Normal Until It Isn’t
Sep
2012
2012
12
They had eaten cinnamon buns that morning. Steaming coffee, morning banter, and sweet, warm, soft cinnamon buns. That’s how it is, isn’t it? Everything so perfectly normal just until that moment it isn’t. Her mother called, shakingly told her to turn on the television. Her brain seized, sparked and found no traction. Later she would fail to find adequate words to describe the emotions that found her in her body before her mind – that dried her mouth, dropped her to her knees. Later she would never be able to smell cinnamon – to her, now, the cloying odor of death.
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Trifecta/100 Word Challenge: Gathering Buttercups: The Zip | The Kir Corner
[...] in the meantime: Velvet gave us the word: CINNAMON [...]
I like this a lot. My favorite type of writing: it tells you the thing without telling you the thing.
agincourtdb recently posted..SF Drabble #395 "The Cinnamon Challenge"
It’s got some rhythm/syntax problems and I may rewrite it. But thanks.
I actually think you could do without ‘Her brain seized, sparked and found no traction.’ Just put para breaks before ‘her mother’ and after ‘television’. That gives the sentence more weight, removing the necessity to spell out her immediate reaction, and gives you 8 words of wiggle room to massage the rest into a style you’re happy with.
JMHO!
agincourtdb recently posted..Hubris
Haven’t had a chance to get back to this, but if I do I’ll play around with it including your suggestions. See what happens.
Such a dark day…I love that “everything is normal, until it isn’t”
nice to see you participating
Carrie recently posted..Grey Skies
Yes, a dark day indeed. And it’s true, the memories of where I was, what I was feeling are still so vivid.
Glad to play my own game once in a while.
“Everything so perfectly normal just until that moment it isn’t.” I love this line.
Thank you.
Even if this hadn’t been written on 9/11 (or 9/12 as my calendar says) I still think I would relate it to the WTC attack. Very powerful and well written.
Paul recently posted..Sex and Cinnamon
Thanks Paul. I did write it on 9/11, and it wasn’t at all what I set out to write, but it’s what ended up on the page.
“Everything so perfectly normal just until that moment it isn’t. ” Incredibly strong sentence there.
Since I see the linky is still hiding, here’s mine: http://frommywriteside.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/sugar-and-spice/
Thanks.
Powerful post. Puts a big lump in my throat. I’ve been watching one of the documentaries with my 10 year old and filling in blanks for her. I still cry. Every. Time.
Deb @ Day In & Day Out recently posted..Love and Cinnamon
Hard not to cry.
there are several days in my memory where I know where I was and what I was doing when . . . this is one of them. Your words are striking
Yes. I haven’t yet met a person who doesn’t remember where they were and what they were doing when the towers fell. It was shocking, horrifying, and sad.
Very powerful stuff. I cannot even go back to what I was writing on that day. It is still too much to bear. Would have liked to see you tied the dry feeling in the mouth back to the cinnamon, but there is only so much 100 words can do.
I am glad I don’t read others until after I write, because I went a whole different direction. Indeed, I wouldn’t have tied 9/11 to cinnamon in a million years. The smell for me was of dead bodies and I will never forget it.
FKC recently posted..Homecoming
Ugh. I take it you were in New York? I wasn’t and can’t even begin to imagine.