One Wish
Stella was the loneliest girl in the whole town. But she was also the most hopeful. No matter how many boys overlooked her or how many young couples she saw holding hands, she never lost faith that her turn at romance would come.
Especially now that someone had finally noticed her.
She sighed as she gazed longingly out her window. The night sky was speckled with stars, not a cloud in sight. It was the perfect setting. Now all she had to do was wait. Just one, she thought eagerly, glancing around the sky. Come on, just one…
And then she spotted it: a shooting star falling down the sky, its tail shimmering brightly against the dark backdrop of the night. It shone only for a second before it vanished, but it was enough.
Smiling, Stella closed her eyes and scrunched up her nose. Time to believe in magic.
I wish for him to see me the way I see him. She urged the thought into reality with all her heart. Please, please, please…
Suddenly, a ping on the glass brought her back to her senses. Stella opened her eyes and lifted the window pane to peer outside. Her heart skipped a beat when she looked down into the yard: standing on the grass below, gazing up at her with an innocent gleam in his eyes and a rose in his hand, was the boy who had smiled at her.
Jimmy grinned as the girl appeared in the window frame. Her heart racing as she leaned over the sill, Stella glanced up at the night sky with a smile and whispered, “Thank you.”
Never again was Stella the loneliest girl in town, not since the night she discovered the magic of shooting stars and the joy of one heartfelt wish come true.
The Leap
(What If? Exercise: Read the description here.)
He had been dreaming of this day his entire life.
The day when he could finally see the world.
The time had come to leave the nest.
He stood tall and spread his wings.
Then he leapt from the branch.
The long fall was daunting.
But his spirit prevailed.
The sky called.
He flew.
This piece is based on What If? Exercise 93: “Ten to One”. The exercise is to write a 55-word story in which the first sentence has ten words, the second has nine, etc., until the last sentence has only one word. The objective is to show that precision and thrift in writing can produce surprisingly powerful results. I hope you enjoy what I’ve written. Thanks for reading!
First Taste
It was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten.
You never forget your first taste, my father had told me. Oh, how right he was. I had tried to resist my instinct, but I couldn’t any longer.
My mouth watered long after the last bite. The monthly helpings of rabbit and fox I had known until now were nothing compared to this. Such succulent meat; not too bony and just the right amount of blood and fat to make it juicy without being heavy. And the crispy skin? Sublime! What a great idea to roast it first! I was lucky not to overcook it. Fires made with the clumsy paws of a wolf have a way of going awry.
As I sucked the last bits of meat off the bones, I heard rustling from afar. Following the call of the moon, I slunk toward the dim light in the distance, careful to stay hidden as the glowing torches came into view. The next sight to meet my eyes made me grin.
Three more foolish humans wandering through the woods, no doubt searching for the first. How predictable.
I licked my lips as I crouched in the shadows, more than ready for a second taste. Tonight I was going to eat very well.
Rescue
(What If? Exercise: Read the description here.)
Sharon was the first to spot him in the water.
No one else noticed the little boy was drowning.
But the lifeguard had him out in seconds.
She gave him CPR on the beach.
The crowd watched with bated breath…
Then the boy’s mother cried.
His chest was moving.
The people cheered.
Sharon smiled.
This piece is based on What If? Exercise 93: “Ten to One”. The exercise is to write a 55-word story in which the first sentence has ten words, the second has nine, etc., until the last sentence has only one word. The objective is to show that precision and thrift in writing can produce surprisingly powerful results. I hope you enjoy what I’ve written. Thanks for reading!
Ramblings of a Grad Student
(What If? Exercise: Read the description here.)
Having gotten through college without a problem, I honestly thought getting a Master’s degree would be simple, but I didn’t realize it would be a whole different experience right from the beginning, from talking to your professors for hours to come up with a great idea for a project, to having to write a standout résumé and totally kill it in the interview, and then sitting through the requisite amount of discipline hours for a whole semester before actually getting started on the project, only to realize halfway through the program that your methods were never feasible for a two-year project to begin with, so you spend another several hours discussing it with your advisors until the project has changed completely, meaning you have to start almost from scratch with only one year left to get everything done on time, so you rush through your lab work in what turns out to be a lesson on why you should never rush through lab work that sets you back another month, but you stay optimistic in the knowledge that it’s all a learning experience and now you know what not to do, so you press on through one obstacle after the other – difficult field work, delayed lab material deliveries, failed DNA amplifications – until you finally have enough results to begin last-minute data analyses, all the while reading up-to-the-minute papers that risk changing the entire course of the thesis you’ve been writing and rewriting for the past few months, and just as you’re about to give up the last shred of hope that you’ll be able to meet the final deadline, you reach deep down inside and find that final burst of determination, and before you know it, your thesis is complete, your project has been successfully presented and defended, your paper is in preparation for submission, and all your hard work has earned you a Master’s degree, and you’re so proud of yourself that you forget all the stress you endured to make it here and focus solely on the glory of success… until you decide to pursue a Ph.D and the whole journey starts all over again.
