Two Good Things - Part III

Our prompt this Thursday was "Write a short story based on the mixed proverb 'Bad News Cures All Things.'" My short story includes some facts from life, mixed with some fiction to help the story along. If you think you recognize yourself in it, it's probably you, but I will never admit it! Here's what I wrote:

The day had been the worst day of my college career. I accidentally slept in, making myself late to my 6 am job. I knew my boss would be furious with me because it was the 2nd time I'd been late that week. Fortunately she decided to express her anger by giving me the silent treatment and told me to get to work without addressing the issue.

The reason I was sleeping in that week was because of the late hours I was putting into a group project for my English class. We had to write a 15-page paper about a controversial issue, incorporating original research that we had done through a survey on campus. My group already had the survey done, and we had met late the night before to analyze the data we'd gathered so we could generate ideas on how to incorporate it into our research paper. The data was good and I knew we would be able to include it.

The late night study session had really tired me, however, and I was paying for it. I had a long list of things to do after work, and no energy to do them. At the top of the list was the next step for our project: to check on the progress of our IRB approval that was required for the publication of data gathered from experimentation (including surveying) on human subjects. I put this off until the end of the day, though, because even though it was the most important thing to do, it was the least urgent. After all of the immediately important things were taken care of, I walked up to the administrative building on campus where the research office was housed.

"We sent you notification in the mail over a week ago."

The words rang in my ears as I slowly walked home, perusing the 3-page document of changes that we had to make to our IRB paperwork before it would even be considered for review. I was devastated. The paperwork had been submitted for almost 2 weeks, and I had expected to go back to my group with the good news of our proposal being accepted already.

My mood sank lower as I mulled over the work that lay ahead of me that night. I amost didn't see Neal as I walked by.

"Hey Merry!"

He was like a ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds.

"Hi."

"That wasn't very enthusiastic. Tell me what's wrong."

As the details tripped out of my mouth, his expression showed his concern for how stressed I was. But I couldn't focus on it because of the fingers I felt twining around mine. This was the first time we'd held hands. Maybe my stressful situation wasn't so bad after all.




Okay, so it's a little cheesy. The sunshine-through-the-clouds phrase is so cliche. But I was pressed for time, and I thought it was a creative idea. And, as always, it was fun to get together with the girls and chat.