A sampling of my writing for my creative writing course.

As promised here is a very short story I wrote for my creative writing class, Here is the assignment:

Write a one-page story which begins with “Nothing of real importance happened that day” and then reveal through the thoughts or actions of a character during a day’s sequence of unimportant events that something important did happen internally.

Nothing of real importance happened that day. Henry woke-up stiff, as usual, straining with effort to get out of bed, as usual. As usual he slipped his cold aching feet into the old tattered and patched woolen slippers Margaret had made for him many years before. The clock read 5:15 as it always does, his bladder had been his alarm for longer than his slippers had warmed his feet. As usual he sat on the commode as he was too unsteady to stand and too gnarled to clean.

As usual he sat at the small kitchen table after making breakfast of toast and eggs with cowboy-coffee because as usual the hardware store was late receiving shipments, of coffee pots this time.

“Good Morning Henry.” Margaret said standing in her usual position, back to the sink, hands on the counter. She didn’t look any different than she had twenty-years before. As usual he grunted a good-morning, his softer side not yet woken by his morning coffee.

As usual he dumped his dirty dishes into the sink for Margaret to take care of before taking another cup of grounds filled coffee out to the workshop. He was working on a soapbox derby car for his grandson, but as usual he was getting too old for such things like his brother and cousins before him.

As usual Margaret appeared at the door to remind him of lunch. As usual it consisted of bologna and cheese sandwiches and six saltine crackers in a hot bowl of tomato soup.

As usual Beth was marrying or divorcing or dying or having a baby and Lance was in jail or out of jail or the father of a long lost child. This was all the usual goings on of the daily saga’s on the afternoon shows. As usual he snored in his easy-chair.

As usual on this night of the week it was corn-beef and hash, as usual he ate it all. As usual after dinner he went for a stroll, talking with Margaret about the weather and reminiscing of days past. As usual she said very little.

As usual the news ended at 11:00 and as usual Henry had trouble falling asleep.

The next morning the old widower quite unusually never awoke.

D. Ryan Leask