Prompt: Using plain, “ten-center” words, predominantly Anglo-Saxon in origin, write a theme about someone or something you love passionately. Use the tension between strength (and possibly complexity) of feeling and simplicity of expression. Let particularity, precision, understatement, and implication convey emotional power. Do honor Hemingway and Strunk and White.
When I see you over in the corner, you glow. The light from the top of the room hits your white surface and shows no spot. In front of me sit your brothers and sisters and cousins, who want me to work and sweat by tending to them. But you—you will not let me. You care for me like my mother does when I am sick. You want to save me. You hold your place in your corner long after your role there has ended, all for me.
You came to where you are by way of heat and water. I know that someone took care of you so that you could be clean; this makes your rescue of me all the more meaningful. Everyone who came together to make you pure has made my life easier. It is not hard to clean you: one must scrape you, place you in line, pour white crystals, and then press buttons. No, I will not debate that to do this is easy, but to do nothing is even easier.
So, when my mother tells me, “Don’t bother putting your dishes in the dishwasher, there are clean ones still in there,” I praise you and your fight against your coming return to the cupboard. I splash my potatoes and throw my Brussels sprout leaves all over the spotty surface of my plate. And when I finish my food, I place the dirty plate in the sink rather than the dishwasher. If I am lucky, the soiled plate will soon become like you.
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