Six Words

It was inevitable that sometime during my 100 Essays in 100 Days project, I would get weak and either skip a day, pledging to make up the lost essay by doing two essays tomorrow, re-posting something that only six people read, betting that everyone will think it’s a new piece, or devising a strategy to write a very short piece so I could pack it in and go to bed.

Hemingway’s famous six word story was made for times like these. Tell a story in six words, someone dared Ernest Hemingway. He wrote the words that have sparked six-word story contests around the world.

“For sale, baby shoes, never worn.”

There it is, a story in six words. It’s a story about a dream, giving up, and moving on. Notice the baby shoes aren’t being stored in a closet or loaned to a friend. They’re being sold. Whatever promise there had been between two people who might have created a baby was broken or surrendered. Powerful little story, told on the back of a napkin, don’t you think?

Here’s mine.

“Matching necklaces, little cousins, worlds apart.”

Goodnight, my friends. See you tomorrow.