Well, I'm going to be busy all day and most of the evening, so I don't think I will have time to make a post relevant to any current events*.  So how about a bit of fiction I wrote last year?  This was in response to a prompt on a writing site.  The prompt was given around Halloween.  The word limit was 500.  The prompt was about finding a mysterious journal from someone you knew but who you never expected to have a journal.  It being Halloween, I tried to give an air of mystery and foreboding to the story.

The Journal

There was nothing left to do but work on my thesis.  I had laid my dad to rest the week prior.  The immediate sorrow and tears were over, but the deep sense of loss was still an ache on my soul; I realize to some extent it would always be there.  I am thankful he called me and insisted I come home and work on my Master’s thesis at the house.  We had both known he did not have much time left on this earth, and after my dad had won a few battles, that horrible disease was about to win the war.  I had always felt guilty about leaving him there all alone after mom died.  My eyes started to water, though I was grinning, as I recalled the not quite argument we had when I told him at that time that I was not returning to Stanford.  The stubborn old mule insisted I continue at Stanford, and not transfer back to an east coast school closer to him.  There were no more stubborn people on this planet and my dad and me.  “Enough of this” I said to myself, determined to get back to work.  I pulled out my laptop and all the research material I had checked out of the library before coming home.

In between two of the books, was a thin, leather bound journal I did not recognize or remember checking out.  As I opened the journal, a piece of paper slipped out onto my lap.  I picked up the paper and my eyes immediately locked up on my father’s handwriting, which began with “my dearest son.”  When did he have time to slip into my room and put this in my back, I asked myself?  Though not totally invalid, Dad had been quite bedridden for the last month.  Ignoring these thoughts, I began reading his note: ‘this is a journal I have been keeping since I met your mother.  I struggled deeply on whether to ever tell you about its contents, which will turn everything you know and believe upside down.  Here, in the end, I still do not know whether it is the fair thing to do, but I do feel it is the right thing.  I beg that you read the journal all the way through and make no judgments until the end.  Even then, please do not make any judgments without a long period of contemplation.  No matter what, know that you are my son and I have loved you and will always love you and look over you.  You have been a blessing to my life and I am indeed thankful that you are a part of it’.

With a sense of trepidation, I began to read.

*I never planned on this being a daily blog.  There will be some times when life gets in the way and I may not post for two or three days.  I will try and post at least twice a week.