This writing sample is from my hybrid chapbook Green Light: A Gatsby Cycle. It’s Chapter VII, one of my favorites.
“Nope.” After a pause, he added “sir” in a dilatory, grudging way.
That he even thought to say sir was something. You’d think that would have been ripped from him by now, left behind at his mother’s house. When you’re struggling on your own, it doesn’t make much sense to waste your breath on politeness.
This was the tenth job he’d been rejected from. He had no experience applying or interviewing, but luckily this small town had no need for those formalities. Ask if they’re hiring and the clerk pages the manager. The manager already knows who you are and when your father left.
After the first conversation, they know even more. Word travels fast in a small town, especially if it’s about someone down on his luck. But the managers still pretend. They ask your permanent address, which you don’t give. They ask if you’re in school, to which you say “Nope. Sir.”
No, sorry. We don’t have any openings now. Check back in a few months.
He won’t be here in a few months.
He dreamed of leaving but never knew how to make it happen. He had nothing going for him, but his mother pushed him out of the nest anyway. Mother knows best.
He had taken books and notebooks out of his backpack and stacked them on the bed. He didn’t know what else to do with them. He needed the backpack, but he needed those books like he needed a hole in the head. Actually, that sounded better.
He felt a tickle of guilt as he packed the clothes his mother had bought for him, but she hadn’t asked him not to. It wasn’t like she had another use for them. He didn’t have much, anyway. Which would be a good thing, since he’d be carrying his dresser on his back.
He had hoped to find a job quickly, and then find someone renting a room. But he wasn’t finding a job, and he’d never be able to walk to the next town before nightfall.
He waited until the bus stopped running and stretched out on the bench at the bus stop as he had the night before. In the morning he’d board the bus for the next town and try his luck there.
Sleep didn’t come to him that night. He felt nauseous, maybe because he hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours, or maybe because he was so close to leaving. The dust that was in his father’s and grandfather’s blood wasn’t enough to tie him to this land. No, what those men had done won out after all—he was leaving. Instead of leaving behind a wife and children, he was leaving behind his mother. But he still felt like a child. Even though he grew up in a harsh, unforgiving town, he still had been very sheltered.
He had nothing and needed everything. He’d never make it on his own.
Every time his brain quieted for a second and sleep snuck up on him, he would think, “This is hopeless. I am hopeless.” The situation felt like quicksand, where what had seemed like the easy way out was pulling him under.
His mother went into his room when she got off of work. She expected to see him even though she heard him leave the night before. Instead, she saw a pile of books on the bed. Like he had left the pile of her hopes and dreams for him.
She didn’t feel regret over making him leave. She felt tired and older than her years. She didn’t feel capable of supporting him if he didn’t pull his own weight. She knew part of that was her fault; she should have let him get a job. But she had wanted more for him. Was that such a crime?
She didn’t want him to come back. She didn’t want to apologize. She just wanted everything to be different.
A coworker mentioned she had seen him sleeping at the bus stop. The next morning, she rose early so she could drive the long way to work. She wasn’t going to stop; she just wanted to see him with her own eyes.
The bus stop was empty.
Lightning Flash Writing 
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