Clara held his hand as they walked through Central Park. She felt so sorry for Sal. Over the years they had drifted apart but she flew into JFK right away when she heard about little Timothy.
Wanting to distract him she said “look at the colors on that Maple. Yellow, orange, red – we don’t have Fall in San Francisco.”
Instead he began crying, big sobs, hiccups tears and all. Now what?
“Look,” snatching his hand, Sal pointed at the old woman on the bench knitting. “Timothy would have been 2 this year. That red sweater is exactly his size. It was my fault.” He shuffled his feet and mumbled. What would Clara know about losing a child? She just makes things worse with her sad look, her silicon-valley-techy-ceo voice. Her fancy shoes.
The old woman looked up from her knitting and saw the well dressed couple. One glance and she could tell the man was full of self-pity. Typical loser. She felt sorry for the lady – she seemed to be trying so hard to help.
“Hey mister,” she said in a tough New York rasp “there’s many kids out there and its always someone’s fault. So what?”
“How rude,” Sal froze in mid-step. Clara looked sideways at the old woman.
Moving forward, in a matter-of-fact voice she told Sal “your son died because he as sick. Why don’t you set up a charity. How about the Timothy Redd Foundation?”
Clara and Sal held hands again and walked past the bench. The old woman bent into her knitting.
“Tough New York love baby, none of that San Francisco style hand-holding.” Clara could have sworn the old woman was smiling as she painfully moved her finger to count the stitches.
Exercise Writing 101: Point of View
A man and a woman walk through the park together, holding hands. They pass an old woman sitting on a bench. The old woman is knitting a small, red sweater. The man begins to cry. Write this scene.
Today’s twist: write the scene from three different points of view: from the perspective of the man, then the woman, and finally the old woman.
Neerja Raman 