FRIDAY!!! Not only the end of the work week for many, it's also the day that we get to see new prompts that might stretch our creative muscles. As always, we thank ComicFan for these two new prompts:

Prompt 134 – Creative
Cue – Word list
Use the following words in a story:
Gravesite, balloons, pregnant woman, cold cereal, and an old book.

Prompt 135 – Creative
Cue – The Legacy
There is a child in every generation chosen to inherit the family legacy. It is no easy task and while the rewards can be fantastic it can also be hellish. What is the legacy your family hopes to see you inherit?

Where can YOU take these? Share where you do go with the community in the Writing Prompts forum!

This week we are going to feature a response to Prompt #130! You have lived your whole life in the same town, however with each passing year you have felt a desire to move. Always you head in the same direction. Now you are legally an adult and the money you have saved manically for the past few years is going to get you to the place that has haunted your dreams and called to you like a siren’s call. Where is this call taking you?

This little short is called "The Call of the Sea" and was written by the prompt guru himself, Comicfan!

Welcome to Redkin, Indiana. It was where I called home for the first part of my life. It is just a small little spot on the map, one that if you weren’t looking for it you would drive right past it. Farming community of about four hundred people, who worked, went to church, and whose kids went to a school that had all of three rooms.

 

There wasn’t much fun to be had in Redkin. It meant the occasional movie, maybe riding in car, or hanging out at the local diner. However, I was the odd one in town among the younger guys, looking for a job while they wanted to have fun. Even when I did occasionally hang it we didn’t have much in common. While most talked of farming, or going to Indianapolis to work on cars or maybe even finding work in the city, my desire lay elsewhere.

 

My whole life I had been spent dreaming of something different. I dreamed of a blue ocean, sand, smaller farms, and more people. Chances for something outside this place haunted my dreams. Each night I dreamt of the sea. I drove my teachers’ nuts asking about the sea, learning what I could of fish and the creatures of the deep. From first grade on my room was done in tones of blue, book shelves full of creatures of the sea, and every project that I could for school dealt with the sea in some way.

 

“Mason, you really need a different hobby. We don’t live near the ocean, boy.”

 

I’d heard my father make that complaint more times than there are stars in the sky but I wasn’t interested in the same things as my classmates.

 

Most of my classmates worried about fixing tractors, growth schedules, and when they might escapte to Indianapolis. Some wanted to know about restaurants or even a few about fashion, but the call of the sea constantly drew me on. I’d never been near the sea, seen it, or smelled it but I wanted to be there.

 

By the time I was sixteen my room was filled with dvds on fish, ocean living, and maps of the east coast of the United States. I’d been asked if I wanted to go to California or maybe Washington but the draw was to the east coast and, even then, to the north. My parents were worried by what this constant attraction to the sea was. They were just grateful my younger siblings didn’t seem to have the same interests.

 

By the time I had turned seventeen my parents were afraid I was running away to New York City. For them it was a horrible place but the city wasn’t where I wanted to be. Then they feared it would be Boston. I wasn’t sure where I would be living but I knew it was somewhere near the water. Each day the desire to be near the sea grew and yet I couldn’t ever seem to find the words to explain why.

If you liked that excerpt, you can find the entire short story here!