This story is based on What If? Exercise 90: “The Journey of the Long Sentence”. The exercise is to write a short short story that’s only one sentence long. The objective is to understand how we can shape our writing in a similar manner that our minds function, building a linear order for observations that often consist of many overlapping aspects. I hope you enjoy what I’ve written. Thanks for reading!
Proposal
(What If? Exercise: Read the description here.)
He had been planning this moment for two months now.
Nervously, he gazed at the love of his life.
I love you more than anything, he whispered.
This was it: the moment of truth.
He got down on one knee.
Then he produced the ring.
Will you marry me?
He waited, terrified…
She smiled.
This piece is based on What If? Exercise 93: “Ten to One”. The exercise is to write a 55-word story in which the first sentence has ten words, the second has nine, etc., until the last sentence has only one word. The objective is to show that precision and thrift in writing can produce surprisingly powerful results. I hope you enjoy what I’ve written. Thanks for reading!
Suspicion
(First place winner of Writer’s Carnival’s June Author-less Flash contest!)
They say it’s always the one you least suspect.
The police had three suspects. All of them had motive to poison Frank’s whiskey, to want him dead.
Uncle Jerry had threatened him last year for gambling away his hard-earned savings.
Aunt Rose hated him for cheating her out of her share of their inheritance.
Linda was still furious about all his drinking and philandering, even after leaving him three years ago.
But everyone had an alibi for the day of Frank’s murder. No one seemed to miss him anyway, so in the end, the police chalked his death up to suicide and closed the case.
Funny how they never thought someone might have killed him to protect a loved one. Only I knew he wouldn’t hurt sweet little Maddie anymore.
They say it’s always the one you least suspect.
Luckily for me, nobody ever suspects the cat.
Unlikely Hero
My heart stopped when my bedroom door began to open.
My computer had frozen, now of all times, and my mother was going to see all the dirty pictures I’d been looking up for the last hour!
But just as she stepped into the room, my screen suddenly shut off.
I turned around to see my cat standing on the computer plug, staring back at me with a look in his eyes that read: You owe me.
He’s going to feast on cat treats for the rest of his life.
Based on a superhero-themed writing prompt from Writer’s Carnival: Unlikely Hero.
You are saved from an embarrassing situation by the unlikeliest of heroes. Write a quick scene, no more than five sentences, describing this.
I hope you enjoy what I’ve written. Thanks for reading!
The Good Old Days
“Remember the old days, when people used to cheer ‘Strongman!’ every time I threw a car at a villain and stopped him cold?”
“Now you’d get sued ’cause they just finished paying it off.”
“What about you, Lightning Girl? Your super speed used to be the talk of the town! What happened?”
“There’s nowhere to run anymore! A new building pops up in this city every month; the longest stretch of road anywhere is two blocks. That’s barely half a step!”
“At least invisibility still counts for something, right?”
“Hardly, Invisi-Boy! Kids today are so glued to their phones, they wouldn’t see a whale if it dropped out of the sky riding an army tank on fire!”
“What happened to the good old days?”
“Those days are long gone, my friend. Long gone indeed.”
Based on a superhero-themed writing prompt from Writer’s Carnival: Goooood Old Days!
You’re in the superhero old folks home. Write a banter piece about the “Good Old Days”. Dialogue only, no more than 12 lines.
I hope you enjoy what I’ve written. Thanks for reading!
Misfortune
(What If? Exercise: Read the description here.)
My friends insisted I come to the carnival with them.
For some reason, the fortune teller caught my eye.
She’s never wrong, the other gypsies warned us.
Come and learn your future, she said.
She laid the cards before us.
Flip to reveal your fate.
Sara’s fate was riches.
Joey’s was fame.
Mine, misfortune.
This piece is based on What If? Exercise 93: “Ten to One”. The exercise is to write a 55-word story in which the first sentence has ten words, the second has nine, etc., until the last sentence has only one word. The objective is to show that precision and thrift in writing can produce surprisingly powerful results. I hope you enjoy what I’ve written. Thanks for reading!
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The Wolfe's (Writing) Den by J.C. Wolfe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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