I wrote a small part of a short story from a prompt online. The prompt was to write a story with the words: grandfather, toothpaste, tree, and box. It’s unfinished, but I will finish it and hopefully do a part two next time I post. Anyway, here’s the story-
Splinters took over his knees as he crawled around the old wooden floor of the treehouse. His grandfather was a short kid, and so the ceiling hung barely an inch above his head. The heavy wind brought in leaves into the treehouse, and shook the floor till he thought he was going to fall out. He supposed he should be inside the real house at that moment, but lord knows there’s a whole tornado going on inside there, his mother and great grandmother being the fuel. All day they were at it, screaming at each other, and it only really made him wonder why his mother insisted they bodybuilding steroids online came to visit in the first place. She just didn’t get enough screaming in at the funeral, he thought. His hands wandered over books, cassettes, and other ancient things. Just one look at the place, and you could tell how much of a nerd his grandfather really was as a kid. He found few things in there that he could actually use or want to have. It sounded terrible to say it, but he didn’t miss his grandfather at all. It’s not like he never knew him, or knew him very well either. He visited his grandfather every summer for a week, and the only dialogue that passed between the two were greetings and stranger-conversation. His hands soon got tired of pointless searching, but he wasn’t going inside the house till he had to, so he kept his hands moving. Maybe he would find something of value.Soon his hands drove over a thin notebook, and on the cover it said nothing, unlike the other books. Curious, he opened it up to find scrawled writing that obviously belonged to his grandfather. The handwriting was worse than his own, and the only message he got through it was that there was a box in the tree house. He put the book down and as soon as he did, his eyes found the box. It was smooth and made of the same wood as the treehouse, so it blended in quite nicely. After letting out a creak as it opened, the box was the most useless thing he had ever seen, and any sense of adventure that came before was gone. Inside was one stupid toothpaste bottle. Annoyed, the grabbed the bottle, but as soon as he did, he heard the sound of paper rustling. He opened the bottle, and stashed inside was a wad of cash, along with a note. The cash was a large amount, and he smiled at it as he stashed it in his pocket. The note was brief, but described the process of getting the money.His grandfather had read a book, where the father of the story sold broken cars to people so that they kept coming back to him to fix it, since there was no one else in the town to fix them.
Apparently this sparked something in his young grandfather to do the same, and so he decided to fix and shine shoes. People would come to his grandfather with their shoes, he would shine them, and then he would cut off the heel by just a bit, and glued it back. As soon as the people walked on their shoes, the heels would break, and they all assumed that they had broke it themselves. And so his grandfather got payed twice to fix everyone’s shoe once. Resulting in the large wad of cash that was currently in my hands. He wondered if he could ever think to do something as smart as that. He probably couldn’t. But even so, he still felt so inspired by the clever act, and instantly sat to try and find a way that he could do the same. Maybe he could fix and shine shoes too- except for the fact that nearly no one would actually go to fix their shoes in 2009. The 2000’s had the mindset of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” except for the addition of “And if it is broke, don’t fix it, just buy another one.” “ADRIAN!!”His mother called him from the bottom of the tree. He looked down, and promptly sat back in the tree house, pretending not to hear. She would give up and go back inside at some point. And in the meanwhile he decided to keep thinking of a clever act to pull off like his grandpa did.
Anddd- that’s the story. Well, part of it. I mostly left it unfinished because I really wasn’t sure where I was going to go with it, but now I think I have a more of an idea. I feel like when I write, I try to add little ‘fun bits’- like the whole “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” part. I think those bits are the best parts of writing because when you read them, it makes you smile. Or cringe. Either way is okay. Because good writing is supposed to make you feel, even if it’s cringey. Anyway, I’ll be back next time with part 2, so, see ya then.
💛 Dia