Today’s post is a departure from my recent discussions of bras and hair loss and is instead a fictional piece called “Agnes & the Cage.” I wrote it for a class centering on the arc of a story and the building of action. Those here for the lingerie, I have another review in the pipeline, I promise. The original prompt is as follows:

Write a scene of 250-350 words featuring a character with one concrete want (a table, a moose, a toothbrush, anything physical is fine!) and one weakness. Use these two features to drive the action of the plot. Set up the story where every other sentence is a rising action. To help you come up with rising actions, use one word from the following list of twelve words in each sentence that has a rising action. In other words: Write your first sentence introducing your character. Make the next sentence a rising action using one of the following twelve words. Write your third sentence, which may introduce the weakness, then write your fourth sentence with a rising action that includes one of the remaining eleven words you haven’t used. And so on. Words: trick, memory, aboard, tiger, pretend, carrot, appliance, cage, rings, crow, filthy, explode. You must use at least 6 of the 12 words, but you are encouraged to challenge yourself to use as many of the words as possible while still meeting the word count.

Brando Skyhorse from the Wesleyan Course on Plot. Incidentally, Brando Skyhorse wrote a phenomenal memoir entitled Take This Man.

The assignment encourages you to embrace the restrictions and construct an original yet succinct story. True to my rebel with zero cause nature, I did not follow the every other sentence rule because the story gripped hold of me. I wanted the piece to feel natural and not like a response to a prompt, hence my “creative decision” to ignore that requirement.

Furthermore, I included the full assignment because we don’t play or create enough as adults. Make believe was so real as kids. For me, I loved creating stories. My Barbie playhouse was a hot bed of sordid activity because grandma let me watch too much Young and the Restless. I was either loved or loathed by my brother’s cub scout troop for scaring the shit out of everyone around the campfire. My friends and I created whole worlds with ever changing characters and alliances. It never mattered if they were award worthy. It was play, and play is fun.

If writing isn’t your particular brand of fun, create something else. Draw. Paint. Dance. I hear so many people, myself included, say “Well, I’m not good at it.” Who cares? Do what makes you happy for the sake of happiness, not for the sake of perfection, success, or the dreaded monetization. I wrote an entire book I could never get published at 21, and it defeated me for years. It was only through this blog I started writing again. I wish I had those years back to grow and improve. Writing is my joy. Go out and enjoy yours.

Agnes & the Cage

Agnes staggered through the dark streets, her incoherent slurs only interrupted by the long, deep pulls from the bottle of rotgut vodka in her hand. Her head was swimming when she propped herself against a cramped consignment store, her filthy fingers smudging the window as she tried to find her balance. Framed between her cracked hands, she saw it. On a bed of cheap fake moss was the most perfect vintage cage, covered in a tarnished silver patina and adorned with two songbirds gently touching beaks.

A relentless wanting gripped Agnes. When she was young, her grandmother gave her a parrot named Charlie in a birdcage similar to the one in the display. No, it was exactly that cage. Could it be a trick of the dim streetlight, or did she really see the initials A & C scratched in small childish writing on the ornamental birds?

Agnes pressed her face into the glass, searching for Charlie’s outline on his perch. The cage called to her like the desperate ache of a fond memory for someone who has so few. Her fractured mind flooded with warmth when she thought of teaching Charlie new words and stroking his feathers. Sometimes Agnes pretended Charlie was more than a “stupid bird,” as her mother referred to him, but rather a trapped sorcerer who would one day regain his powers and teach her his magic.

Charlie’s cage was hers and hers alone. She stumbled to the door and flicked her gaze between her bare hand and the one with the bottle. Agnes balled up her fist and punched through the small rectangular pane, exploding glass everywhere. Oblivious to the broken shards slicing through her skin, Agnes unlatched the door and heaved her way toward the window until she could finally clasp the cool metal. Ringing alarm bells blasted through the quiet streets, but Agnes felt satisfied. She ran back the way she came, dripping a trail of blood behind her.