Stop. Go. No wait! Beggar window washer. Hey man, it’s clean already. Look up, you see the storm clouds gathering. I don’t have any bills less than a twenty, can you make change? It’s not my fault your kids are hungry and jacketless; have you hit the school to scavenge from Lost and Found? Of course I agree that we’re all in this together and when one of us suffers, all of us suffers, but look, I’m not blaming you for my lack of satisfaction or missing purpose. Why don’t you stand with the other day laborers in front of the Home Depot by the bus stop beside the Starbucks and the Barnes and Nobles and wait for some landscaping contractor who needs extra guys to dig sprinkler pipe trenches or spread sod or mow lawns and earn the money for those jackets?
Green light, goodbye, good luck and God bless, I hope you find a job that pays before the storm so that you and your kids can eat and keep warm and safe and dry. Can you believe the nerve of that guy, lecturing me on no man is an island, we’re all in this together? All ‘what you do unto the least of these you do unto me?’ He is not supposed to say that, he’s supposed to say thank you. It’s not his job to give me purpose. I’m not going back there. I don’t care. He’s fine. Standing. Constant.
The above is an exercise in writing under restriction; specifically - the number of words allowed in each sentence follow the Fibonacci sequence.
Paragraph One: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55
Paragraph Two: 34, 21, 13, 8, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1
Thanks to
for the inspiration. I recommend reading her most recent Substack for her Fibonacci story; including her comments for even more examples!! (Like mine above, but with an alternate ending!)1It was fun, writing sentences with fixed word counts. Let me challenge you to do the same! Share a link to your version in the comments below :) Or your version, it’s only 231 words!!
The last two words of this story, I keep changing, which ending do you think hits better? The above, or the below:
“…I don’t care. He’s fine. Greedy. Ungrateful.”
Really like this, Wil. I especially like how many of the sentences are phrased as questions, which sort of diminishes the guilt of the situation. I found this to be very effective, and wonder if there's a couple more places where you could rephrase into questions.
I love the green light in P2 so much that I'd love to see it in P1 with yellow/red.
I like the ending “…I don’t care. He’s fine. [????]. Standing.”
For me, "standing" is so powerful to end on because it implies this justification--see, he is getting by enough, see, he is standing, but on the other hand, just standing is not really that great, is it? It's not thriving.
Greedy/Ungrateful/Constant feel a bit abstract for me, but if I had to choose, I'd pick "ungrateful".
All in all, a relatable conundrum written both vividly and within the restrictions! Great work!
Ooooh. I'ma try this technique. Thanks for sharing. 😋