This week’s prompts are at the bottom. Feel free to seize the prompts, twist them, form them, play with them as you will. All comers are welcome. The words below are just practice for me. I had a lot of fun writing them, and you know what I always say, “Practice makes perfect.”
Here’s how to play along, if you are unsure.
My father had a heart attack on a midsummer Sunday morning, as he left the church service. He died wearing a charcoal grey suit, an outfit that my mother hated. The next day she went to the funeral parlour to discuss final arrangements with Mr Ballard, the funeral director.
Ballard opened the meeting by expressing his sympathies to my mother, “I’m so sorry for your loss, Ms Kerr. How long were you and your husband married?”
“He was married for over forty years. I was married only twenty-five.” She replied. “I was his second wife.”
“Have you and your late husband discussed arrangements for his obsequies?”
They had, and she relayed all of my father’s wishes to Mr Ballard. When they had discussed, understood, and agreed to all the arrangements, Ballard had one more question, “Would you like to bury him in the grey suit he was wearing when he passed?”
“No,” my mother replied, “I always thought he looked better in a blue suit. I never liked him in grey or black. The problem is that he recently gained weight and his nice blue suit is too tight. Would you have a blue suit available? I can pay for it.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Ballard sought to assuage her.
My mother and I left and returned to the house, where she got drunk and passed out. She was out of it for three days, and I took all the calls from Ballard and finalized the arrangements. On the third day, I got my mother sobered up and took her downtown for my dad’s funeral service. She was so happy to see him wearing a tasteful blue suit with fine and delicate silver pinstripes.
After the service, Mr Ballard approached my mother to, once again, convey his sympathies.
She interrupted him, “That navy blue suit you got for my husband is beautiful.” Mom gushed. “Can I write you a cheque?”
“That’s not necessary, Ms Kerr,” he told her.
“Please, I insist.”
“No, it was not a problem, and there is no extra charge due to a fortuitous circumstance that neither of us could have foreseen.”
My mother raised her eyebrows questioningly and awaited a further explanation.
“Shortly after you left my office the other day, another unfortunate man, a Mr Claeg, was brought in. He was wearing a beautiful dark blue suit. When I met with his wife, I asked if she would object to his being laid to rest wearing an elegant grey suit. She had no objections, so the situation became a simple matter of switching the heads.”
This week’s prompts are:
- heretics and Boy Scouts
- nothing’s ever gonna change
- what she’d done
You can start writing whenever you want, just write, get the words down – and have fun!
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