Saturday, March 21, 2015

The Good and Faithful

A short story written for a prompt in my creative writing class to "write 600 words about someone who finds a lost thing and does not return it."

The wallet is expensive. That is, as expensive as a lost wallet in the middle of K-town could ever be. The faux leather is peeling on the corners, and someone has carved their initials—S.R.—into the front pocket. There are two twenty-dollar bills inside, and an almost-full punch card for a pizza hut deal tucked beneath the flap.
            Sonja holds it in her hands, and stares down. Her mouth presses into a thin line, and her eyes dart up and down the length of the empty street.
            It is forty dollars, she thinks. Just enough that she’ll be able to make the rent this month. Just enough that she’ll be able to survive.
            There’s no ID either, besides those sharp initials on the front pocket. No one will miss it. Probably.
            And she needs the money.
            So she slides the wallet into the inner pocket of her coat, a great black mass procured from the Goodwill on Fifth, and hurries on her way.
            When she gets home, she places the wallet beneath the statuette of Mother Mary on the hall table and sends up a prayer for whoever lost the wallet, that they will be blessed as she was.
            She microwaves her dinner and eats in front of the TV, focusing resolutely on the struggles being faced by the Real Housewives of Who Cares. Her eyes do not flicker back to the statue of Mother Mary. She does not reach for the phone a dozen times to call the police and hand it over to them for safekeeping. She does not toss and turn and wake up in the morning feeling sick.
            She does pay her rent on time. Mrs. Christiansen smiles and thanks her. Neither mention the warning that Sonja’d received last week—“Pay up or get out.”
            At the restaurant, Sonja’s jumpier than usual. She snaps at customers and wrings her apron. After her shift, she goes to church. The row of candles burn bright and warm beneath the image of the Christ. Sonja lights two—one for S.R., and one for her own thieving, immortal soul.
            She sits in the first row of pews and thumbs her rosary.
            “Dios mío, estoy arrepiento de todo corazón haberte ofendido, y detesto todos mis pecados a causa de tu castigos justos...”
            Perhaps if she prays hard enough, this weight will leave her chest. After all, the only true judge is God, and God is loving.
            But when she unlocks the door to her little apartment and flicks the dim lights on, she’s greeted by the dark eyes of Mother Mary.
            “I had to,” she says, and snatches the wallet from the lady’s feet. “Surely your son can forgive my desperation, Madre.”
            She throws the wallet out anyway. It’s an old thing, falling apart, and what does it mean to her anyway? Nothing. Nothing.
            She fishes it out later that night, and eats with it sitting at her elbow.
            When Sonja gets her next paycheck, the first thing she does is withdraw forty dollars and tuck them into the first pocket, just behind the Pizza Hut card. She keeps it in the back pocket of her uniform pants during her next shift and walks slowly, until she comes to the street where she found the burden in the first place. Sonja stands on the corner of the empty, dark street with the wallet in her hand, and stares down.
            She meant to leave it here, so that the owner might pass by and find it.
            But it is two twenty dollar bills.

            And she’s short on the rent.

Friday, March 13, 2015

La Blanc Page

Okay, so my French is sub-par. If you'd spent two years of high school learning from a teacher that, as it turned out, never actually spoke French in the first place, you'd have issues too. Thankfully (hopefully?) the same can't be said of my skills with the English language. I'm currently attending college for a degree in creative writing, so take from that what you will.
I decided last week to start this blog to explore the art (of writing, not of foreign language speaking). After two semesters of hard work, I'm a little fed up with the actual lack of creativeness involved in the writing that I've done. This blog will, hopefully, help to motivate me into working more on what I love to do. Here is where I'm going to post weekly short stories, progress on bigger projects that I'm working on, class projects, and maybe even a little poetry if I'm in the mood. I'm toying with the idea of even opening up for prompts once I get this ball rolling.
Anyway, that's it. Thanks for visiting--I hope you decide to stick around.

Bon soir,

Megan