Prompt: From 3a.m. Epiphany, number 110
Sweet and sour. Describe briefly a lake or backcountry mountain trail (in other words, a beautiful natural setting) as seen by a person who has lost a parent in a sudden, unexpected death. The last time this narrator saw the parent they argued violently. In your narrative do not mention the death, the parent, or the argument. Do not tell a story. Simply show us what the lake or forest or street looks like to someone under these circumstances. 500 words.
Once I went around the corner, I could hear the water flowing. Water running over rocks, a rush. The path was narrow, made for two. On one side of the path, through the trees, I could see the pond, stagnant and still, lily pads drifting along its surface, the green scum in obvious places along it. But there were holes, spots where I could see the green-black water that looked almost like a sheen of onyx.
To the right was where the water rushed. The path had been created more or less to cover a ceramic pipe that lead into a ditch. Here was water over rocks. Here it sounded like a waterfall. Amazing that this sheet of glass on the left, could turn into this flow of water on the right. It was still blackish green. I watched that water, since it was more interesting to my eyes – action, force, flow. Not flat, stagnant, plain and ordinary.
I walked further, past the pond and ditch, under a canopy of trees. It was a dim tunnel, but the path was clear and easy to see. I came out of it to a bright meadow, grass as high as my shoulder. The green waves – not of grain, but of tall crabgrass – waved in the small but warm breeze. I walked through this meadow, the soldiers of grass daring me to not stray from the rocky path, trodden by hundreds of other feet along this trail. I could see places where the grass was dampened down, places that I imagined deer lay at night, their families close together, children huddled close.
I sighed, continued on, heading toward another tunnel of trees, which lead deeper into the darker part of the forest, a cool, lonely place I preferred to be right now.
Words: 300
Supposedly, according to his explanation further in the book, schizophrenics can’t narrate something in a general sense. They see the trees, not the forest. This was to attempt to think like a schizophrenic.