A Life of Discontent, A Saturday Centus

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Here I go again, back at it again for what I will call Saturday Centus plus a day!  Yes, I am a little bit tardy this week, but at least I made it while it is still week 39!  I couldn't let my buddy Judie down after she did such a bang-up job on this week's prompt!   Thanks Judie!

One of the wonderful things about this writing exercise is that our host lets you have a whole week to post a story, so even if you post your Saturday Centus on Sunday, that doesn't make you a total dweeb.  (Well, not total, anyway.) 

So if you have other urgent matters, such as a school paper you need to write for example, you can go ahead and take care of that before submitting your story and the kindly, understanding Centusians who follow and contribute to this meme will not think any less of you. 

Generally speaking.

For those of you who aren’t yet familiar with this fun and challenging literary meme from the endlessly creative mind of Jenny Matlock at her blog, off on my tangent, here are some other things that probably haven’t reached you there at the rock you've been living under:

Dubya is no longer President of the United States. (Yes, the long national nightmare is finally over.)

The San Francisco Giants won the World Series. (Seriously, I kid you not!)

Martha Stewart was arrested and sent to prison. (Dick Cheney, on the other hand, was not.)

Avatar, a movie about tall, ugly phonies trying to fit in with an alien culture, became the highest grossing movie of all time. (In related news, Paris Hilton is still irrelevant.)

The most popular reality television show is currently “So You Think You Can Fart.” (Okay, I admit it. That’s not true. It would be an interesting concept though.)

Succinctly put, as that is the Centusian way, the rules of Saturday Centus are that participants must write a very short story using a supplied prompt and no more than 100 extra words.  These stories must not include any vulgarity or photos and must use the prompt as written.  After writing your story, you must link it back to Jenny’s meme post so that others can share in your creative endeavors.

Special thanks again to guest prompt-giver-outer Judie from the blog, Rogue Artists, for supplying this week’s wonderfully challenging prompt.   The prompt is “She lifted the stack of letters from the ancient chest...”  I admit the first time I read it I pictured scrabble tiles stacked precariously on some mummified Egyptian queen’s boobage, but I decided to go in a different direction anyway.  (Oh, like you didn’t think of that too!)

Here is my latest 100-word effort.  I have entitled it:

A Life of Discontent

Aunt Eugenia was a nasty, old crone.  Mean-spirited and always ready with a harsh word or criticism, the family rejoiced when she finally died.  Her niece Sarah always thought it sad that the family shunned her, but after meeting her for the first time and being told she was fat and ugly, she thought better of it.

Cleaning out Eugenia’s cluttered hall closet, Sarah spied what looked like piles of envelopes sitting atop an old oak chest.  She lifted the stack of letters from the ancient chest and was astounded to find they were all rejection letters from publishers.

At last, Sarah had discovered the source of Eugenia’s bitterness.

The difference between the right word and almost the right word

 is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.

--  Mark Twain

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