Doris' Legacy

We’ve done this writing exercise before… I really must research some new ones. Regardless. Here we go.

The group sits at the table. We each have a sheet of paper.

Write a character name. Fold the paper back, so you can’t see the writing, and pass it to your right/left. Keep all the passes in the same direction.

Write an age. Fold. Pass.

A place. Fold. Pass.

A time of day. Fold. Pass

An object. Fold. Pass.

This didn’t bring us full circle, but it doesn’t matter. There were enough elements, by this time, to make a good story. Here’s what I had:

Name: Doris Andrews

Age: 107

Place: Farm

Time: 2:30am

Object: Bracelet

Here’s what Doris is doing:

She had a legacy. A whole branch of the family tree was underneath her. Two daughters. A son. Nine grandchildren. Five great-grandchildren. Without her, there would be none of it.

Doris sipped her water. She took another pill. She looked at the packet of pills. She couldn’t even remember what they were for. But when the alarm beeps, she takes a pill. That’s all she could remember about it.

She looked at the mould of her body from above the covers and thought about how small she looked. She was 6 foot at 21. Now, her teenage grandsons were a head taller than her. Her family, their heights, the size of the whole Andrews clan: Everything was large. Even the farm she lived on was spacious- bigger than most dairies.

She put the water down on the cabinet. She’d left her bracelet on the side, a thin, silver line reflecting the moonlight through the aging curtains.

Doris wasn’t in the habit of taking pills at 2:30am. She wasn’t in the habit of anything. She must have noticed she’d missed a pill, and shifted the alarm on a few hours to compensate.

I’m still sharp, she thought. Still compus mentus. She thought of the lifetime of country air she’d breathed in, and thought of her family in the city, and what was going through her lungs.

Still, she thought, it can’t be harming their growth. The kids are tall enough.