Mark slid next to his wife and kissed her awake.

“We got the contract!”

“We did? How in the world…”

“I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“But we’ll have to double the size of our company!”

“You’re the master of the art of hiring people.”

“Not anymore. I quit!”

She sees the approaching storm in her rear view mirror. Her heart sinks. There’s only so much she can take. As she thinks about all she can’t leave behind, the soul wind begins to blow.  She gets caught in the drift and sees rippling green leaves like a ticker-tape parade.

Her shoes click clack down a city street. She reviews her resignation letter, lets her thumb hover over the send button.  At the corner a pretzel vendor says to a customer, “Don’t hang on too tight or you’ll lose it. It’s right outta the oven.” She looks up and laughs.

[A mini-saga is a story that is exactly 50 words long. And in case you're wondering, it is much harder to write one than it looks. It's a great exercise even if it does make me feel like a teenager cranking out crappy poetry again. Try it sometime. ]

The other day I found out about the mini-saga, which is a story that is exactly 50 words long, with a title no longer than 15 words. I thought I’d give it a try. It’s a true story that happened to me today (and will spare you the usual 350-500 word post. So here goes:

The First Day Of School

Her first four tennis serves were in this morning. Amazing. Her serve normally sucks. Today all four of her children are away at school all day after almost 18 years of daily caretaking, fretting, and sacrificing. Tears fall down her face as the metaphor of the four tennis serves sinks in.