Day 74: 5 Minute Freewrite - Prompt: Callous

Everything was great, except that old Mr.Jenkins (cliched I know) who was always so grumpy. He's been grumpy as long as Little Timmy knew him! His parents would tell him to stay away from that man.

"That man is a callous man, stay away from him" they would say.

"What happened to him?" Little Timmy would ask.

"It's none of your business, he's been like that since Mrs.Jenkins passed a few years ago", they said with a slight sadness in their eyes.

Little Timmy being Little Timmy couldn't leave it alone. So, one day, Little Timmy decided to follow Old Man Jenkins around town.

As early as 4am, Old Man Jenkins would hike towards the mountains. Just as he reached the edge of the mountains, there were some old shovels and spades.

"This crazy old man is trying to dig his way through the mountain!" Little Timmy thought as he saw the old man start digging and digging.

Little Timmy waited and waited until he fell asleep.

"What are you doing here?! It's dangerous out in the wild" the old man said as he nudged the boy with a stick.

"I'd like to ask you the same question" Little Timmy responded.

The old man sighed and sat down next to Little Timmy. As he came closer, Timmy could see this man's callused hands.

"You see, my wife died 10 years ago. She could have been saved but the journey around the mountain to the closest hospital took too long. I don't want anybody to go through what I'm going through. So, I'm digging a path through the mountain."

"Is that why you're so grumpy everyday?" Little Timmy asked with shock and wonder.

"Give an old man a break would you, I'm literally moving mountains here!" Old Man Jenkins said with what almost passed as a smile. But that slight smile was enough to make this old man radiate. From then on, Little Timmy spread the news and the village came to help him.

Not a format I would normally write, but just experimenting. I'm always reluctant to put conversations in stories because I don't know how else to do it than "he said, she said".

I initially thought of this story because I confused Callous and Callus so I decided to use both. I also wanted to use this story because its actually inspired by a true story that I think everyone should know. It is the story of an old Indian man that literally moved mountains to save his village - check it out here

The story above is for the Daily 5 Minute Free Write challenge by @improv and @mariannewest. It's quite a fun challenge, especially when using a tool like THE MOST DANGEROUS WRITING APP which was introduced by @maverickfoo. The app forces you to continuously write for the set amount of time or everything you wrote will disappear after a few seconds! Try it out!