Grant Faulkner Visits Prompts of Resilience (And Writes us a Prompted Story...)

And writes us a story...

Over the years, it has been fun to pitch writers I admire on writing a prompt-inspired story for Prompts of Resilience. A few of the writers who have playfully met my challenge are Aimee Bender, Etgar Keret, Amber Sparks.

So when my old friend Grant Faulkner agreed to try out a Prompts of Resilience prompt for the Hall of Fame Feature, I couldn’t have been more excited. Grant’s thoughtful and deeply encouraging Substack newsletter, Intimations: A Writer’s Discourse, is a fantastic newsletter for writers of any form.

Embarking on a creative project with Grant Faulkner is always a delight.

For Grant, I came up with the photo prompt below. You are welcome to try writing a story to the same.. Paid subscribers, feel free to post your photo-inspired stories in the comments section.

The prompt words I offered Grant included:Yawn, waxy, home, strong, butter, help, fancy, promise.

Below is “Roundelay”, Grant Faulkner’s terrific clown story.

Enjoy!

Roundelay

Everyone spoils the child, blames the clown. And yet I dance, I smile, I shake my caboose, and I scare children who are scared of clowns, but did I cause that?

Your name, a simple Diane. But there was nothing simple about you. So I called you Dionisia. But you said you were Diane. But you were Dionisia.

“I fancy you,” I said.

“I fancy that,” you said.

Everything you said felt like art. Even when you ordered a tuna sandwich. When we passed each other in the kitchen, I’d spin you around and kiss you. I wanted to rub moonlight into your back. You wanted me to rub moonlight into your back. Our breaths next to one another. Our breaths one another.

I’ve heard that we’re all just trying to go home, not knowing where home is. Let me venture a theory: Home is being touched by another. Our hands together here. Love swooshing in, love swooshing out (except I only felt it swooshing in).

Why didn’t you look happier, I want to ask now. Why didn’t you trust me to take you to the places you wanted to go?

“Just butter my bread for once, darling,” you said. You yawned with your coffee.

I promised. You promised. I helped. You left. You thought I was a clown, and you were right.

But did you know that love is beyond language? Even though we are forever trying to find language for it? Did you hear me? Did you see my smile?

Love is this emotion, like radium.

I get mad at the world, as if the world can hear my anger. I ask for grace from a God I’ve never seen.

How to confess that my mind is full of vicious ballet instructors who practice fencing?

I wonder whether a suicide note is better handwritten or typed? My cursive is so hard to read. Where does one put a suicide note to make sure it’s seen?

I won’t commit suicide. I worry too much.

My soul feels so big, but the doctor told me it was normal-sized. What do doctors know?

You didn’t call for me, but I looked back again.

***

Grant Faulkner is the co-founder of 100 Word Story, the co-host the Write-minded podcast, and an executive producer on America’s Next Great Author. He has published several books, including The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story and Fissures, a collection of 100-word stories, and his flash fiction has been widely anthologized. He publishes the weekly newsletter, Intimations: A Writer’s Discourse.