I Write: The Distance Between Us

At our monthly Writing is Fun meetings we decide a prompt for writing for the next meeting. Length is set at 2 pages so we can read them at the meeting. There is quite a diversity of writing. Some are real life recollections, some fictional vignettes, and sometimes there's a poem. This is fictional.

The prompt for August 2026: Unanswered Messages

The Distance Between Us – Carol Kagan

(in the notebook)

The disagreements. The resentments. The arguments. The anger flaring so much I needed to leave. The unresolved reasons fostering lies to avoid accepting any responsibility. Now you are with him and I can’t see you.

I need to urge you to step away from him to give me the opportunity to explain why I left. He is so controlling over your life there was no way to sort our ending out. The lack of any possibility of seeing you is a battle that consumes my every thought. My love for you is as strong as our first day together.

The phone messages I left before your number was changed were not returned. You have not responded to the notes I left. The last attempt to reach out to you is another note. Knowing I will put it on your car I am hoping the contents bring back fond memories of those trips together. Singing to beach music as we traveled to the shore- the salty air, unsuccessful surfing attempts, and messy steamed crab dinners. The vacation trip to Disney World, sharing snacks of sweet smelling caramel corn, peanuts, and McNuggets between the seats. The smoky scent of campfire and smelly hiking boots filling the car on the way home from camping. After sealing the envelope and writing your name on it, I realize you may recognize my handwriting from all the notes I had written over the years. I pray you will read this one.

Easily recognizing your car in the parking lot, I placed the note quickly and steered into a nearby lot. I sat there waiting to see you.

I watched, surprised that he was with you that day.

He quickly went to the driver’s side and picked up the note. He looked at it. Without offering it to you, he went over to the trash bin and threw it away, unopened.

Did he make you change your phone number? Has he intercepted my notes? Is he the reason there are so many unanswered messages?

I watched as you both sat at the outdoor table on the patio of the Georgetown Pub- one of our favorite places. Why am I not there with you? Were you making plans for after the ceremony- plans that could have been with me? I will still go and to watch you.

I stood there too long. To make a quick exit I grabbed the first tour bus and during the ride remembering one of our best days together. It was picnicking beneath the cherry blossom trees, their faint fragrance carried on a light breeze on a picture perfect April day.

Ending up at the Smithsonian Museum, I wandered through the gift shop and saw a silver keyring with pink cherry blossoms engraved on it and a blank spot on the back. A perfect gift now engraved on the back with the loving name you called me.

Using brown paper wrapping, I carefully printed your name in block letters. Just before your usual arrival time home, I left it at the door. Maybe you will think it is from a friend, or maybe a neighbor.

I watched as he came home early and picked up the package. Looking around along the street, he took the unopened package and threw it into the garbage can. How did he know it was from me?

Your photos are scattered about my apartment – you and me, a group photo of us with friends, sometimes one taken at an event. And two albums with pictures from your younger days, obtained through nefarious means.

Although I am reconciled that my pleas to reunite were ignored, I have decided to make one last attempt. I have received an invitation to the award ceremony.

*     *     *

The award recipients entered and sat in the chairs lined across the stage. She focused on the podium and who would step up next. When the ceremony was over, he saw her and she ran from the auditorium. When she reached the lobby she was shaking and stopped to take a deep breath.

Suddenly he was behind her, wrapping his arms around her. Slowly he took her shoulders and turned her toward him. There was that wide smile that had often greeted her when he came home.

He leaned in and breathed in her ear, “I love you and miss you so much.”

She wrapped her arms around him and the deepest love welled up inside her. They walked hand in hand to the reception area and found a table. She reached in her purse and pulled out a small package, a gift to commemorate the occasion.

It was a silver keyring with pink cherry blossoms in colored enamel and on the back was engraved – With all my love, Momma.

 

© Carol Kagan, 2026

I Write: Adventures in Walmart

At our monthly Writing is Fun meetings we decide a prompt for writing for the next meeting. Length is set at 2 pages so we can read them at the meeting. There is quite a diversity of writing. Some are real life recollections, some fictional vignettes, and sometimes there's a poem.

The prompt was Adventures at Walmart.

Adventures in Walmart – Carol Kagan

November 3, 2022
 

Ruth Ann just started the night shift after years of having a regular work week. On Thursdays, after her shift was over at 4 she headed to Walmart for the weekly grocery shopping. Now it was midnight as she made her way through the quiet halls, past dark rooms and the occasional whirring of a floor waxer coming from nearby.

She found a parking space near the door, and made sure she had her list, coupons in her purse and cloth shopping bags. Into the bright lights and through the door. Ruth Ann was hit by the intense odor of floor cleaner, stopped quickly, and looked around. Several feet in front of her was the ubiquitous yellow plastic tent sign – Caution wet floor - Cuidado Suelo Mojado – with the little stick figure slipping silently.

No one was there to greet her with a pleasant “Hello” and hand her a cart. As she pulled a cart from the nested stack, she grabbed a sanitizer sheet and wiped down the handle. Into the store she went. The cart drove fine but it did have a rattle and squeak from one of the wheels. As she headed to the dairy section, she glanced down the aisles.

There were hardly any customers but there were workers, wrapped in white, bobbing up and down from cartons to shelves, stocking items. There was a familiar beeping of a forklift in reverse coming from the far back area as she turned and headed past too many choices of yogurt and variations of orange juice.

A young guy was pulling milk jugs from the shelf and putting them on the floor. He grabbed other ones from the pallet on the forklift and shoved them to the back of the shelf then replaced the others in the front of them. The forklift left and he continued down the shelves, shuffling items from front to back.

Ruth Ann checked her list and put the store brand butter, cream cheese, and Sargento shredded Mexican blend in her cart. At the milk section she pulled a few cold and damp jugs aside and grabbed one from the back. She twisted it around to be sure it had a later “Best by” date stamped on it and, of course, it did.

In the canned goods section, she wheeled around a small roadblock of a worker placing bright red jars of tomato sauce on the top shelf. Ruth Ann chose a box of angel hair pasta and checked out the sauces. The top shelf held the more expensive, special recipes. The store brand was within easy reach but there were so many choices. She laughed to herself as she thought about when she was a little girl and  sent to the local grocery for spaghetti sauce. She didn’t even have to think about what to get as there was only one brand.

Ruth Ann wheeled the rattling, squeaking cart around the stockers and  through the aisles, picking items and putting them in her cart. As she approached the meat section she could smell the fish at the seafood counter even though there were few of them in the case. Only one person was minding the deli counter but was much more pleasant than any of the team there during the day.

The odor of wet cardboard wafted through the produce section from cartons of damp lettuce and cabbage. But over in the fruit section the green and red apples smelled sweet. 

Ruth Ann was trying to decide which apples to get for pie when the clerk stacking bananas surprised her and said “Hi, how are you.”

“Fine. Just looking for a good combination of apples for pie.”

“Where are you now?”

“Maybe Granny Smith for tart and Fuji for sweet.”

“Hold on for a minute,” the clerk said.

Ruth Ann looked up at him staring at her, holding a cell phone in his hand.

“Oh, I’m sorry,”  he said. “I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone. Can I help you with anything?”

They both smiled and she said “No.”

In addition to quite a few self-serve checkouts, there was one cashier at the register, looking bored with no one waiting. She headed to the register.

            “So, slow night, Jolene,” she asked after checking out the      cashier’s name tag.

“Always is. Did you find everything you wanted?” she replied as she started to slide items past the scanner.

“I did.”

And so ended Ruth Ann’s nighttime adventure at Walmart.

~     ~     ~     ~

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