Booking Through Thursday Writing Challenge

• Pick up the nearest book. (I’m sure you must have one nearby.)
• Turn to page 123.
• What is the first sentence on the page?
• The last sentence on the page?
• Now . . . connect them together….
  (And no, you may not transcribe the entire page of the book–that’s cheating!)

Wendell Berry’s The Memory of Old Jack has this as the first sentence of page 123: “The death of the old doctor did not change her life — a fact that the town found more enduringly worthy of notice and comment than any change it might have made.”

And the last sentence is, “One walked between two huge mock orange bushes inside the gate and emerged deep in flowers.”

• Option 1: “She” murdered “the old doctor.” Thus between the first sentence and the last, the townspeople of Port William have bumped her off too, and she’s buried in a cemetery filled with flowers.
• Option 2:  The “old doctor” was her husband, and “she,” quite sufficient in herself, continued to live in her cottage inside an Edenic garden “deep in flowers.” It was so filled with flowers that the townspeople talked about it all the time. Finally they sent photos to Organic Gardening, and the town became famous.
• Option 3: “The death of the old doctor” really did affect “her,” monstrously, privately, behind closed doors. This is why the townspeople didn’t know it. Until one day she went berserk in the town square, the entrance to which was bordered by “two huge mock orange bushes inside the gate and [from which one] emerged deep in flowers.” Who’d have expected it, in such a peaceful pastoral setting?

Disclaimer: one of these is perilously close to the actual story… can you guess which one?