#SixSentenceStories; Interest

/ D. Avery @shiftnshake
BERJAYA

The rules for the Six Sentence Story blog hop are so simple- write a story or poem, or what have you in six sentences, or lines, or stanzas, or what have you. And you must include in some way some form of the given prompt word, which this week is Interest, provided by the venerable host of the Six Sentence Story blog hop, Denise, aka, GirlieOntheEdge . I have a six sentence story this week but at what cost, those six periods? Countless commas and conjunctions, the odd dash and semi colon go into the creation of a six sentence story. Read at your own risk, and thank you for it and for your comments. Click the link up to link up your story and to read others.

Space by D. Avery

He leaves his motorcycle out in the yard, uncovered, even though there is all kinds of space in the barns, and she isn’t sure why that bothers her so much, but it does, more and more, and when he just shrugs when she mentions that he could keep it under cover she feels like she could explode but she doesn’t, she walks away, startled and uncertain at the intensity of her feelings.

Of course parking her old Toyota inside didn’t keep it from gathering dust; out of sight out of mind, it slipped further down on his unwritten list of things to do until finally she pushed it through the big double doors and back into the yard where she lifted the hood and checked what she knew how to check, replaced what she knew how to replace, but still it would not start.

Then he was there, and after saying “Let me have a look at it,”  it was all grunts and utterances, but he was clearly interested in solving the conundrum of the stalled Toyota  now and after many trips back and forth to the shed that housed his tools and to the lean-to that housed spare parts he said he needed to go to the auto supply store in the village and would be right back, said her truck would soon be purring like a kitten and running like a cheetah.

While she pondered how he could go hours without a word then say things like that, he, without even brushing off the caterpillar-like birch catkins that clung to the seat and to the sun faded helmet that had sat on it and now sat on his head, kick started the old motorcycle to life and rode off.

Overhead, clouds rolled in and out, cold and shadows made more intense by the thick canopy of leaves of the tall trees that enclosed the sun pocked yard, and she went inside, where she stuffed clothes into a big black garbage bag while waiting for him to return, all the while marveling that a man would put off for two months a task that he could complete in little more than two hours.

The next morning was decidedly sunny, already warm by six when she walked past the motorcycle, started her Toyota, all fixed and purring like a kitten, and drove away without looking back.

29 thoughts on “#SixSentenceStories; Interest”

  7. I think she was right to ride off into the sunset, so to speak, sans giving him the ciao bye thing. These 6-sentence stories are a hoot to read. Maybe one day I shall try my hand at it.

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  13. Yow!*

    What is it (in this Six) that you create right from the start.. not intimacy…more like a personal-ness (still not it) damn… it’s more like theatre than a motion picture

    we’re allowed to get close to the characters by semi-whispered asides: “…checked what she knew how to check, replaced what she knew how to replace,” versus “Let me have a look at it,”  it was all grunts and utterances, but he was clearly interested in solving the conundrum” (fricken Maiginot Line of the Battle of the Sexes)

    thanks, encourages me to keep working at the ‘make the scene real to the Reader’ ambition

    (what, odd comparison? sure… after my first read, I was thinking of ‘Ethan Frome’… that’s not weird, right? lol)

    *compliment, ‘a course

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  14. All I know is I wanted to include details of my actual morning (the in and out sun, birch debris) into a fictional Six. I let a sort of story just come and use the details. I might have squeezed too many in, though if I altered sentence count and therefore structure, it might be a smoother fit, but this is Sixville. And I do think it is the inclusion of details that bring it to life. Ethan Frome? I’ll take it! That’s one I keep thinking I will re-read, see if I like it as much as when I first read it decades ago. Of course now the print is too small, so… But the setting is similar, old run down New England farm. Two mismatched characters who don’t communicate and don’t please one another. And that tone of a kind of helpless melancholy of their situation. In short, Thanks!

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