Calling all creative writers! This is a column run by Averie Black to inspire readers to become writers. The column includes writing prompts, pieces written by the coordinators, and occasional submissions from readers.
This month: a short story by Averie Black
Attention, creative writers! Every month, Creative Corner hosts a contest for the highlighted writer of the month! Submit your writing to Creative Corner and you will be immediately entered to win a journal. This contest will start up again in the 2025-2026 school year.
Below is a set of prompts for different styles of writing beyond journalism. The idea is that you can create some kind of creative writing piece inspired by one of the prompts, but it doesn't have to be. You can submit any piece of writing you would like to share! All submissions should be school-appropriate. You can also suggest prompts to be featured in the next issue.
Here are some prompts to get you started. You can follow a prompt or submit a unique piece of work. I won't be taking any submissions since this is our last addition, but keep writing over the summer! The prompts can be used for anything, though some specify poetry or short stories. This month, the prompts are:
Write a story that takes place in the Summer.
Write about your most embarrassing moment.
Write a poem about something ending.
Write a story with two POVs.
Write a story that takes place in college.
The hall is deathly quiet as I pretend to read. I hug my knees closer to my chest and skim over the inked pages, but the letters blur into nothing more than meaningless symbols. The bay window grows increasingly more uncomfortable as the ticking clock pounds into my brain. There has always been noise in the house. Sweeping, dishes, heels on the wooden floors, and maids running from the west to the east wing delivering orders of sweets and fulfilling demands of sparkling vases. Music, as well– always music playing from somewhere. My favorite servant, Richard, who once worked in the gardens, would take his breaks inside, flirting lunches out of kitchen maids and playing the grand piano in the dining room. I remember watching my father from a distance breaking the news to Richard as he pulled weeds from the flower beds. One after another, the house help dwindled from the twenties down to a mere three. The consequences of war have leaked into my home in more ways than one.
Finally, a dull sound breaks the near silence. The last thing I want to hear: my father’s muffled sobs from the nearest room. I want to scoff at his tears. There are enough of them to bleach the pale blue walls. That’s what tears of weak men do– they strip the color off of everything. Light-footed steps begin padding their way up the staircase. I assume it is one of the maids until I hear the wobble of fine china against the railing. Mae shields her gaze from me. She is too young for her age, too timid, yet she still has the nerve to go against my wishes. The harsh smell of lemon and ginger makes my eyes water. The bowl Mae carries is nearly sloshing over with beef and vegetable stew. My sister is never graceful. Still not meeting my eyes, she slips into our father's dark room, leaving the door open behind her. I observe from the hall like an elk watching her calf sniff a half-dead lion. It is dark in the room, Mae’s small figure lifting the bowl to our father’s thin, soft hands.
“Lunch, Father,” Mae whispers to him.
He slouches low to her as if in a bow, receiving the offering from her in blubbering thanks.
Their silhouettes are backlit from the drawn curtains, light leaking through the sides. His condition has worsened by the day and, as much as I loathe his character, his status as a man is the only thread between comfort and a supposed “unmanaged” household. I catch myself pursing my lips at Mae as she returns to the hall, softly shutting the door behind her.
“Don’t,” she says, lowering her voice and trying to move past me.
“I was not going to say anything.” I sway my hips to the left, blocking her path back down the stairs.
“You always say something,” Mae points out.
I try to look her in the eye, but she will not meet my gaze. She isn't wrong. Usually, I do have something to say, but lately I can’t muster the criticism from my throat. After we got the letter about our brother, Mae said that she felt it in her stomach. Father let it take over his whole body. For whatever reason, I feel it behind my eyes like a migraine but duller and heavier.
I step out of her way, and she finally looks up at me. Her dark brown eyes look just like our father’s, but her hair is all Mom’s. It is like a circus illusion– swaying back and forth, appearing brown one moment and blonde the next. It is a mesmerizing color, right on the edge of two beautiful things. The wound left by my mother’s passing has long healed over, so Mae’s similarities to her are now nothing more than a mark of genetics. Mae never even met her, and I was only eight when she died, but now, looking into my sister's dark eyes, all I can see is Charlie. That wound is new. I feel a sharp pain behind my eyes.
Mae slips past me down the stairs, and I find myself, once again, alone. My gaze lingers on my father’s bedroom door. The weakest of men. It is not fair. How dare he let himself get sick over the undoing of others' lives while he sits in comfort? I restrain myself from throwing open the door. It would be no use. He knows exactly how I feel about him.
