The Last Supper
Today’s post is based on a writing prompt I shared in a previous Daily Drafts & Dialogues post. Keep reading to see what I wrote, and to access more writing prompts.
What I wrote below is based on the following writing prompt: Write a scene in which a group of people are having their last Thanksgiving supper together.
Last Thanksgiving
Sara wiped her mouth with her napkin, placed it neatly on her lap, then stared straight ahead, pretending not to hear what her Uncle Matt had just said about immigrants. What was she supposed to say to someone who seemed to forget that his own father, her grandfather, had been an immigrant who came to this country with nothing in order to provide a better life for his own children, for her Uncle Matt specifically? Matt seemed delusional to her, not worth arguing with on Thanksgiving anyway. At least not at that particular moment.
Tomas, Sara’s brother, laughed at what their uncle was saying, at the gross absurdity of it all and how Matt talked with his mouth wide open and full of a mixture of dry turkey and cranberry sauce. But Tomas quickly clamped his mouth shut after he saw the stern look their grandmother gave him, especially since his grandfather, who had died earlier that year from lung cancer, was no longer at the table to defend himself or his family, which made Sara sad. All the losses her family had endured that year—losses her uncle seemed too quick to forget— made her sad, despondent even.
Sara and Tomas’s parents had also died earlier that year. They had been in a plane that had crashed into the Atlantic somewhere tropical when its wings fell off mid-air. Their souvenirs had been recovered from the waterlogged wreckage, but not their personal effects, or their bodies. Yet they were still presumed dead on impact, so she and Tomas buried empty caskets.
On the other side of the table were three empty place settings her grandmother had laid out to honor her grandfather and parents. Her uncle was discarding his dirty napkins near their empty place settings absent-mindedly as he continued to spew his hate and disregard for his family.
Although Sara was only twenty and Tomas was barely eighteen, they were quickly expected to be the members of the family who would ignore their uncle’s xenophobic ramblings. They were to be the ‘mature’ ones, the ‘level-headed’ ones, the ones who endured anything to keep their family together. And so, that’s what Sara decided to do.
After nearly fifteen minutes of Matt’s ramblings, Sara couldn’t take it anymore. She stood up, tossed her uncle’s soiled napkins in his face, collected the empty place settings, and leaned over to kiss her grandmother goodbye. She left without a word to head to the cemetery and eat the remainder of her Thanksgiving meal there, with her parents. Life was too short, she thought, to deal with anyone who didn’t appreciate the family they had, either dead or alive.
When she called her grandmother later that night, her grandmother understood. When she called her brother the next day, he just laughed and brought over some fast food on his way home from work.
Her Uncle Matt, on the other hand, was arrested for disorderly conduct the week before Christmas, and she never saw him outside of a prison again.
I might revise, edit, or add to this draft in the future. Stay tuned.
Did you complete this prompt? If so, share what you came up with in a comment or chat thread below so we can discuss it.
© All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC. The above work is a piece of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Today’s Writing Prompt
Writing Prompt: Holiday Decorating
Write a scene in which two or more people are putting up holiday decorations.
Writing Tip
Before you start writing, consider: Who are these people? What relationship do they have to each other (are they family, volunteers, coworkers, etc.), and where are they?
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