The most recent writing prompt set by Charli Mills at the Carrot Ranch challenged writers to In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a hometown. It can be your hometown or a fictional one. Who is there? When is it set? What is happening? Go where the prompt leads!
Since then, a song has been playing in my head on a relentless loop. It wasn’t the song chosen by Charli. She chose Bruce Springsteen. The one that played for me is from my younger years and I’m going to share it with you now in the hope that I can shake it free.
You’d think with two weeks to respond to the prompt, I’d have come up with something worthwhile. Instead, I struggled. Maybe that’s because I don’t have a strong sense of ‘hometown’.
Unrelated to Springsteen’s My Hometown or Tom Jones’s Green Green Grass of Home, this is my response. I hope it tells something in some small hometown way.
Home is Where the Heart Is
The playlist his children organised looped a soundtrack to his questions — retirement and grandchildren afforded time and reason — to resolve. Why did they flee? Why darkness? Telling nobody? Taking nothing? Disallowed of memories to share? He’d never felt he was completely whole. This hometown jaunt should patch the space within. But nothing matched the picture painted in his mind; no road sign, store name, building or a tree. Concrete covered sandy roads where once they played. Then a breeze swirled round a feeling of forgiveness and of freedom and he turned his mind and car to heart and home.
Thank you for reading. I appreciate your comments. Please share your thoughts.
Norah Colvin 
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