Picture the house you grew up in. Or, any house where you have lived.
Walk into the kitchen. See the table and chairs, the counter, the cupboards.
Open a cupboard door. . . or walk into a pantry.
Take a deep breath. Notice the smells.
Open the spice cabinet. Inhale and . . . what are those many and mysterious smells?
Prompts, multiple choice:
What food reminds you of the kitchen in the house where you grew up? Memories surrounding that food?
OR: What nourishes you?
Or: I grew up with . . .
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Ke11y
My grandma was a witch! I swear that to you. I knew she was a witch by the time I was ten years old. You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be ten years of age with sniffles given a dose of grated frog’s powder and a kiss from Grandma at four in the afternoon. No ten-year-old boy wants a kiss from his grandma at any age. I would rather drink two shots of grated Frogs powder and forego the kiss if that had been an option. It wasn’t. The question you should be asking is this: What kind of Grandma treats a child’s common cold with grated frog’s powder and a sloppy kiss at four in the afternoon?
Instead, what you’re asking yourself is how a ten-year-old boy knows his grandma is a witch. The truth hid in plain sight. All I had to do was open the door to the larder.
She seemed very old when I was ten. Of course, like Mother Hubbard, she was buckled as if a wire coat hanger had been threaded right through her spine, and she smelled like a fat dog. Her face caved inward so that her profile looked like a new moon. The growth on her left cheek formed a shadow as deep as darkest space. I know…I know…she’s like every other grandma. But I digress.
Grandma’s larder didn’t have a single can of peas on its shelves. There was a sealed jar of grated frog powder, a slice of swamp snake, a dog’s tongue, a lizard’s leg, an owl’s wing, a wolf’s tooth and, wait for it, an open bag that contained the scales of dragon. The smell, well the smell was easily the most vomit inducing one a boy could ever imagine. It was a fat man’s poo!
mcullen Post author
Omigosh, Kelly. This is hilarious. Talk about sensory detail! You could give lessons. But would Grandma approve? Your writing is varied, deliberate, carefully crafting memorable characters, mesmerizing scenes and your vocabulary, your choice of words is brilliant!