Today’s blog post is my response to a writing prompt from the site Reedsy. In the past, I have entered their weekly contest and while I’ve never won that $50 cash prize, I have produced a few short stories based on the prompts. This afternoon, I decided to give one a try not as a contest entry but as a blog post. My passage is based on a real-life incident in which a friend and I found a young woman’s diary which had been left behind in a park.
Definitely not my usual writing style/subject matter, but it was still a fun experiment.
Prompt: Tell a story through a shopping list.
I hadn’t noticed the notebook at first. It had slipped into a crack in the park bench and was nearly invisible between two slats of wood that formed the bench’s seat. Only when I inadvertently sat down on the notebook’s spine, ready to eat lunch on my break from the office, did it catch my attention.
Sliding the notebook out from the bench, I saw that it was small, more compact than the ones we had used for taking notes in school, maybe seven by ten inches. It was solid black with a cheap, faux leather cover and a length of ribbon poking out – a bookmark.
I glanced around for the owner, but the park was nearly empty, save a mother and father walking their golden retriever near the fountain at the park’s entrance. They were trying to keep up with their energetic toddler who was splashing water from the fountain onto a flock of unsuspecting pigeons. The weather was colder than the forecasters had predicted, and the park was much more vacant than usual.
I took a sip from my coffee cup and flipped through the book. It seemed to be a diary of some kind. A date was neatly printed in pencil in the corner of every page, and below each date was a bulleted list of items and goals. I could see that nearly three-quarters of the notebook were filled, containing what must have been seventy pages of lists.
Scanning through the book, I tried to find the author’s name or phone number scrawled somewhere within its contents so that I could return it. The first page was dated for September 17 and contained a short shopping list but no identifying information.
- 8 ounces of heavy cream
- Pound of sugar (granulated)
- Milk
- Cake pan
- Gift for Justin (baseball tickets? vinyl? ???!)
On the next page was another list, a to-do list, dated for September 20.
To Do:
- 9:00 AM – Gym
- 11:00 AM – Drop off Justin at airport
- 12:00 PM – Pick up prescription on way home from airport
- 6:00 PM – Dinner with Janie
- 7:30 PM – MOVIE!!! Finally!
The pages went on as such. I gathered from the handwriting and information in the lists that the writer was female, and Justin was apparently her significant other. As I continued reading through the pages, I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t really snooping, but only trying to find some sort of contact information.
October 10
To Do:
- Stop thinking about Justin
- Don’t call Justin
- Don’t text Justin
- Go to the gym tonight
- Eat a salad! Jesus!
- Call Janie
The mention of a salad reminded me I hadn’t yet eaten my lunch. I dug around in my purse and found the wrapped BLT I’d thrown in there that morning before I left the house. I continued reading as I ate, trying to piece together what Justin might have done to bring about a breakup. The girl had baked him a cake for God’s sake.
October 24
Three good things that have happened:
- Lost 5 pounds
- Submitted the anthropology paper
- Still working on figuring out a third good thing…
One not-so-good thing that has happened:
- Janie saw Justin with a new girl at the bar, already
Already! I thought. I compared the dates – Two weeks and the guy had moved on to dating some other woman at a bar. The thought of the scorned writer dieting feverishly in an attempt to deal with the breakup made me feel a pang of sympathy. At thirty-three, I had too many memories of my own that were filled with calorie counting and cardio exercises.
This entry was the last in the book, and the rest of the pages were blank. I continued eating my sandwich, the notebook still open in my lap. With no way to return the book, I wondered what I should do with it. After a moment, I had an idea.
Krista J. Iris Watson 