There’s a writing prompt that dictates writing a 250-word story without repeating any words, which is not as simple as it sounds. Stringent adherants to the prompt will not even use the same form of a word (is, was), but I’m not that talented. Anyway, it turns out that this is awfully fun to do during class, because you look thoughtful while you’re writing (and if you have a three-hour class, you might even finish the game).
There’s a question as to whether such a writing exercise has much merit. On the one hand, it forces the writer to consider minutely every word choice, but as you’ll see below, the impossibility of reusing words does make some constructions sound forced. It’s a difficult balance between following the rules and following the story. If I write any more of them, I might have to side with the latter.
I’m posting here my second attempt at the project because my first is too atrocious for posterity. If you find any duplicate words, don’t tell me.
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Solipsism
Soldiers never approached town without gunfire, announcing their manifestation too truly for objection, forcing Uncle’s grudging acknowledgement that yes, they must be real. Occasions to doubt included whenever steel tipped boots crossed alleys, bullets resounding, because one couldn’t ascertain whether explosions might exist apart from those firing, death in passive voice, victim sans murderer. Blood is always true, a logical syllogism unconditionally valid.
Sometimes uniforms invaded our little apartment, kicking down closet doors behind which hid no innocents, malignant or otherwise. Officers often interrogated my family, Paul, myself; however, as usual, none had seen anything suspicious, inappropriate, illegal. He slapped Aunt when she said te absolvo, since such obscurest, exclusionary language reeked disrespect. Red dripped onto her lip, chin, breast: it seemed some men were indeed present. Prayer will carry you so far until tribulations boil oceans, eclipse suns, darken joy, evaporate hope.
Once, by chance, I was napping on the laundry room floor – cramped, though private – and got dragged almost inside waiting heavy armed vehicles before either captain would view any orphan-status identity papers. Only after substantial violence, whose product included black eyes, broken nose, loose teeth, bruised kidneys, did two potential captors release me. Their existence proven, we avoided sleeping out of sight.
At night, imaginary camouflage army fatigues paraded privately within mental spaces – grotesque clowns metamorphosed kaleidoscopically into leering severed heads someone’s dream self sickeningly recognized – but nightmares shared nothing with reality. Humans cannot sustain certainty, this lesson received like communion: holiness thus tasted, digested, excreted, forgotten.
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