Prompt #49
The Big Subject
Greetings, Friends and Others!
Warning:
Today, we’re going to talk about death. (Sort of.)
That’s right. We’re hitting the BIG SUBJECT around here.
The thing about death, is that it comes not just for everyBODY, but for everyTHING. And that’s where we’re headed today—to the death of things in our lives. To saying goodbye to that which we can no longer hold onto for one reason or another. And to give that thing a literary send-off. A eulogy. Or an obituary. A piece of writing that celebrates that which is no longer here.
A final (and often humorous) good-bye.
To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here are a few stories to check out:
This first one is a story in the shape of an obituary. From SmokeLong Quarterly, it was written by Deesha Philyaw: Mayretta Kelly Brunson Williams Bryant Jones, (1932-2012) Here’s Philyaw on writing this story: “I wondered what an older Black woman… might say if she wrote her own obituary and needed to set the record straight about a few things.”
Next is a very different kind of story. Written by Ethan Kuperberg, this one comes from the Shouts and Murmurs column of The New Yorker—the weekly humor column. Called “The American People Have Spoken About Our Relationship,” this story takes us through the narrator’s long goodbye to his girlfriend.
And here’s another one from the same author. Published in the New York Times, Kuperberg bids farewell to his twenties HERE. (If you have trouble accessing, please let me know and I’ll see if I can post a “gift” link somehow.)
In this story, Maeve Kerr-Crowley writes “A eulogy for Joe Keery’s hair”
And lastly, here’s a micro-micro story where “mocolvin” bids goodbye to his pal Fred. I have no idea how I found this one. Read it HERE.
And now, it’s your turn!
TODAY’S PROMPT
Write a eulogy or obituary to something in your life that is over and that merits a literary goodbye.
For instance, you might want to say goodbye to:
Your combover
Your mid-life crisis
The sofa you’ve had 30 years
Your skinny jeans
Your alcohol cabinet
Your youth
Your marriage
The condom that lives in your wallet
That trip to Europe where you got sick on the first day
Your piece does not have to be humorous, by the way. After 49 weeks of prompts, I hope you know by now that just about anything goes around here.
As always, post up to 400 words in the Comments section.
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So here goes my attempt...
Farewell Barbie.
You were beautiful, and so annoyingly perfect. You were made out of plastic, and yet, smelled as exotic as the freedom my father said we could only find in America, not here, where Lenin’s picture in the classroom always reminded us that we needed to be serious, and not as shallow, as the plastic image you embodied: fake in every way, and yet, I loved you. I wanted to be like you. Polished. Just like your perfectly straight hair, with a thin waist and perky boobs. And fashionable boots. Pink, and trendy, the kind we couldn’t find in the Pioneer Department store. You reminded me of endless possibilities that existed outside of my small country; with you, I dared to dream. Maybe one day I would become an actress in London, or New York, why the hell not? And you made my friends jealous, which was extra delicious. They had the Legos, but I had you. You were better than those green bananas. It was because of you that I grew my hair long, did you know? And you were so beautiful that even my brother loved to play with you. That was before his obsession with tanks. Oh, how I wish he had stuck with you and had never discovered Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. Things could have worked out differently for him. And maybe for me. But I didn’t think to pack you in my small backpack when my mother took us to that Easter vacation to Vienna, and now I don’t know where you are. Did you end up in the trash with all my other belongings, or someone else was lucky to inherit you along with the home I never saw again? In any rate, by then I didn’t give you a second thought. I was forced to grow up.
I love your prompts Mary!