At corporate events, you sometimes get a lull at your booth. You have to find a way to kill time, but in a flexible, be ready to turn to a customer in a moments notice kind of way.
Alice had been hula-hooping for 30 minutes at that point at our booth, and she suggested we play “5 Word Story.” She plays it on long car rides with her kids, she said. Everyone takes a turn, so you could break into between. That’s the flexible part, she explained. She also went on to “hoop” for 45 minutes!
The idea was, you are given five words and you have to tell a story using them in some way. I liked this idea, and me being me, well….. I liked where it started, but I felt the need to flesh it out a little. Here are the five words:
- Bag
- Box
- Cone
- Apple
- Hula hoop
And here is the story – a bit of a longer version….
Working title: Secrets of 1967
Four days after his wife, Gabby’s funeral, Jacob grabbed a box from the floor and an apple from the counter and headed up to the attic. There wasn’t much there to clean out, most of her things were still left untouched in the closet they shared. But a vague memory of untouched, dusty bags in the corner of the attic, sent him up there that day.
A piece of masking tape torn on the edges labeled one of the black lawn bags “1967.” The other two did not have tape or markings. He had grabbed a paper towel from the kitchen on his way up, and now he lay it on the floor. Three bites in, he set the apple down too. They were a fairly safe distance away from any dust the bags might kick up. In the first bag he found a Snoopy Sno Cone Machine box, ironically not from 1967, but from sometime in the 80s. It was filled with packing materials. He found a doll’s makeup kit and a Barbie hula-hoop, and a Barbie with a missing a head. Must have been some of daughter’s things.
He grinned fondly at the mish-mash of toys. His wife was sentimental about the kids. The love of his life had a soft heart and a big smile.
Had. Past tense.
Grief started to cut off his breath. He had to close his eyes and tense his hands into a fist hold around the black plastic. He could not think of her lying in the pine box in the ground. He had to get control back – focus on the in and out of his breathing. He would sit down on the floor if he needed, but he could lean against one of the center poles for now. In and out. In and out. Focus on the task, two, three. Focus on the task. In and out.
He fell inside himself for a few moments, concentrating on his breathing and nothing else. He slowly came back to being conscious of his surroundings once again. Gabby had dragged him to yoga class a few years ago. Little did she know how he would find uses for the techniques she had showed him.
The things in this bag were old and musty and should be tossed out. He would use it for any rubbish he might find in the other bags. He picked up the apple to take a bite while he untwisted the tie that closed the second bag. Inside this one were several things that had originally been white. They had discolored from the plastic over the years. He pulled the apple from his mouth and set it aside.
He pulled one item from the bag – long satin gloves. Then a silver headpiece. One shoe followed, then the other in the pair. Under the shoes was a set of envelopes wrapped in a ribbon, which sat on top of a photo album. It had foil bells and the words “Our Wedding” embossed on the cover. Underneath the album was a mound of scratchy netting stuff that women wore under their skirts… “Tulle” he thought it was called. He wasn’t the father of two girls for nothing.
He had never seen the album he now held in his right hand before. Their wedding album was downstairs on a shelf in the den. He only glanced at the envelopes that balanced in his right hand. But the letter “ble” had him look twice. Gabby’s maiden name was “Cable.”
The letter were addressed to her. He looked closer at the return address, it was an APO address. Military.
His eyes scanned over to the postmark – 1967.
He set the letters down on the floor and straightened up to open the album.
The first page inside the cover had a photo of the young girl his wife had been, beaming at the camera. Her arm was hooked into the elbow of a young soldier in his dress uniform, with an equally joyful smile on his face.
The young soldier was not him.
Next to the photo was written in his wife’s hand: Gabriella and Nico, September 16, 1967.
Jacob did have to sit down now.
Christina's New Deal 