I’m part of a writer’s group that has weekly writing challenges. Each challenge has a prompt with a specific word count and the genre of writing can be whatever you want. This challenge was the prompt “It’s Worth Remembering” and the word count was 400. Here was my entry.
“But wasn’t it exciting? When all that happened?”
“Well, no, it wasn’t exciting–at least not at first, it wasn’t.”
“Why not? That’s not what I’ve heard from everyone else.”
“Yeah, well I aint everyone else. I mean, I had to give up everything I had.”
“That’s what everyone else says, too.”
“Yeah, but not like me. I had to give it all up. Had to quit my job, had to stop hanging out with my friends, had to give up on my dream. Like I said, I had to give it all up.”
“But was it worth it? Everyone else says that kind of thing is always worth it.”
“I mean, this many years down the road I know it was worth it, but it didn’t feel that way at the beginning. I told you, it wasn’t exciting. It was scary. I didn’t know what was gonna happen to me. I’d rather just forget about it.”
“But isn’t that kinda thing worth rememberin’?”
“What do you mean ‘rememberin’? I told you it was scary. Why in the world would you wanna remember all that scary stuff?”
“I dunno…maybe ‘cause it helps you see all the good stuff a little better, kinda like when you wake up from a bad dream.”
“Come on, you ain’t makin any sense, man.”
“Well I know that when I wake up from a bad dream I’m thankful that it’s over. And then everything else don’t seem so bad, compared to the dream and all.”
“…”
“What is it?”
“Well, I…I guess I get what you’re sayin’.”
“So you ain’t scared no more?”
“Naw, I didn’t say that! It’s still scary. I just think that…well, maybe I’m starting to see that it was always supposed to be that way.”
“That’s what everyone else says, too.”
“Who’s this ‘everyone else’ you keep talkin’ about?”
“Everybody I’ve talked to who says they’ve met Him before. They all say it was scary at first, but they didn’t regret it later. And then now when things are bad, they all say it helps to remember that things used to be a lot worse.”
“…”
“Come on now, why are you gettin’ all quiet again?”
“I mean…I guess I just…I feel like I knew that, what you’re talkin’ about, I just forgot it.”
“I guess that’s why it’s worth rememberin’.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right about that.”
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