in media res

Free Writing 11/29/06

Either that or it is inaccurate. Dad, Henry has no socks. Henry has no socks. Why don’t you turn on the lights Jay? Thank you. It’s a snapshot of my morning.

The exercise is starting a story "in media res" – or in the middle of something. The first line of the story is, “Where were you last night?”

“Where were you last night?”
Paul continued pulling socks from the mound of clean clothes on his bed not looking up at his mother. He shrugged to let her know that he heard her. He found two white socks that matched and folded them together.
“Paul, what’s going on?” his mother’s voice warbled slightly with worry.
“Leave him alone Molly,” came his father’s voice, “Sometimes a boy has things he has to do. His mother don’t need to know everything.”
Paul continued to work the clothes in the pile, methodically pulling out socks. A blue pair this time. He folded them together. He could feel his mother watching him from the door, his father was gone now, he could feel that too. There was no tension in the air just the warm breeze of concern and love radiating from her. He wanted to turn from the clothes and blurt it all out to her just take all the ugliness that was wrapped around his middle suffocating him and dump it at her feet. To curl up in a ball at her feet and feel her cool hand on the back of his neck soothing the fire away. Like she had when he was sick with the chicken pox. But he was older now, he should tend to this himself, and he wasn’t sure that she would be sympathetic to him. This, she might not understand.