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Broken

So, I got a book called 642 Tiny Things to Write About which gives lots of short prompts. I thought it might help to stimulate my thinking. Today's prompt is as follows:

Write about a time you broke a bone, a heart, the law, a promise.

When I was about three years old, I was playing inside my house with my brother, then 15. This was in Thomasville, NC, where I grew up, and there was a lot of snow on the ground outside. He wanted to play football, and I just wanted to play. Now, as a little girl, my only understanding of footbal was that one group of people chased another group who was carrying a ball. So, I grabbed the small ball we were using and took off running through the house. A few feet down the hallway, my brother lunged for my legs and wrapped both arms around me in mid-step. Needless to say, I toppled over; however, I landed kind of caddywhompus against a door frame. Then I screamed bloody murder at the explosion of pain.

Years later, having dinner with my brother, that day came up in conversation. He said the moment still haunts him. He apparently had his ear right next to my leg when the bone hit the door frame and CRACK!!!ed into several smaller pieces. Sometimes, late at night, as he's just drifing off to sleep, he still hears the sound of my bones breaking in his memory. He thought he'd killed his baby sister that day, and was so grateful when I continued screaming like a crazy person.

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I don't know when I've broken a heart, though my own's been broken plenty. If I've broken anyone irretrievably, they've not had the courtesy to tell me. I suppose that's not really true when I think about it, though. I think I broke my monther's heart when I ran away from home with no warning or notice, and no contact for several months. We don't talk about that time much. I don't know exactly what she went through. All Iknow is that I went about things the wrong way, and I know it wasn't a good way to leave things. We've mended our relationship since, but I know that it's a band-aid over a permanent scar.

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Wow. The law. Other than speeding, I don't think that--even if I had broken any laws, I'd want to admit to it here in writing. But in any case, it doesn't matter, because I'm a perfect little angel who never does anything wrong. Nope, not once, never in my whole life. And if you believe that one, I've got some oceanfront property for sale out in Arizona.

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I have the opposite problem. I've broken way more promises than I want to think about, some intentional, some not so much. No matter how good I try to be or how moral, sometimes, I just can't live up to my promises. I can't live up to my promises to myself most of the time, either. I guess I have to work on that...


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