Feb 12, 2014 Original Short Stories
Guitar
(See story prompt below my story)
©2014 Vijaya Sundaram
February 7th, 2014
Being a single mom isn’t bad, thought Swapna, riffling through the shirt-pile. I get to choose anything I want for Santosh. Luke can’t stop me. Luke, who had controlled her every move, and whom she missed, despite her relief when he had left her and their son.
Don’t remember!
She moved on to a Spiderman-themed sleeping bag. Santosh will be thrilled with this!
She approached the man at the garage door.
“This is great – your son must be too old for it now, huh? I don’t see a tag. How much is this?”
“Five,” he answered, turning to arrange something.
Inexplicably hurt, Swapna shook herself.
“Could I leave it here? I’m still looking,” she said.
“Sure,” he replied.
She moved around, found a red, unscratched Schwinn bicycle. Fifteen dollars! She wheeled it next to the sleeping bag.
The man was watching her. Watch away! she thought.
Then, she spotted the guitar, leaning against the garage door.
“You’re selling that Gibson?” she asked, incredulously.
“No, I changed my mind. That belonged … Are you done?” he asked.
Curious now, she turned to open her purse.
Movement near the window drew her attention. Someone had sat down near a photograph of a teenaged boy holding the Gibson.
Silently, Swapna handed over twenty dollars, wheeled the bicycle with sleeping bag on it, and stashed both in her trunk.
As she pulled away, she looked at the man. He had picked up the guitar, and was holding it tight.
Her throat closed.
(250 words of text, including my name, but nothing else.)
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Story Prompt for the final session with Michael Downing:
There are two principal characters: A buyer and a seller. The location is a yard, the property of the seller, where that person is having a yard sale, a garage sale, some sort of home sale. How the buyer found out is … not really important.
This is the story of a completed transaction. Among whatever else the seller has on offer at this sale, you must name three items: a bicycle of some kind (something that has wheels), a musical instrument or music-playing device, and a sleeping bag.
What you know about the seller is that recently, within the last year, a child of the seller’s died. This stuff the seller is selling belonged to the child.
The buyer and seller have never met, and know nothing of each other. Neither the seller nor anyone at the sale mentions the child, the death or the cause of death.
By the end of the story, your goal is that the readers understand the loss of the seller brings us to this moment.
Limitations:
Past tense
No more than 250 words.
Third person limited to the buyer. (the only omniscience belongs to the buyer – third person, however).
Tags: #Loss, #Original Short Story, Buying and Selling, Father and son, Garage Sale, Guitar, mother and son, Story Prompt by Michael Downing