I have done some creative writing, off and on, since I was a kid. In 2025, I began attending a “prompt writing” group hosted by local author, Nancy Peacock. The set up is this: she gives the group a “prompt": a word or a phrase that is the jumping off point for the next 10 to 25 minutes of writing.
This format works well for me: given ample time, I tend to overthink things or get overly complex with excessive alliteration and symbolism.
Perhaps this will turn into a collection of sorts. For now, they are mostly character sketches and little windows into alternate worlds.
I hope you enjoy them!
Please do send me comments to pathologycentral@gmail.com. I hope you like them!
Prompt: “What I Remember About That Place", 25 minutes
Written May 9, 2025, posted 1/12/25
It smelled like horses and hay, dust and mold, the urine of farm cats and the powdery nests of mice. We ran there to hide when our parents were busy in the stable, escaping orders to shovel manure, brush bay and palomino flanks, pick small stones caught between the horseshoe and the tender frog.
As we grew older, we hid there less to escape being found and more to find ourselves. Never to smoke, of course. We all knew that no one smokes in a barn. No one. But Johnny and I would lie on top of the bales of hay, faces close to the roof at the start of winter, steadily dropping with the passage of months and the chomping of equine teeth. We talked about our dreams. Johnny wanted to be a veterinarian, but what farm boy with a bit of brains didn’t? I wanted to be a writer, an occupation that meant nothing to anyone I knew.
“Newspapers, you mean? You want to be a journalist?”
“No. Books. I want to write books.”
“Oh, like Black Beauty? Or Man O’ War or Misty of Chincoteague?”
It was easier to say, “Yes”, fit into the scenery like fresh butter pressed into a glass mold for Sunday dinner.
It was in that barn that Johnny told me he loved me. The first time, we were only 5 or 6 and we hugged and slid our arms around each other’s waist, leaned our heads together until they touched and we grinned with joy until Mama and Uncle Dan walked in. Uncle Dan grabbed Johnny roughly by the elbow and yanked him over to the truck, his face tight as thick words streamed out of his mouth. Mama just shrugged and said, “C’mon, son. We need to feed the chickens.”
The next time he told me, we were lying on our backs on an old horse blanket spread over the sharp straw, our hands entwined, Johnny’s varsity football jacket a pillow for our heads. I was talking about books I wanted to write and Johnny was listening as he always did.
“I still love you, Scott.”
I pulled up onto one elbow. “What does that mean?”
He laughed. “You writers are always so particular with your words.”
My cheeks grew warm. “You can’t just assume. You’ve got to define your terms. Words are such a poor way to communicate anything of substance.”
“Then let’s not use words,” he said, and pulled my hand sharply so that I rolled on top of him.
What words would I use now, thirty years later, to describe how my heart felt then? The cliché of “pounded like a jackhammer”? “Thundered like hoofbeats before a summer storm”? Though now I am a writer, there are no words. But I can still feel the surge of blood to my face, my hands and beyond, my whole body trembling. Joy mixed with terror, delight with fear. Everything against the background of flecks of dust dancing in shafts of daylight, the smell of hay and horses. Our hands held tight, sweaty, hot and strong.