Story Prompt: Glory Days of an Old Truck

"Glory Days" by Tommy Gworek

An old truck has so many stories to tell. From celebration to heartache, from success to quiet simplicity. Sometimes a dirt road and a relaxing cloudy wake during a late summer sunset are all one needs to be in the middle of a perfect moment.

What Glory Days does this old truck remember? Write the story.

--Photo and written prompt by Wildfire Writer Tommy Gworek

Ode to the Phone Booth

Photo by Roland Smith

So the other day I was in Morton, Washington, heading into a convenience store for a bag of ice. On the sidewalk I passed a phone booth. The phone rang. Really. Of course I picked it up. "'Ello . . . "

Who was on the line? What boon did they ask of me? How was this accomplished? 

A story prompt, if you like. Or, approach it with a poem, as I did.

Ode to the Phone Booth

Vestibules of transformation!
Impossible closets of superheroes!
Glass cathedrals of good-bye conversations,
bottomless quarter depositories,
tattered Yellow Pages!
O for the last of the phone booths,
O for immobile conversation
Alas for the days when one could
stand still, and listen.

Special thanks to Roland K. Smith for generously letting me use his photo. 

Frozen Pond

...and what you have to say about it.

Dashboard

Dash away.

Firehouse Dog

What's the story?

Parcel Post

Write the phrase, and see what follows.

Toothpaste Tube

Ten minutes. Your thoughts.

Squeegee

Needs a story from you.

Mashed Potatoes

A lumpy, yummy prompt.

Piano Bench

...is worthy of your musing.

Spotted Cow

How many spots are up to you.

Broken Pencil

Write about a broken pencil in your memory. Or break one now. Take ten minutes and write about it.

Crayons

A prompt I created recently for Wildfire Writing class. Get out a box of 64 Crayola crayons and choose four colors that your attention settles upon. Doodle or draw or color for a while without making any judgments of your artwork. Then write about the colors and their names.

A few lines of what appeared on my doodly page:

Raw sienna. Whatever you are, you are brown. Brown with a fancy name. Your brown means hopefulness and quirkyness and what of cooked sienna? Simmered sienna? Sienna half-baked? There is only burnt sienna, too long on the stove. Open the windows! Clear out the smoke! Somebody burned the sienna!

What crayon colors are speaking to you? What are they saying?

Nail Polish

Pink, or silver, mauve or black. The smooth shine of nail polish can accentuate the hands or draw attention to toes. Once upon a time, polished nails represented in my young mind the epitome of sophistication and capability - and I watched with fascination as my role model created her flawless manicures. Names have been changed in this memoir excerpt, "Stroke of Red," just out in Sub-Scribe Magazine.

Write a memory with nail polish in it.

Pigeons

I used to live close to the Columbia River, and often walked beneath an bridge overpass where pigeons roosted, cooing and fluttering about. As I noted in my journal, those birds were "doves in street clothes."

What does a pigeon make you think of? Homing pigeons, stool pigeons, Bert of Sesame Street doing the Pigeon Dance? Here's a movie featuring a pigeon in a starring role.


Write about the pigeon.

Snackers Beware!

Today's ordinary thing is a snack. Any snack. A tribute to the fact that we snack.

A meal should fill and nourish you, but a snack doesn't have to do anything but take off hunger's edge. I am a professional snacker. I would forgo meals if I could, and snack all day. I don't like feeling overfull, but I have little tolerance for being hungry, so I carry around nuts or pink lady apples or dried cranberries.

In truth, I've never quite understood why snacking is supposed to be a bad thing. "It could spoil your appetite," we've all heard. But if the snack is pretty much healthy, and one is getting plenty of calories to begin with, why save one's appetite until the next meal? I wonder if there is some hidden evil in snacking that no one talks about....

A snack could go horribly wrong, perhaps. Those cashews could be alien ships invading your pantry. Those Baby Bel cheeses could be devices of mind control, operated by a secret society of superintelligent New Jersey cows. That bag of Kettle chips could be corrupting your character with each crunch - the vibrations causing an invisible breakdown in the nervous system.

Write your own story explaining the evils of snacking.

Spiderweb

What could be more fascinating and beautiful than a spiderweb? I'm seeing them all around the perimeter of the house, tenanted by summer-fattened spiders. My family spent the weekend admiring an intricate web outside the kitchen window; my daughter and I both lent a name to the spider, dubbing it Clarence Montgomery. We all watched as Clarence M. crawled down from the web center to nab a fly below. The web was torn in the process, but Clarence didn't seem to mind. Dinner was more important.

To me, spiderwebs have seemed always the same from web to web. But around the world, many kinds of spiders spin contrasting designs. Here's an interesting look at different web decor (thanks to the Presurfer).

When's the last time you admired a spider's web? Do. Write about it.