Write a small story that describes the parts of an object or characteristics and memories of a person, in order to tell a story or reach a conclusion about a certain character, just as the fading parts of this rose imply a history of aging and weather without words—by showing, not telling. The House on Mango Street, Esperanza vicariously describes her family by describing her house.
Example:
Red Tennis Shoes
Every month, my mother tells me to throw out my red tennis shoes.
They’re about two sizes too small (left over from tenth grade, because tenth grade was the best year, this liminal space where you weren’t the school baby and you didn’t have to worry about WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO DO FOR THE NEXT FOUR YEARS because God knows that’s too much responsibility, and all you need to worry about is whether you’ll get an A or a B, or whether you look better with a red or pink lip.)
One shoe’s lacings have been torn into frayed ribbons (because of my brother’s dog who mistook my shoes for his red ball, and I would say that it was stupid except for the fact that he often couldn’t recognize one thing from another, like my handwriting from my mom’s or fun from fulfilling, and yet you know she still loved both of them for their eyes)
They’re still covered in dirt stains (from the time we went camping in the Appalachians and I saw trees burst into photosynthetic flame for the first time, and the image of a ring of massive trees blossoming into red around a stagnant lake is still so sharp)
Every night I go to the trash to throw them out, I turning back to the house in the distance with its laughing yellow light, dangling their relieved weight from my hands.
-Constance