I was sorting through old papers recently and came upon a short piece that I wrote many years ago. It got left behind in a dusty old file. It seems to be a story waiting to be told. But what kind of story would it be? Is it a murder mystery? Or the tale of dysfunctional family secrets? Occult? Horror?
What do you think? I would be interested to find out what kind of story readers see here? What narrative can I weave for you? Your thoughts might lead to my next book.
One of Rachel’s earliest memories was of the bruises on the floor. They were reddish-brown, staining the wood like blotchy birthmarks. Her mom had a birthmark on her leg, but it was perfectly round—a big brown dot. These were more like puddled ink blots scattered here and there on the smooth hardwood. When Rachel asked her mom about these strange marks, she was told that the scarred floors were the handiwork of careless tenants in the time before daddy bought the house.
Some years later glossy white tiles were carefully laid over the original hardwood. The old bruises were forgotten. Friends and family would come to visit, their shoes slipping, scraping, and clicking across the tile. They would sink into the stuffed green sofa chairs, drink tea from china cups, and gossip.
Rachel couldn’t forget about the bruises. Every day she could feel them pulsing under her feet. They had seeped into her soul, darkly staining where they dripped.
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