AWM Story of the Week

Every week, the AWM is excited to bring you stories written by our visitors in our Story of the Day exhibit. Check back weekly for new stories, and visit the Museum to try out our typewriters and possibly be featured here!

This story was just too interesting to pass up. We want to know what happens next! Feel free to write what you think the next scene would be in the comments below.

At the bottom of the hill there lived a dangerous girl. She thought scary thoughts and said frightful things.

Her grandfather wondered if there was something inside of her that could be removed by certain methods passed down by his grandfather, and the grandfathers before.

At a certain time on a certain night he fed her a disgusting paste and waited for something to emerge.

But nothing did. She awoke and was angry.

“You think I will unbecome so easily?”

Her anger frightened her grandfather.

“I apologize,” he said.

Next the girl’s mother tried to take her to a smooth-talker, a thing-sayer. The mother thought she could talk her daughter out of her ways.

But the talking man’s words slipped off the girl like oil off water.

“I am staying this way,” the girl said.

Finally, the girl’s father thought he knew what must be done.

He prepared the elements. He would burn the fight out of her, replace the fire with ice.

But she came home early and saw what he was planning to do.

“What’s inside me cannot be burned or frozen,” she said, spitting at his feet. “What would you have me be?”

“A woman,” her father replied. “Like your mother, and my mother, and all the mothers before.”

“I cannot fault you your desire,” said his daughter in reply. “But you should have no fear. I will bear your grandchildren, and I will make a home.”

“It will be a sinful home,” her father said.

The girl considered this. “If you are not there to call it so,” she said slowly, “it could never be.”

And so she took the sulfur and the wood and the fuel he had laid out on the table for her, and burned him clear away.