The Story Spark for this piece was – Love.
I chose the writing prompt: Tell us about someone you (or a character) fell in love with.
She
He was only eighteen. He had never felt this way before. This feeling had been growing for some time. Waiting for her was unbearable. She needed to arrive so he could express the thoughts and feelings he had kept inside for what seemed a lifetime. He had to let her know.
It started in first grade when they first met. She didn’t introduce herself by name, but he could sense something about her that attracted him. Whatever it was, he felt confident around her. He felt strong. His mind grew with thoughts of things to do, things to share, things to create.
He didn’t attribute it to her. He just knew that when she was around, he felt happy.
As he grew older, she seemed always to be there when he needed her. It never dawned on him to find out who exactly she was. Did she have a name? What did she do when she was not with him? Why was it that no one else saw her?
You can attribute her to being an imaginary creation when you’re young. Many a child growing up has those imaginary friends. But he was older now; he should know better. Imaginary means they are all in your head; they don’t exist.
But she must, after all, he was now much older. Logic demands that imaginary friends go away as we age. But he knew she was still there.
The love that had been growing in him was strong. It needed to be expressed to her. So where was she? She needed to appear again. But she didn’t come. At least not then.
As time passed he continued to age, and she always returned when he needed a thought to be explored. Then came the groups and the places where it was important to expound upon words and prompts. She became more prominent.
“Here is your writing prompt. You may begin,” the master directed.
He sat, unsure, took his writing implement up, put it on the paper, and then wrote just one sentence. It was just an ordinary sentence. By now, though, he knew she would come, and she did.
The rest is here. His muse had done what she had done all his life.
He wrote.
