Prompt # 120

(We did a version of this same prompt about a year ago. Hopefully, your memory is as poor as mine and you’ve forgotten all about it!)

I can’t remember anything. Well, that’s not exactly true. I remember things, but not as they actually happened. That time I got lost at the Seattle World’s Fair actually happened—just not to me. (It was my brother who was lost. But I would have bet my bottom dollar it was me! Nope.)

Memory is a crazy thing!

I’m not the only one with a memory that is off-kilter. Here’s a video from John Green that I love:

(An aside: Have you read Everything is Tuberculosis? Take a look!)

Over the course of my life, I’ve lost many more things than memories. I’ve lost parents and friends. I’ve lost faith in myself (and found it again) (repeat). I’ve lost rings and necklaces and recipes. I’ve lost my patience, certain books, the file where I kept old letters I wanted to keep safe.

Well, you get the point.

Here’s a story for you: “The Things I’ve Lost,” by Brian Arundel. I love this story for its simplicity and its depth. It’s basically a “list” story, which we’ve done in the past around here.

A snippet:

The chance, in 1986, to meet Raymond Carver: the only person invited to sit in on an interview, I instead drank all night with friends and overslept. A quarter-inch off the tip of my left thumb, in 1987, while slicing Muenster cheese on an electric Hobart slicer.

As soon as I read those words, I remember my own lost opportunity to see Prince in New York City because I decided to stay behind while my students were bussed to an “afternoon concert.” No one told us what the concert was, and I had things to do, like the NY Times crossword puzzle… My loss.

Another story for you, this one fictional: Edwin Manu’s “Family History, Preserved in a Hole in the Ground.”

It starts like this:

“Things go missing all the time in our house.”

Yes, mine, too. I love this tiny story for what it has to say about lost things.

Okay, time for the prompt.

1. Write your own story about “lost things.”

2. Yours can be a list story, like Arundel’s, where you name things lost over a period of time.

3. Or you can write a tiny story about one thing that was lost.

4. Or you can write whatever you want!

5. Anything goes: Lost your mind, lost your faith in God, in love, in humanity, you name it, lost all your money, lost your passport, lost your way home…

(Four hundred words max. in the comments section if you want me and others to read your story.)

Note: A little story of mine, “Dead Game,” was published last month at HAD. Take a look! (Aaron Burch, the editor of HAD, can also be found at Burch Blog and Short Story, Long—both worth your time to check out.)