She sighs, runs knobby fingers through graying hair. The increasingly wiry strands slide silky still through veined hands, and she smooths them down, twisting them into a tight knot just above the nape of her neck. Surveying the scatterings of UPS boxes, packed a little heavy for professional movers, she wonders at how a woman’s entire life can be reduced to the wreck and rubble before her.
Or not.
She knows there was more to her than all that, but in a family where nobody really talks to one another, and the stories, when shared, change in detail and intent the nearer one comes to the final hour, the last-gasp minute, the truth is hard to discern.
There’s freedom in letting go; she exits the silent apartment, her part completed, and pulls the door shut, but leaves it unlocked.
© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2024)
The challenge? Write a story in exactly 6 sentences based on Denise’s one word prompt: WRECK. Visit, comment, and write & perhaps post your own on SIX SENTENCE STORIES. The Café is open. Come as you are!
Valley of the Trolls 
Sometimes you have to find your family away from where you’ve been.
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I love this, Liz.
There is finality in “locking” the door.
What a perfect last sentence.
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Thank you! Yeah, another stone in pathway forward, in my Time series. 🙃
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Hmm, interesting… where is she going?
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Anywhere but where she’s been. Good question, Chris!
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A profound story Liz
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Just noticing and translating via The Six. Thank you, Sadje!🦋🦋
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Most welcome
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💐
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Leaving the door unlocked makes me think she doesn’t value whatever is in those boxes, whether they are her belongings or those of a loved one who has passed on. Nice tale.
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Perhaps focusing on a different type of Legacy…
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