All A to Z participants have some or the other plan for how they're going to meet the challenge. Like last year, I'll be doing fiction, based on prompts left by commenters.
Since this year I'll have hosting duties, I hope to pre-schedule at least some of the posts.
So I'm requesting you, our blogging audience, to challenge me with an interesting picture that you would like me to write on, and drop me story starters, each sentence/phrase beginning with a different letter (i.e. the first word of the starter must start with a different letter from A to Z). Last year this brought me to A to Z Stories of Life and Death. I hope I write enough stories this year to do another collection. You can drop me the prompts in the comments on this post. Of course, when I post each prompt during April, I'll link to you and explain why I chose it. You may also mail me the pictures and story prompts at atozstories at gmail dot com.You need not be participating in the A to Z Challenge to challenge me with either a story starter, or a picture, or both. The more the merrier! Last year I had asked for word prompts, and I got loads to choose from! This year, I'm taking it a step further.
As a sort of warm-up and illustration of what I hope to do, I'm pasting below a picture, a story starter( both randomly chosen) and the resulting story.
Story starter: I can no longer...
Picture:
Story:
I can no longer fit in small corner spaces.
My body lurches as I run up the stairs, my joints have not been oiled in years, and my feet make thumping noises in tune with my overwrought heart. My breath wheezes, and I'm sure you can hear it from downstairs, where you count up to hundred, your face to the wall. I try hiding behind a cupboard, but my belly and my behind jiggle this way and that, and I know you would spot one or the other. I try hiding under the bed, but can only go in as far as my shoulder. I sneak behind the curtains, but they billow around me, calling to you.
In the end, I stand amongst the clothes hanging in the changing room. As I hear the patter of your feet, your squealed warnings, and whispered threats, I squeeze my eyes tight shut and breathe the paint on the wall, rubbing the softness of my old cotton dress between my thumbs.
I think of yesterday, when you could have fit anywhere at all, but instead chose to hide your face against the wall. 'How can you see me Granny,' you said when I got you, your pigtails flying, your eyes trembling with unshed tears, 'when I can see nothing at all?'
I'll let you teach me, I decide, as I relax my grip on my dress. You walk past me in my search.
Between you and me there's only the cloak of a few years, a hundred wrinkles, and a few dozen pounds. Wearing these, I hide from you in plain sight, and as it turns out, from my self.
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By Damyanti Biswas, co-host #atozchallenge
