Writing Prompt # 974

I have been working on writing more often and was happy to discover a whole site of writing prompts (that were not of the high school standardized test variety...)

Using Prompt 974  from Easy Street Prompts, , I had these nine word / phrases to work with:

overthrown - crustaceous swimmer - marinated

trivialized -  inconvenient pedant  - convict

outlaw - immaculate crumbs - schoolmarm

This is the type of writing exercise I need since it gives me structure and a concrete goal.  I will surely be doing more of these and probably will post a few along the way.

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The schoolmarm stood on the creaky front porch, hand to her forehead as she peered out over the sea.  The wind whipped her faded dress around her thin legs.  The stone gray sea that lay beyond the cottage’s walls looked cold and impersonal.  A single crustaceous swimmer scuttled from rock to rock, slipping and clinging to the earth like a frantic crab. 

The schoolmarm surveyed the endless waters once more, acutely disapproving of the lone swimmer’s poor choice of behavior before she turns and disappeared back inside. 

People like that trivialized life, she thought sourly.  She believed nothing was trivial and everything profound, from the smallest creature to the largest gesture.  The only time she felt otherwise was in church on Sundays, when she had to admit that everything other than GOD was a bit trivial.  She always felt like an outlaw, realizing she had forgotten about God in the days between Sunday and Sunday.  But she asked for forgiveness and received it in the host; those immaculate crumbs brought relief that smoothed out the guilt.

The pastor watched the schoolmarm enter the worn pews of his church and leave them every Sunday morning service.  She was a faithful devotee in his eyes and he wished he knew of her faith more personally.  He longed to reach out and lay his gentle hand on the faded sleeve of her dress, slowing her departure.  He would have liked to talk to her about God and faith and life and death, but a tiny voice inside his head balked and he knew in any moment alone with her, he would prove to be an inconvenient pedant and his attentions overthrown.

He watched her come into church and he watched her go out.  He often gazed out his study window as he sat at his desk and hoped that God would lead her past his door.  He wrote each sermon for her, at least one line or verse wholly dedicated to her.  He marinated his mind and soul in the words of the bible but ultimately he was soaked through with thoughts of her. 

He exhaled as she slipped out the chapel door and turned left.  He knew her rituals as he knew his own, and they would both take tea now in solitude to contemplate the word of the Lord they had both just heard.  He would think of her and the Lord; he was her convict.

The schoolmarm tightened her shawl around her thin shoulders and turned into the wind toward home.  She would soon sit down to tea.  She anticipated its warmth and thanked God for that and nothing else.