Prompt: Reflect for a few minutes on your own character, jotting down traits and remembering incidents in which you came to know yourself better. Then create a fictional person who is like you in some significant ways. Place this person in a brief narrative that brings out his or her character. Use third-person narration.
Pierce sits at the bottom of the steps in the sun-streaked foyer. Streams of light filter in through the stained glass windows, green and red and pretty.
“Pierce!” Grandma calls from the kitchen. It is time for lunch.
Pierce stares at his shoes. The shoes are white and red and threatening. The two laces for each foot jut out and curl and twist with no set direction. The eight metal-lined holes on each shoe through which the laces are thread glint in the light. The shoes challenge Pierce. Pierce glares at the shoes, but his stare is no match for that of the eight-eyed monsters.
Grandma enters the foyer with a plate of macaroni and cheese and a glass of milk. “Oh, Pierce. You can try after lunch.” Pierce does not look up.
The fumes of the mac and cheese wafting around his head, Pierce frames his battle against the shoes. Not being able to tie one’s shoes - this is one of those things that they kick you out of pre-school for. And if you can’t get through pre-school then you can’t get a job. And if you can’t get a job you disappoint. In a delirious state, Pierce tears at the laces in a fury of activity – crossing them, knotting them, pulling them.
Half an hour after Grandma brought the mac and cheese, she walks in with a cookie for Pierce. As she turns to face the stairs, she sees a smiling Pierce, the look of contentment at a hard-won victory on his face.
All four of the laces of his two shoes were laced together in a single neat, strong knot. Pierce – a shoe-tying innovator.
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