October 2025 – tnkerr-Writing Prompts and Practice

I looked at the screen to see who was calling and the number glowing on the screen was Ms Larkin’s. She had been the teacher’s aide for my freshman English class. I hadn’t seen her for years.

I pressed the button to answer and spoke, “Ms Larkin?”

“Is that you,TN?” she replied.

I knew it was her with that soft, slow, southern drawl. “Yeah, it’s me. What the fuck. I haven’t heard from you in years?”

“You remember, Ms Brown?” she asked.

“Of course,” I replied, “Freshman English. Burges High School I sent her a copy of my last book. Shit, it musta been 10 years ago. She told us to send her copies of any work we published and she said that when the wall was filled she would retire. I sent her my book. How’s she doing?”

“She retired yesterday.”

“What? I’ve been out of school for over 50 years.”

“Yeah but, you sent her the entire book. She thought she was never going to retire but your book alone filled almost the entire wall. She was grateful. She had room for one more page and, remember Linda Bustamante?”

“Not really but, go on…”

Linda Bustamante was in the same class as you. She had a poem published in the Alamogordo paper last month. She sent it in to Ms Brown. She framed it and hung it on the wall beneath your book. The wall was filled. Ms Brown put in for retirement. She was ninety two years old and when she took the papers down to the office she handed them to Principal Chavez and immediately fell over dead. Right there in the office. Her last words were, ‘Thank TN for writing a 400 page book. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m passing on her regards. I think she would have lived forever without retiring if not for your contribution to her wall. She was grateful. There will be a service next week. Do you think you could make it?”

“Who else is going to be there?” I asked.

“Well, I’ll be there and I going to call Linda Bustamante after we’re done. It might just be me, you, and Linda. I don’t know how to contact anyone else.”

The prompts were: