A Place Where Children Once Played #99WordStories

38 Replies

This week at the Carrot Ranch, Charli Mills challenged writers to In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a place where children once played. It can be a field, a playground, or any place that attracted children to play. But now it is empty. Abandoned. Go where the prompt leads!

This is my response. I hope you enjoy it.

Locked and Abandoned

Grow up.

Stop those childish games.

Remember your manners.

Cease with the stories.

Fairies aren’t real.

Santa’s for fools with more money than sense.

She was a dutiful daughter and diligent student. She submerged herself in lessons, wiped her mind of childhood nonsense and got on with the serious business of being grownup, though she was not yet nine years old.

She went on to be dux at school and won the university medal but had no friends to celebrate with.

Sometimes, in night’s solitude, she’d hear a jangle of keys and a tiny voice crying, ‘Let me out!’

Thank you blog post

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

Note: The collection of stories made in response to the previous prompt Gloria can be read at the Carrot Ranch.

38 thoughts on “A Place Where Children Once Played #99WordStories”

  7. Pingback: Where Children Once Played Collection « Carrot Ranch Literary Community

    1. Norah Post author

      I agree with you, Robbie. It was meant to be sad. The loss of creativity and imagination is a loss humanity can’t afford. It happens too often, though. I do my best to make it not so.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓
    1. Norah Post author

      Thank you. It was meant to be chilling. And sad. Loss of creativity is a terrible loss.
      Once again, I’m surprised that ‘dux’ is not familiar to readers in the UK. Interesting.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓
    1. Norah Post author

      Thank you for your encouragement, Anne. I’m pleased the message was strong. It’s one close to my heart, as you know.
      But I am surprised about dux. I thought it was commonplace and that its use here probably originated in England. So thank you for that piece of education too.

      Like

      Reply ↓

I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.