Welcome to the final week of the Spring Writing Challenge!
It’s the final week! This has been such a fun challenge. You’ve all done so well with your stories. There are so many interesting and unique ways you have taken the prompt. It’s now time for the final week, so let’s do this one last time! We can’t wait to see what you come up with.
So, without further ado, here’s your final prompt!
Week Six Prompt – The Character Prompt
Write a story about a character that experiences a rebirth
Wait…what’s a character prompt?
A character prompt is a prompt that’s about a specific character. It doesn’t matter where your story takes place or what’s said. What matters is that your story must be about a character who experiences a rebirth.
Before you start writing, we have some important rules for you to follow.
Writing Rules
1. Please keep the content of the stories you post to a PG rating. Please avoid real curse words. Violence/fighting should be limited and purposeful. Please do not include any spice.
2. Your story must be 1,000 words or less, and must contain the prompt to be counted for the challenge. You’re not required to post it in order to “win” the challenge, but if you want it to count for your team, your story must be posted by Sunday at 11:59 PM ET, and you must include your team name.
Remember to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and post your story as an “answer” to this question, not a “comment”. 🙂 You’re all doing such a great job! I’m so proud of all the stories you’ve posted.
Happy Writing!
We’re so glad that you participated Juli! 🙂
(Team 1)
The Shower
Just days after my twenty-first birthday I was on a plane to Russia. At that time Russia was still part of the Soviet Union and not an easy place to visit as an American. But that’s the kind of thing that seems entirely plausible when you’re twenty-one. While studying Russian language during my junior year in college, I met a student from another university who was putting together a group to spend January term traveling around Russia: Moscow, St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad), and Irkutsk, Siberia. Siberia in January. Why not? We were led through the process of applying for our visas while all of the arrangements were made for our airfare, train tickets, and booking at state-sanctioned hotels. It was a complicated process.
Days before our departure we learned that the faculty adviser who was supposed to be traveling with us had been denied a visa by the U.S.S.R. So…we went by ourselves. An eager group of college students with a little bit of Russian language under our belts and some warm jackets and gloves. To Russia. In January.
From the beginning it was a crazy adventure. We were never entirely sure that we were not going to be arrested. Because we had no adult supervision, various ones of us tended to wander off to places that the Soviet government surely would have disapproved of had it been aware. Most of us did not really know each other. We were from two different schools and, if we had met at all, it was only in Russian class. We were a sit-com worthy collection of personalities. The young man who had organized the trip was annoyingly arrogant and relentlessly bossy — qualities which undoubtedly qualified him well to lead our group, although “lead” is a bit of an overstatement. The person I knew best was a shy student from my Russian class who was so quiet that I think I’d ever heard her speak in class twice. One of the young women from the other school was the daughter of a famous movie star. She had by far the most expensive luggage and the least practical boots. Did no one explain to her that it would be 30 below zero in Siberia?
For my part, I had very practical boots—being a Maine girl—and very impractical goals. I was seeking a revelation, a calling, an angelic visitation, a rebirth. What better place than the snow-covered home of the great iconographers to have a vision of God?
Moscow was full of wonders. St. Basil’s Cathedral, Red Square, the Kremlin. St. Petersburg was spectacular. The Winter Palace, the Hermitage, the Kirov Ballet. Such exotic beauty juxtaposed with the frigid ugliness of Soviet-era architecture and the poverty of Soviet life — I was enthralled. But my hope for divine insight was set upon the Trans-Siberian.
The Trans-Siberian Railroad traverses the continent from Moscow in the west to Vladivostok in the east, a distance of nearly 6,000 miles over eight time zones. Our little group, however, was only going as far as Irkutsk, near Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia — a four day journey. My longing was to spend those four days figuring out what I was on earth to do. I imagined it as a meditative quest, rocked by the musical rhythm of the train in motion, imbibing inspiration from the vast landscape like a hummingbird feeding on nectar.
Well, if you’ve never spent four uninterrupted days on a train, let me tell you — it’s an assault on the senses. The sour smell of Russian cigarette smoke and body odor saturated everything. The only escape from the smell was in between train cars where one could get a freezing cold breath of fresh air while passing into the next car. The end of each car featured a samovar of hot water and a tiny bathroom with a sink so narrow and shallow that hands could barely fit under the spout. Since there was no plug for the sink drain, there was no way to collect any water for bathing. A handkerchief soaked in water was the only hope of washing anything.
In spite of the smells, the views were breathtaking. The narrow hallway outside the sleeping compartments was lined from end to end with windows and a railing to lean against. At intervals, petite wooden benches could be folded down to sit on. Hour upon hour, I perched at these windows gazing out at white expanses so vast as to swallow me whole. Miles and miles were marked by silver birch trees stenciled against the pristine blanket of snow, perfectly still as our train trundled past, one mile at a time. I was humbled by the beauty. Truly. But it wasn’t…transcendent. And as the days wore on, my desire for revelation was overpowered by my dreams of a hot bath.
When we finally arrived in Irkutsk, it was well after dark and well below -20 degrees Fahrenheit. As we wearily dragged ourselves into our hotel room, my roommate threw her suitcase on the floor and flopped onto the bed without even removing her coat. I, on the other hand, could hear the shower calling my name, and I didn’t hesitate. It was an unadorned white-tiled bathroom with the toilet on one side and an open shower on the other. The shower was nothing but a spout protruding from the wall, a control knob, and a drain in the floor. As soon as I turned the knob, piping hot water sprang forth, filling the room with steam. I planted myself under the fountain of steaming water, unable to move. My entire body melted into pure joy. Hundreds of showers in my life, and I had never, never been so deliriously happy, so perfectly content, so profoundly renewed.
And, for everything that I beheld and learned in Russia that January, the one thing I will never forget, is that shower.
So funny Isabella! Is this a true story?
Yes, true 🙂
When the new prompt arrive, my first thought is, Oh no! What am I going to write to make that work? But the Holy Spirit ALWAYS shows up and I get an idea every time. It amazes me. Thanks for a thought provoking six weeks.