Friday, February 12, 2016

Six Sentence Story - Draw

There are so many different meanings for the word draw, but I only chose one meaning for my story written in just six sentences.  I'm linking the post to the blog up at Six Sentence Story - Draw.  Each week we are given a different word as the impetus to write a story in any genre.  This is fiction with an element of truth to it.

 Feeling Vulnerable

There it was again, that sound like a baby crying just outside the front door, and although she knew the impossibility of such a scenario of an infant being abandoned on her doorstep, it nevertheless sounded like one. The darkness of the night, the fact she was still getting used to living in her rural mountainous home far from what had once been familiar, and being all alone, except for her young sleeping children made her feel vulnerable and on edge.

It didn't help that she'd been reading a new mystery novel when she heard the sound, but she finally decided she couldn't have possibly heard what she thought she'd heard and resumed reading almost to the end of the paragraph only to be interrupted by another cry.  At that point her detective mode tried to kick in with questions running through her mind, like if it isn't a human baby, is there an animal that makes such a sound?

Some of her reference books were still in boxes, among a sea of cartons not yet unpacked in one of the rooms, and her internet service wasn't scheduled to be connected for another week. That meant she would either have to overcome her fear and open the door at 10:45 in the evening, wait until tomorrow to introduce herself to her nearest neighbors and ask if they had heard a crying baby last night and risk being known as the crazy newcomer, or better yet, draw her own conclusion as to the exact source of the sound.

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8 comments:

  1. UnknownFebruary 12, 2016 at 3:52 AM

    Well done! Of course I am now all kinds of curious about what this is based upon.

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    1. Pat BFebruary 12, 2016 at 1:53 PM

      Through a little research online, I think that the sound, like that of a baby crying, may have been caused by a young fox, but probably more likely the sound of a fisher, sometimes called a fisher cat. There are some youtube postings complete with sound that brought me to that conclusion. They live in the area where this happen, but they are rarely seen. I changed quite a few of the circumstances in the story.

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  2. AnonymousFebruary 12, 2016 at 2:26 PM

    There was a kitten or cat outside our door the other night making a sound much like a crying baby. My daughter was quite taken aback. I imagine reading a thrilling detective story in the dark, in a new, quiet place might cause one's nerves to be a little bit jangly. Nice story.

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  3. Old EggFebruary 13, 2016 at 9:08 PM

    Mind you I think I would still have checked the doorstep, just in case. However I agree the fox does have a similar call.

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    1. Pat BFebruary 14, 2016 at 10:09 PM

      Maybe she got braver the longer she didn't hear the sound. . .

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  4. UnknownFebruary 17, 2016 at 8:26 AM

    That would be a difficult decision, but how can she keep from thinking about it unless she went to check it out! It would be tragic if she looked out in the morning and found a baby on her doorstep that had died during the night due to exposure to being outside for so long.

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    Replies
    1. Pat BFebruary 23, 2016 at 2:02 PM

      If there had been a baby there, it would have been a decision she would have regretted forever. Sometimes people do dumb things in the face of fear.

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