Good Monday morning to you all. I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. After the insanity of Friday, I had a nice restful weekend. There was a major technical difficulty Friday that chucked my entire schedule into a blender and hit puree. It’s sorted now and hopefully I can get back on track. So let’s start with the morning writing prompt. Are you ready? Good, then let’s get those timers started.
Hmm, this one turned out interesting. I’ve never actually written a summer camp story. It could be fun. I find the start interesting though. The character seems like one who would be fun to work with.
Monday, March 7th: He watched the car drive away.
He watched the car drive away. He waved and wondered if it was wrong to feel such relief. He looked around at the other campers. Many of them, like him were on their own, away from home for the first time in many cases, away from their families for the first time. Looking around, there were many blank looks as though they suffered a minor shock. On a few, he could already see the signs of homesickness.
For him, there was a great relief in the situation. The youngest of five, he spent a lifetime being compared to the others in school and after school activities. ‘But none of them went to summer camp,’ he thought.
It hadn’t been an element on his parent’s radar. They certainly never thought that spending the summer in a cabin in the woods was a viable option. His older brothers didn’t as well. It was one of the reason he chose it. His parents had been a bit mystified. While there were programs galore that the other kids were signed up for, all of them were in town. Daytime events that brought everyone back under the same roof each night. There were no recriminations for his choice, merely bafflement.
Jake smiled. The trip up here had been a bit strange. His parents drove him and dropped him off. During the drive he realized that leaving the city was not something either of them had done on a regular basis. They had both been born in the neighborhood where the family still lived. While both of his parents went to college, they went locally and came home on weekends with their laundry as three of his older brothers currently did and the other two no doubt would when it came time for them to graduate. After marriage he knew his parents bought a house that stood midway between each of their childhood homes. Jake had grown up walking between his grandparent’s houses and routinely roamed the neighborhood with a veritable gang of siblings and cousins.
It was both a blessing and a curse. He was always one of, never just one. There was protection as bullies steered clear, unwilling to take on the mass of family. But he never stood out. Everything he did was framed in reference to those who came before him. He excelled in maths and sciences, just like his oldest brother. He was less prone to causing trouble than the one brother that came before him. Half the time he was unsure if anyone actually knew his name, thought of him as an individual rather than just one of.
‘Not this summer,’ he thought. Here, there was only him. None of his family was here, none of them had ever been here. He was not a one of. He was the only one. He took a deep breath. It smelled strange, full of scents he’d never smelled before. It was a whole new world and he was going to explore it. He tried to squash down the intimidation he felt at the newness, the strangeness of it all. He also tried to squelch the guild he felt t being free from his family for the first time ever.
‘I’m not gone for good,’ he told himself. ‘I’ll be home at the end of the summer.’ His guilt quieted and he began to look around him with renewed interest.
Ten til Midnight 