Remember Red Prompt from Write on Edge. This week is PERSONIFICATION. The dictionary defines personification as “the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.”
This week, tell a piece of your story from the point of view of an object who bore witness– 400 words or less. For your own prompt and link up visit: Write on Edge, Remember Red.
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Here I sit in the cold again. I’ve seen it all –cold, heat, sun, rain, and snow. But I don’t even care. You see, I’m just an old yard pump now. Oh, in my day they depended on me for water. Really, I’m that old. After the grandma sold the farm I went with her family to the next house and they only used me for my looks. The middle son, Ernie, took care of me after awhile because his mother thought I would look nice in his flower bed. She was right, for I looked grand. Ernie painted me blue. Nice! When he pained me yellow, I felt like a ray of sunshine all year long. I sat in his flower bed for a lot of years in two different homes. The family reminisced about grandma and the farm house when they sat in the lawn chairs looking at me standing there like a yard guard.
Then came grandsons. They played with my handle, up and down till I thought that part of me would break. Boys will be boys. Ernie would toss small fireworks in my direction at least once a year. Being a hard piece of metal I guess they thought I could take it. Wrong!
After awhile I didn’t see Ernie much. His kids were grown and the grandkids didn’t play with my handle anymore. One day a big black car pulled into his driveway and I never saw him again. His daughter, Mary, pulled me out of the ground and I landed in her yard right beside the garage. Often she’d sit on her porch and look at me. She cried sometimes. Without warning a few years later, I didn’t see her anymore, and I was pulled out of the ground and laid on my side for a long time. One day she appeared again and took me on a long ride. Lo and behold I was stuck in another yard. Mary had a gigantic dog at that house. Whew, I’m glad it was a female! Then Mary disappeared and something bad must have happened in the house because everything got moved out. What would become of me? Almost a year later she came back for me. Happy! I’m with Mary and somehow I know she is a part of Ernie, and I know that Ernie is a part of Grandma who started it all.
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Thanks for stopping by to read this. This is not the same writing I started out with. My first one was not the correct prompt for the correct day. If you notice some of the comments don’t match this topic, that’s why. Hope it’s not too confusing. The title is for the other piece I wrote, but it sort of fits. And yes, the photo is the same pump now painted white. I feel like it’s a part of me.
UPDATE on this reblog. Yes, the old hand pump is still in my backyard and I see it from where I’m sitting right now. It’s surrounded with snow and kind of blends in, but I know it’s there and why.
Mary J. McCoy-Dressel 
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