Parental Influence
Prompt was made up of objects at the workshop and random words plucked out of our “Word Bank.”
Objects: Bell bike helmet/motorcycle helmet
Words chosen at random from the word bank: pearl-eyed, benevolent, habitual, carving knife, wound
Author: Dorah Blume
Timed writing: 20 minutes
Approximate date: 6/2013
Location: Juiceboxartists workshop/Boylston St.
“You might as well take a carving knife to your body and start hacking,” Louise said. Her heavy arms wriggled with those appendages overweight women who wear floral frocks tend to display. Her son Billy snapped on his Shogun helmet just the same. He gave his mother a benevolent smile and let the back screen door slam behind him.
She would hold her Saint Christopher medal up to her lips. Pearly-eyed now with tears dropping into the sink, she would look at him through the kitchen window. Ever since he first rode his green tricycle down Jackson Street into oncoming traffic—she had caught him just in time—she was always afraid that he would wound himself terribly.