“Ms. Kingsley!” one of the remaining maids shouts from below. “You have a visitor!”
I want nothing more than to go back to my book– one that I had been previously enthralled in on the subject of politics. I want nothing more than for the fog to clear and to be able to process the text without my mind spinning into unrest. However, my wants are nothing compared to my obligations. My dry, cracked hands smooth my black dress down my tall figure, then quickly run through my pin-straight hair. I can’t stand looking disheveled as I receive a guest. The maid opens the door, nodding her head as the two figures enter, and I finally find it in me to smile. Danelle and her mom are dressed in the most muted pinks. The dresses are nearly identical and altogether inappropriate for Mrs. Gibson to be wearing such a debutante’s style, but they fit her tastes so well. She will never be able to begin dressing as a mother ought to. I can't imagine the shame Danelle feels. The younger woman herself looks more than pleasing in her attire but, next to her mother, she loses all class.
“Lucille,” Danelle gingerly clasps my hands in hers, “how are you faring?”
The sudden contact jolts me. We stand face to face, Danelle’s wide eyes soft with concern. It is an impossible question to answer. How am I faring? Poorly. Very poorly. I am handling everything foolishly, and it is not in my nature to behave like a fool.
“I am coming along. The Sun has come out again. Tomorrow is the last day of mourning, and I am ready to embrace normalcy,” I reply.
“Wonderful, wonderful.” Danelle squeezes my hands. “We shall go on a walk later this afternoon, and you are to tell me absolutely everything that has been happening.”
My eyes dart back towards Mrs. Gibson, who has been waiting eagerly behind Danelle as if she, too, is a close friend of mine. It makes sense, I thought. She was presented far too young. Long before my time, Mrs. Gibson made her entrance into society at a scandalous fourteen years old and married the very same season. I wonder how far of a gap there is between herself and the woman she could have become if given the opportunity.
Danelle backs away from me. She knows better than to push me for more until we are alone together but, even then, I don’t know how I can explain these feelings to her. I simply nod.
Mrs. Gibson steps close. “I am so sorry for your loss, my dear. Charlie was a brave man.”
“Boy,” I blurt, anger sparking in my chest.
Thick tension fills the room. The anger I feel is not for Mrs. Gibson, but it spills itself on her like an ugly wine stain. No, the anger is for them– for what they did to him. For what they did to a little boy.
All I can imagine time and time again is how the boots sound when there are hundreds of them marching down the street. I remember vividly the day two envelopes with bright yellow papers stamped with military postage arrived at my home. The way my father started crying when he opened his, and the way Charlie clenched his jaw. The next morning, Charlie was packed for the unimaginable, and our father blew a bullet through his own leg. Maybe if my father had been there on the battlefield, he could have helped Charlie when his musket jammed. Instead, he took pain medicine by the bottle and tried to stifle whispers of dodging. It was a hunting accident, he told me to tell the other young ladies. Nothing more.
“Lucille, Dear, sit down for a moment.” Mrs. Gibson takes me around the waist and sits me on the sofa.
I hadn’t realized I was swaying. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have caused an outburst like that.”
Mrs. Gibson smooths my brown hair away from my face. “Don’t apologize. It's okay. That’s why we came to check up on you. I know your father has been sick, and Mr. Gibson has offered to handle your finances in the case of… any more tragedies. May God wish him good health.”
“Thank you,” I say, but it comes out more like a whisper.
In the moment of vulnerability, I lean my head against Mrs. Gibson. It has been a long time since I had a mother to run her fingers through my hair. Even if that mother came in the form of the most eccentric, at times laughable, woman. Danelle comes up on the other side of me and slips down to her knees. She takes my hand, pressing the back of it to her warm cheek. These are the strongest of women.
“I know he was your younger brother,” Mrs. Gibson goes on, “but with your mother being deceased, well… I know what it is like to lose a child. That’s all.”
I stop breathing to hold back the tears, but they come anyway in fat droplets down my plump cheeks. There is so much to do for the funeral preparations. Then there is Mae, my studies, the approaching debutante ball, and that God-forsaken coward upstairs. For just a moment, I let the warmth of Danelle’s cheek fill my body, close my eyes, and imagine I am somewhere else.
