This is in response to Sasha Singer-Wilson’s post on Tuesday at These Five Minutes
Writing Date: Friday February 10, 2017
Writing Time: 11:03am
Timed Writing: 5 minutes (no edits!)
The quote is a “writing dip” selected from Gerald’s Game by Stephen King
I held the turtle by the sides of its shell with Robbyn looking down at me. I know I learned how to tell if this little guy was a snapping turtle at camp once when I was 11, but the memory was mostly gone now. This turtle captured by my fingers could be a killer or a pacifist for all I could tell.
The turtle tried to keep moving towards the road despite by grip. He was strong even though he looked like he’d been around a while, the shiny smooth of his shell fading. Robbyn moved out in front of him, trying to convince him to stop advancing to certain death by fast traffic.
“He’s so ready to die,” Robbyn was looking him in the eyes. I held him a little tighter. “Do you think we can turn him around somehow and convince him to go back into the long grass?”
I realized Robbyn was having a lot of fun. Normally she felt so useless. Her day-to-day life was exhausting to her in its need to be self-motivated. Something about forcing this little suicidal turtle back from the edge of infinite darkness gave her a rush of involuntary purpose, or meaning, she hadn’t felt since she was a young woman in university and the whole world seemed to broaden out brightly before her.
TAYLOR MARIE GRAHAM 