Today’s writing prompt is a simple one—or is it?
What Do You Take?
You have ten minutes to evacuate your home forever! All family members and pets have already escaped and are safely waiting for you. Write about what you'd imagine yourself taking with only the limited time you have left.
Describe the items and the significance they have for you. You can write this as yourself, or if you are already working on another piece of writing, you can write it from the perspective of a character.
As always, I look forward to your submissions.
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Comments: 26
I'd love to be able to take all of my books, but since I only have ten minutes, I'd grab my leather bound copy of GWTW, my favorite book. I also have leather bound copies of Breakfast of Champions and Welcome To the Monkey House, both signed by Kurt Vonnegut that I'd take. They were gifts from my husband, so that makes them extra special.
Family photos would be my next grab; I have most of them in 2 large file boxes with latches and handles, so I can carry them easily.
Lastly, I have a huge folder of special stories, drawings, and cards my daughter has made for me over the years since she was in pres-school; I love to go through them periodically and reminisce.
Since all of these cherished possessions are located in my home office, I should easily be able to grab them and get out of the house in ten minutes.
Ten minutes---family and pets are safe...hmm, my thumbdrive where I have a lot of my writing saved, our backup hard drive that small and portable because it has writing done by all three of us, & tons of photos, and probably the photo albums of when our daughter very young as I've not put them on discs or scanned them in yet.
I think it would be very difficult for me to lose my writing and most everything I do now is on the computer...it represents so much of my heart and soul.
Interesting you should say this Nancy, and I plan to do a update backup on the external hard drive this weekend ;-)
When my daughter graduated from high school I made her a huge scrapbook (before scrapbooking be came popular) of some of her school work and awards from kindergarten to high school. She loves it ;-)
Does anyone have a special family heirloom or keepsake they would want to rescue?
I thought more people would have something, possibly of great sentimental value, they would want to rescue if they knew they had 10 minutes before they would never see their home again.
Clementine, my littlest daughter's teddy bear.
Bruno, my son's teddy bear,
Lily, my eldest daughter's teddy bear.
I think that I would hold onto these well into my old age, God willing.
If she wasn't wearing it already, a pendant I bought for my wife long ago; It has a coin set upon it, a platinum Noble from the Isle of Man. It was bought on one of the most lovely and interesting days of our lives.
And, of my own things: my notebooks and CDs.
within the next minute i'd head back to my studio. grab a bag or something i could carry, and toss in some blank sketchbooks/paper, brushes, preferred ink pens (and refills - all in one place easy to dump in) - depending on where i'm going... well... heck, i'd toss in some watercolor tubes and palettes i use - these are all in one place too. i'd grab my usual travel bag which is small and would fit in what i was carrying - it's favored travel brushes, pens and pencils etc with some working papers and sketchbook. then i'd start tossing in things i'd value with meaning to me. things of no monetary value necessarily but things i value. most of that stuff is in there - but some is sprinkled through out the house. so when there was about 3 minutes left i'd make some beelines to a few other places and do the same thing - toss in what caught my eye and couldnt be replaced.
after 10 minutes, i'd step outside and wonder where the heck do i think i'm going? and start from there.
1 - there is a waiting list to go to mars as a never-to-return settler and i've been moved to the top of that list - however i have to get to the launch site in the next 11 minutes... getting to the once-in-a-lifetime voyage is a minute away.
2 - the sudden tsunami is 11 minutes away and it takes one minute to get to safety. ok, same scenario with any short warning natural disaster - hurricane sweeping through, fire sweeping through etc. where my house is definitely in the path of disaster...
3 - yikes. sudden sci-fi, and war, aliens or the powers that be alter all of our culture drastically, - including the elimination of permanent homes/housing and electricity, with sudden totality... i find out with 11 minutes to get to safety...
4 - i (perhaps foolishly) signed up for a reality check show. i won. the condition to receive a million dollars (oh, what the heck... $1,000,000 per year) is that i have to leave the house and everything left in it, in 10 minutes, never to return.
each of these would shift the focus of the items i'd take and the significance of the item to me...
My cat has never been out of this house since he was stray. Putting him in the carrier could take a few minutes. He associates the carrier with trips to the vet and may run and hide. with the time left, I'd grap my photo albums. I have nine of general photos, one of my wedding and one of my niece's wedding. One was left by my grandmother and the final one is of my parents' 50th anniversary. That leaves me about a minute. I'd use that time to find my address book (yes, I still have one of those ancient little books). I'm pretty sure it's in the nightstsand. (Maybe I'll find it and put it in a safe place this morning.
One thing I do know is, in case of fire, you don't have ten minutes. Building materials today are so toxic, you'd smother after a few minutes. As far as I'm concerned, Things can be replaced. People and my critters can not.
And since I'm in a think-positive mood, I'd be relieved that I wouldnt have to do any housework for a few days. I would no longer have to sort all those clothes in sizes 12 to 44 to tent to tarp. I'd be rid of all those ugly chairs that have wiggling backs. In time, I'd likely mourn my books and all the photos on my computer... but, hey, life goes on.
As far as the fire goes, I agree. Of course, the exercise doesn't dictate that your house is burning, just that for some reason, you have to leave and never come back. I understand why people might assume it's on fire though; it's a more common reason, unfortunately.