aaryn belfer.

PROMPTuesday: Exercise #10

Today’s assignment from Deb at San Diego Momma:

You’re in a bookstore. You see stacks and stacks of books, but one in particular catches your eye. Something about the title. You’re intrigued. You pick the book up, open it, and read the first paragraph. Now you’re hooked. What is the title of the book and what did the first paragraph say?

Ten minutes or less.
250 words or less.
Okay.
Go.

The Round House

Gavin didn’t bother to slice a piece of the cake for himself. It was past midnight, he was hungry and since he planned to toss the thing in the garbage in the morning anyway, he figured, what’s the point? He reached for one of the two forks in the dish rack and turned his attention to the Bundt cake Chloe had made earlier that afternoon. She hadn’t stopped baking since the day Ben died. The house had filled up with all the food brought by cautious neighbors and then, little by little, with blackberry scones, raspberry fudge, lemon bars, snickerdoodles, lady fingers, apple tart tartin, chocolate angel food cake, and peanut butter cookies. Really, it had all started with the peanut butter cookies. Gavin had tried, but it didn’t matter what he said. He couldn’t get Chloe to stop with the peanut butter cookies. Or any of it, for that matter. She was baking away her grief and now, here he stood in the dark, wearing only his boxers, ravenously eating chunks of the chocolate cake, swallowing her sorrow crumb by crumb.


7 Comments

girl, that’s no first paragraph; that’s a short-short.

Posted by stacy on 25 June 2008 @ 12am

[...] PROMPTuesday: Exercise #10 [...]

Posted by   Ask Rocco: Exercise can’t burn water by Health Tips on 25 June 2008 @ 2am

oh, awesome.

Posted by robyn on 25 June 2008 @ 5am

More good stuff. Makes me kind of hungry.

Posted by Jamie on 25 June 2008 @ 7am

Your last lines are always so good.

Like every line before it.

Posted by San Diego Momma on 25 June 2008 @ 9am

Got my attention. Lovely and poignant.

xoxo

Posted by bonzize on 26 June 2008 @ 7am

Oh, Aaryn, my heart is so full right now, and what it is full of is seeping from my eyes.

Posted by Cheri @ Blog This Mom! on 1 July 2008 @ 7am

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