Hi! My name's Bailey! I...yeah. Hi.
So I've been gone. Not that anyone noticed. At all. Maybe it's a good thing I haven't been here. But Junior year is not fun. ACT prep, advanced classes, ACT prep, college prep, theatre, and ACT don't allow much room for sleep. Or movies. Or fun. Or anything, really. But while I'm procrastinating, I thought I'd pop on and share a short story I wrote for my creative writing class last month. I wrote it while out-of-state for my Pap's funeral, and I honestly hated the finished project. (And I think you could tell that because I had SOOO many grammatical mistakes.) But I read it again today, and I realized it wasn't all that bad, yada, yada, yada. So I thought I'd fill this blog with something, and here we are...
I don't know
Sorry I suck.
The Old Man
The
gravestone was a simple one, bearing only the necessities: name, date, and the
symbol that indicated his service. The
symbol surprised him: never had they known of his service. Except for the small bouquet of violets and
lilies placed on the side of the tombstone, one would be led to believe that
the man had always been alone. They’d
always wondered that, if he had anyone.
Of course, no one had cared enough to ask, fearing what might happen if
they became too attached. Now Matthew
regretted it. Did he have anyone to
mourn him? To tend his plot? To think about him? He looked down at the grave and back up,
searching for his wife and daughter standing a few tombstones away. He knew they were watching him, and so
indicated to them it would be a while.
Once they turned around and started walking away, Matthew bent down and
began pulling up the weeds that threatened to engulf the small gravestone,
completely forgetting the dampness of the grass or the fact that his suit was
new.
“I spoke about it today.” Matthew was surprised to hear the words come
out of his mouth but found he couldn’t stop the flow of words. “It was…well, it was difficult, to say the
least. I’ve been putting it off for a
while, actually.” He imagined the old
man nodding slightly, seemingly not listening.
But Matt new better. The old man
always listened, whether you were looking for someone to or not. That was one of the many aspects Matt had
secretly admired him for.
