tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022413452547277809.post738101367111496207..comments2023-07-06T07:33:06.262-04:00Comments on * Writers' Spark * Every story has to start somewhere *: Prompt: How much are your memories worth? Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022413452547277809.post-46037702471549995382013-05-31T00:46:30.511-04:002013-05-31T00:46:30.511-04:00I like the sense of real-time memory loss. I like the sense of real-time memory loss. Margaret S. McGrawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18301618521427459626noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022413452547277809.post-27456531095706025912013-05-30T18:00:47.861-04:002013-05-30T18:00:47.861-04:00Oo! Sounds like the start to a good mystery.Oo! Sounds like the start to a good mystery.Annenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022413452547277809.post-67919912434223132132013-05-29T19:36:11.747-04:002013-05-29T19:36:11.747-04:00Prompt: How much are your memories worth?
Rona ...Prompt: How much are your memories worth?<br /><br /> <br />Rona clasped her hands and stared up the stairs at the temple entrance. The doors were dark green, painted in an inviting leaf motif, at odds with the temple's reputation. People came back changed, different, she had heard. People didn't come back at all. But she had no choice. Papa was dying, and without a priest to send him to the afterlife he would be a shade, trapped forever away from the circle of rebirth. <br /> <br />Rona had already spent her last copper -- and hocked her last belongings -- to pay for Papa's doctors. No, no, she would not begrudge that cost. Even if they had not cured Papa, they had made his last days more bearable. But now she had nothing left to sell, and the only priests who did not demand payment for shepherding a soul to the next stage were behind those green doors.<br /> <br />She climbed the temple stairs, feeling as if everyone on the city street behind her watched, noting the desperate girl, laughing at her plight. She turned to look. No one was paying attention. She reached the door. It opened at her touch, swinging inward easily.<br /> <br />The interior was dark, and nearly indiscernible to eyes adjusted to the bright outside. Slowly things resolved, giving Rona the sense of standing in the midst of a carved jungle.<br /> <br />"What have you brought to offer, child?" said a voice.<br /> <br />"My Papa needs--"<br /> <br />"What you need, second. What you offer, first."<br /> <br />"I have nothing," Rona said. Everyone said they asked no payment. She blinked, fighting tears. She thought back to Papa, drifting to sleep peacefully in the chair downstairs, enabling her to sneak out, hoping that he would remain so until she returned. So different from the energetic man he used to be, laughing in the workshop, heaving planks from the mill onto their long wagon. She remembered him giving her her first set of tools, him standing proudly as she sanded her first finished cabinet. <br /> <br />"Stop!" said the voice. "That is enough. When it is time, someone will come. Go back to your father now, child."<br /> <br />Rona turned and was pulling open the door before she quite realised what she was doing. She was relieved that the temple would send someone, and that they had demanded no payment, as everyone said. <br /><br />In the street, she stopped, confused. What was she doing here? She looked up at the temple. She had come to go into the temple; why was she now leaving it? What was Papa doing? She should not have left home with him awake. She had meant to wait until he slept! She hurried home.<br /><br /><br />Time writing: 30 minutesAnnenoreply@blogger.com