PROMPTuesday #8 - You Know What They Say About a Picture

Author's note: This little prompt "seed" that San Diego Momma planted has grown into a fully-realized short story. I plan to submit it for possible publication in the very near future. You can be sure I will blog about the success or failure of my attempt. Keep checking back for updates! -- Cocktail Maven

San Diego Momma's PROMPTuesday #8:

This PROMPTuesday is about what lies beneath. So this week, I’d like you to look at this picture:

…and very quickly write down the first three words that come to mind. Now, start writing, using those words anywhere in your story. (Be sure to name the three words in your post or comments for our FYI.)

Oh! And the genre is “memoir.” (It can be a fake memoir.)

Three words: Cold, Sediment, Lost.

It was during the summer of my twelfth year that I became an only child. That was the year my brother was lost. He took the little rowboat out on the lake early one morning and simply never came back. He wasn’t supposed to go alone. We were always supposed to stick together,to watch out for each other. But it was early and cold, and I was tired. I yelled at him and told him that if he wanted to fish that badly then he should just go already and leave me in peace. Now, thirty years later, I still look for him on the shore. I stand knee-deep in the water with the sediment sucking at my feet and I expect to see Danny striding up with that classic smirk on his face, his “you’ll believe anything, won’t you?” look. I keep hoping he stayed away all these years just out of spite.

It was six months before we found the boat, caught up in some reeds. A family of ducks had made a nest in it. There were no holes, no damage of any kind, nothing to indicate where the boat and my brother had gone. Just seeing the boat made me angry. It should have had the decency to stay lost.

Like my brother.

Like Danny.