paid”. Life was so much simpler when I was in school, all I had to do was study and get good grades. I wanted so much to graduate, find a job, get my own place. Live like an adult. Something just didn’t go my way. Rusty looked at the clock, almost running late to the train. He grabbed his briefcase, ran down the stairs, grabbed the newspaper at the front door, stuffed it into his briefcase and headed to the train station.
Whew, made the train. His ritual every morning was to read the paper front to back on his way to work. His mom used to read the paper to him every morning before school. He loved soothing rhythm his mom’s voice. Ah, if only he could go back in time.
What’s going on today in the newspaper? Hmm… an accident killing 50 people in the central train station where the my train just passed by? I don’t remember that yesterday. Here is a story announcing the winner of the presidential election. “Bush wins by a large margin.”. But the election is today, the results are not finished tallying yet. He looked at the date on the front page, it was tomorrow’s date!
He quickly scanned the rest of the stories, and they were all news stories that hasn’t happen yet. What should he do? Should he call the police for crimes that is going to happen? Should he call train station to warn them about the accident? Yes, that’s the right thing to do. So he started dialing. “Hello, I want to report a train accident that “will” happen at 2pm today. No.. I am not a terrorist. I know because I am reading a newspaper… “. He hung up the phone,thinking oh my god… no one will believe me…
He felt someone pushed him from the back, he quickly turned around and saw the train conductor waking him up, telling him it’s time to get off at his regular train stop. It was a dream, only a dream. The newspaper in front of him had today’s date. He laughed to himself. Ok, my reality looks much better now. I will figure out a way to make this work. Starting from calling my mom and listening to her voice. I will start my life over again.
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