The exercise:
Write four lines of prose about: the end of the road.
Last shift at the bakery tomorrow. Feels strange. I had my first non-training shift at the bakery a year ago today.
It's been quite the ride.
Not much left at closing today, just a couple ciabatta loaves for the freezer and the rest is stuff we should be able to sell tomorrow. Should be a good one.
Mine:
It's a strange, lonely, confounding place. Intimidating, perhaps, on occasion. The way forward is a wild landscape of trees and bushes and quicksand with no clear path through it.
Of course, if one were to simply turn around, the way back would reach for the horizon with an unobstructed, smooth, paved hand, transforming an ending into a beginning...
Sounds like you got your sell-out busy day after all! And I'm impressed -- was the timing of exactly one year at the bakery deliberate or accidental? Anyway, here's good luck for the next stage of your journey, which you so nicely summarise in your prose :) I especially like the observation that if you turn round the way suddenly becomes perfectly clear and easy... but doesn't take you anywhere new.
ReplyDeleteSorry that this is a poem again, but I'm about half-way through the month now with all poems, so I think I should with it. Four lines only though!
The end of the road
In the fairy-tale the princess kisses the toad –
She catches warts, grows bitter and bitchy,
Cackles a lot, becomes a bit witchy,
And for Sleeping Beauty... she's the end of the road.
Greg - completely accidental. Didn't even realize it until I thought to look it up. And thank you!
ReplyDeleteAnd don't apologize for more poetry :)
Plus I love this poem and the tale it tells!