21/10/2022 – tnkerr-Writing Prompts and Practice

Written in 20 minutes, with the Carrizozo Writers- Raw, unedited, exactly as it flowed through my fingers to the keyboard

Enid had that old red suitcase. She’d had it for years. It had been her Mama’s suitcase before she passed away.

Enid was a trouper, a show girl, an actress, just like her Mama had been. That suitcase had traveled back and forth, across the country, at least a couple hundred times. Mostly on trains, but sometimes in the back of an automobile or a pickup truck; the stories that bag could most likely tell.

It was covered in embroidered patches now, New York, Atlanta, LA, Chicago, and Denver, just to name a few. Enid had made it a point to visit as many of the places that her Mama had done. She worked in many of the theatres where her Mama had worked, too. Even played some of the same parts that she had played, sang the same songs that she remembered her Mama used to sing to her as they rode the rails. Sometimes in first class, sometimes in boxcars.

The show must go on! There was always work, for a talented and versatile performer. That’s what Enid had learned from Mama. Don’t let yourself become dependent on some no good man. She had learned that too.

Enid never knew who her father was. She didn’t need to know. She was an independent woman.

She had spent some time with men, just like her Mama had done when a show ran for a long time. That mostly happened in big cities, Like New York, or San Francisco, or Dallas. Not too long ago she had spent almost six months in Kansas City, of all places. She had met a gentleman there, a stagehand, who claimed to be a distant relative of Wyatt Earp. He had been a kind man and she had allowed him to become a little more familiar than she mighta should have. It wasn’t the first time, but now she was beginning to feel a little nauseated in the mornings. Her appetite was off.

She suspected that she was going to pass this suitcase on to her own daughter soon.

time’s up – step away

The prompts