Home – Six Sentence Story

artwork by phil burns

This challenge is produced by GirlieOnTheEdge with the following simple rules:
Write 6 Sentences. No more. No less.
Use the current week’s prompt word – HOME

Click here to hear the author read his words:

Home

I wonder if home is a place, a concept, or just an impossible dream.
When I was young I lived in a house with a harassed, constantly nagging mother, a domineering father, and three older brothers who thought that inflicting pain on me was their right.
When I left school I fled that vile place and lived alone in semi-squalor for almost a decade before meeting the most beautiful girl in the world, marrying her, and moving into an only slightly awful apartment near the iron foundry.
Time passed, and I found I was living with a harassed, constantly nagging wife and three children who thought that their collective function was to inflict misery on me, all four of them spending money faster than I could earn it, no matter the hours I worked.
So I fled that vile place and lived on the streets for several years, begging and thieving, until my luck ran out – ha! – and I was arrested.
Now I look round the little cell that I share with a harassed, constantly nagging psychopath and I think to myself ‘I guess this is home.’

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31 Responses to Home – Six Sentence Story

  1. This is beyond clever. There are people in this world born to be bullied and all that malarkey about new perspectives, new worlds etc changes nothing for them. Good to see such a character appear in this forum.

    Like

    • ceayr says:

      Thank you, Doug.
      Most of us are sadly incapable of changing who or what we are, either living the nightmare we know or stumbling from one wretched situation to the next.
      I appreciate your time and comments here.

      Liked by 2 people

  2. Liz H says:

    The pattern repeats until the lesson is learned.
    Clever and wry 6!

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  3. clark says:

    Excellent Six*

    How true (to one degree or another) and, for some of us, irresistible in the drive to break the cycle of the past… the scariest quote from the Bible that we all get indoctrinated with as blank-slated children has got to be (in keeping with your Six) ‘As it was in the beginning is now and will be forever’

    * in a horrifying, too-easily-identified-with sorta way

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  4. Not everyone benefits from experiencing a “Groundhog Day”. Perhaps, if the running away ceases, a bit of clarity might appear? Or not. Self-examination is no easy undertaking.

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    • ceayr says:

      Thank you for your thoughtful comments, Denise, but don’t you think that sometimes clarity is easier from the outside?
      I do agree about self-examination, few of us do it well.

      Like

  5. Where next I wonder.

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  6. So sad. His mind recreates what he is used to until he figures out how to change that.

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  7. Pat Brockett says:

    Maybe this is a case of things happening in threes before one learns the lesson or the solution. Hope he finally will be able to find//make and experience a good home.
    I really like your approach in this SSS.

    Like

  8. jenne49 says:

    I really like the way the repetition emphasises the unrelenting cycle the narrator is caught in, the absence of hope. And his final resignation, his answer to the question at the start. And Phil Burns art work feeds right into the turmoil. It’s a great piece.

    Like

  9. Frank Hubeny says:

    I like those three attempts to find home.

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  10. Great Six. History repeats – one can only wonder what is next on the horizon called ‘home’ for this character.

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  11. Wonderful six! Some people never seem to catch a good thing.

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  12. Chris Hall says:

    Things can only get..??

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  13. UP says:

    grit, and great art work. really nice.

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  14. Gritty twist – great 6.

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