Friday, May 10, 2024

Everything Changed: OHC Writer's Guild Writing Assignment #1

 Everything changed.  In an instant, my love was gone.

The bus stop was just a bench.  We were waiting for the 151 to the Palisades. 

The argument was stupid.  Meaningless.  Insignificant.  The same old thing.  My love wanted me to move away from my mother and come live with her. 

But I couldn’t leave.  My mother was too fragile, too dependent on me.

What did I know about fragility?

She huffed away from me, standing by the curb of the road, yelling at me to man up and break free.

Neither of us heard the truck.  The truck that was heading to the curb too fast.

I saw nothing until I heard the smack of her body against the oncoming truck. 

At first, she seemed stuck to its front, as if glued down somehow.  But that horrible image, forever ingrained in my mind, in reality only lasted milliseconds.

Then she flew through the air, at least twenty feet, landing harshly on the concrete, twisted like a rag doll.

It happened in an instant.  I would give anything for that instant not to have occurred.

Instead, it will haunt me forever.

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