Random Book Prompt

From: Like Water for Chocolate

Take care to chop the onion fine.

Gloria looked at the instructions for the soup again. Bewildered, she pulled out a white onion and placed it on the cutting board. Her friend, Marcy, had said that it would seem ludicrous at times, but that the 12 step program for moving on really worked. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the knife and began to slice rings off the side of the onion. She felt the familiar sting in her eyes. Rinsing her hands, she wiped her eyes with a tissues. The tears were her least favorite part of cooking with onions.

She approached the lopsided onion on the cutting board and went back to work. The onion was particularly pungent. A few moments later, she pulled the sleeve of her shirt across her eyes to try to clear out the tears that had begun to well up. It was to no avail. Tears sprang up before she'd put her arm back down. Sniffling she went back to work on the onion.

Water streamed down her face as she methodically lifted the knife up only to push it back down. She twisted the onion as she had twisted the truth of why he had left her. The tears began to flow faster and her nose had started dripping. Quickly she rinsed her hands and walked across the room to the box of tissues. Picking up the box, she returned to the kitchen counter.

Marcy called forty-five minutes later. "Hello?" Gloria said through her sniffles from her spot on the floor.

"Gloria??? Are you okay? What are you doing?" Marcy asked, concern filling the long space that followed.

"I'm fine. I'm making the soup for tonight's meeting," she sniffled again, standing on her own two feet.

Marcy, full of understanding, nodded on the other end of the line. "And how is it going?" she inquired.

"Oh, about as well as anyone can expect I guess." Gloria picked up the half diced onion and threw it into the pot. "No one actually eats the soup, right?"

*** Daily Writing Practice ***

Helping

I watched as she raced to the little potted plants and began picking them up. "No," I started to call out when an older woman stopped me.

"Oh, she's so sweet. Quite the little helper." She smiled, waiting for a response to the compliment.

Glancing back to my daughter, I watched as two of the plants toppled over, dirt covering the concrete and broken leaves dangling from the slender stems. "Helping or hindering, who's to say?" I finally replied.

*** One Word ***

Covered with Snow

I was born in January in a climate quite conducive to snow, although none had fallen that day or for many days before. Two weeks later, with the ground a dirty tundra of ice and mud, my mother wrapped me snuggly and held me close to her as the plane lifted sharply into the air. I, of course, have no memories of any of this.

I remember the blues and greens of the Pacific Ocean, the deep browns of volcanoes that stood for show, and the smells of Luaus. I smile thinking about the green bikini I couldn't bear to be without and the little Devil costume I wore to collect the first sweets of my life. But these are not my memories, they are pictures thrown into a shoe box which illicit the memories of others. Their details that have jarred themselves in tiny crevices of my brain matter.

No, my first memory, the one I can irrevocably lay claim to as mine and mine alone, brings goosebumps to my skin and causes my brain to shudder and my heart to skip a beat. My feet begin to feel cold and I shiver. It tells a story of who I was and whom I continue to be.

That same bundle of joy returned to that frozen land she had left four years prior. Having a voice now, one that communicated more clearly her ideas and desires, she refused the advice of her mother. Awakened from her nap by the stopping of the car, she reached for the handle and leaped toward her new life. She found a snowbank, still clean and white. It was a shock to her bear skin, the little sundress barely covering her.

*** Daily Writing Practice ***

Falling Back

The stylist pulled the old woman's hair taut before pinning it up. In those short moments, the old woman saw the girl she use to be. Smooth skin, wide eyes, a clear focus. The stylist relaxed grip reapplied the wrinkles and loneliness, but the woman's mind continued to fall back through her life. Lost in her past choices, some defensible- others clearly not, a tear fell. Was it worth it? All the lying and deception? The claims of achievement? The sexual favors she'd exchanged? She had the money, the lifestyle, the fame. But did she have anything more tangible? Not a friend. Not a lover. Not even a puppy. Looking back to the mirror, she saw the woman she had become. Old. Embittered. A socialite who knew how to play the game. She missed the driven young woman she had been. Maybe if that doll face of a girl hadn't been so focused, the old woman wouldn't be so alone.

*** Daily Writing Practice ***

Reader

Watching the other students stand up and hand the teacher their papers before quietly exiting the room always made her feel slow-witted. After emptying her lungs and therefore releasing her tension, she went back to her test. Context lead her to believe the word was 'saw', not 'was'. Dyslexic she was; a speed reader she would never be.

*** One Word ***

One Way or Another

"I am never, ever, ever going to do it! I don't care what you say," the little brunette boy screamed at the couple hovering over him, their faces awash in an equal amount of determination to match the child's defiance.

"One way or another, you are going to return that toy," said the woman, her hands on her hip and a wry smile turning up her lips, "unless you prefer going to jail for shoplifting."

The child's eyes, wide open, darted to the man for reassurance, but met only a victorious grin.

*** Daily Writing Practice ***

Link

"Your only as strong as your weakest link." Mary Ellen paused for emphasis and looked out over her audience. "My mother said this to me quite frequently. She would say it over my shoulder while I did my homework, from the deck when I played sports, over e-mail if I wrote her a story. I hated it. It made me cringe." Mary Ellen stopped, a rye smile laying gently on her face. "I vividly remember rolling my eyes and offering an intelligent rebuttal like, whatever." A small ripple of laughter filled the room.

"But I stand here as a successful person because of this annoyance. Because of her. She pushed me, as she probably pushed many of you, to make sure I was ready for life. As you pay your respects and mourn your loss, think of today as the weak length. Move on knowing you are stronger than you were today. Apply her ideology to your life. It's how she would want each of you to live your life. Being strong and remembering her as a strong person who acknowledged her weaknesses and strengthened them."

Mary Ellen stepped from the small podium and dabbed her eyes. It took her mother's passing for her to realize just how true that statement was. The weakest link in their relationship had been her own unwillingness to speak to her mother the last couple of years. Had she tried to fix that link, she would have known her mother was dying.

*** One Minute Writer ***