Raw and (semi)-edited.

Last week, I posted that I enlisted myself in a writing course at the University of Toronto. It’s just five weeks long. Tonight is week two. To keep this post brief, I’ve pasted my first homework assignment below and will explain how the class went in another post later this week. Promise. I think other lovers of writing would appreciate my dishing on the experience.

I’m nervous to post this, which is exactly why I’m doing it (PS, I’m holding my breath right now). I welcome your comments or emails, loaded with opinions – good, harsh or even simply, “meh”. I’m nothing if not open to improving what I love most.

THE ASSIGNMENT: Recount a story that has been passed within your family for years. 400 words or less.

***

New shoes.
By: Sandy Braz

The low toll of the church bell on a day other than Sunday meant only one thing on the Azorian Island of St. George: God had come.

Her father lay still to preserve remnants of his energy. Each morning, she sang stories about her adventures in the garden, hunting for oranges. He would smile and she would laugh. And then, as soon as it had come, the dancing in his eyes would disappear, into the sickness.

Each spring, along with the orange blossoms, came new shoes; with new shoes came spring festivals and her father’s recitals. But money was scant since the sickness, the orange trees hadn’t grown without her father’s tending, and the huff of his accordion hadn’t been heard in months. For the first time, hunger and sadness and silence had entered their home.

To bide the time, she spent her days dipping her toes into the ocean, soothing her bleeding feet from her outgrown shoes and longing for springtime again. Even though the warmer temperatures had arrived, it was as if spring had not.

As she returned home from the ocean one afternoon, she noticed the neighbour’s orange tree was in full bloom; the scent of citrus lingered and she loved it almost as much as she loved the aroma of her father baking sugar, flour and eggs. Since she couldn’t have his bread, she thought, perhaps she could have oranges after all. Perhaps she could still have springtime.

The following day, she cut the tops of her shoes with her father’s best bread knife. She needed to make room for her toes if she was going to hunt for oranges. He would be angry if he knew, she thought, but it made no matter. He would be happy to smell the oranges again.

The fence to the neighbour’s garden was thorny with roses, but the sweet reward of springtime beckoned on the other side. As she roved the treetops scouring for fruit, she realized she had made new shoes, she had found fresh oranges and tomorrow morning she would share it all with her father in a song – their own special recital.

As she plucked the final orange and laid it into the pocket of her dress, her heart full of happiness again, the low toll of the church bell filled her ears. She knew it then. Her father wouldn’t smell that oranges after all that spring. It wasn’t Sunday, but God had come.

Tagged as: creative writing, creative writing courses, generating stories, Personal history, university of toronto