I started a challenge to write a story that is exactly 50 words! Thank you, Boy with a Hat. Not that he set up a formal challenge, but it was his idea. And his writing is worth checking out. So please click the link and check out what he’s up to.

So how to proceed? This week I set aside my character inspiration, Dorothy Astoria’s The Name Book. For Week 5, I got inspired by a conversation I had with a pre-med college student.

The couple discussed motivating the vaccine hesitant base.

“Asymptomatic seems so sterile,” she said.

“Limited to one,” he said. “Private.”

“Personal.”

“We should go back to ‘Carrier’.” 

“Like Typhoid Annie and Salmonella Sally?”

“How about Covid Coyotes?”

“Yes! More dangerous in groups.”

“Smuggling danger across personal borders.”

Cock-a-hooped, they agreed.

That was super-fun and challenging. I’m sure name calling won’t really inspire anyone to do anything at all. Still, it was fun to think about a carrier of a disease as a sort of coyote, smuggling viruses around the country.

Wednesdays will be my Fifty day at least on and off again. I do have a lot of words blowing around inside of me.

I’m not sure if I can hold off writing about other things. I can’t leave thoughts trapped up there in my brain, can I? Well, this week, I did manage to boil a whole essay down to 50 words. Maybe I can be more succinct!