Other stories for this prompt

I stare at the row of perfect houses resting on the perfectly manicured lawns beneath a perfectly blue sky by perfectly green trees. I am surrounded by perfection, but I have not been given it.
Sometimes I wonder why I'm doing this.
I bend down to the ground. There is a ball lying there, perfectly out of place. I pick it up. My son could've played with this ball. He would have been good at sports, I'm certain. Slowly I curl my fingers around it, and feel the perfectly creased leather, shiny with memories of sunny afternoons and perfect throws...

I found the ring on the bowling green. Slipped in my back pocket for later as I was in the middle of the tournament. Forgotten after the many rounds of congratulatory drinks. Left on the bedroom chair at night. Fallen out in the morning and rolled under the bedcovering to be found by a very suspicious wife the following day.

She didn't believe my explanation - that I had no idea where it had come from. Her catalogue of resentments opened and recited in a monologue, devoid of tone or expression. I packed my suitcase and went to stay with...

Set down the light
set it down anywhere

The pure clean of a random weeknight on the coach staring at the white ceiling. So many balls in the air so much that I can not control. I have given control to others.

It is my human condition.

I will set this ball here on this perfectly lit field. Void of trouble. Maybe someday I will throw it to you and wonder, as I lay here in this white clean apartment,

will you throw it back?

She knew that she would find him here. It was his escape, the place he came to find peace. It was quiet and he was rolling up alone, up and down the rink. first with the jack, then with his favourite woods, he never tired of it.

'Dad!' she called.

'Hello, Nicola. I won't be a moment.'

She watched as he bent slowly and lifted his woods, tucking them into the crook of his arm. he slipped the jack into his pocket and patted is to make sure it was safe. According to Dad, you couldn't leave a jack lying...

There is a place, near where I used to live, that looked like this - you see it, right there? It's a bowling green. Not the bowling you and I would do, the bowling that belongs to another age. Mostly the elderly.

There were, in fact, two near me - high amusement, I can tell you, since we came to the conclusion that one had decided it was a rival for the other. And that said other had no idea that it existed. That this perceived rivalry would fuel them entirely, even though the other lived in blissful ignorance of...

The storm clouds gathered as Isaiah stepped back to the edge of the green.

The weather mirrored his mood: top ten was not enough. Podium finishes were not enough. Second place was NOT ENOUGH. He was the BEST, and he was going to prove it to the world once again.

A soft pitter-patter of raindrops began to sprinkle down upon the aged lawn bowler's wispy-haired head. He ignored its effect on his body, blinking the water out of his eyes, but he factored it in for his movements, making subtle adjustments to his stride, his footing, and his release. He...

"Of all the times my back has to go out, it decides to do it with a freaking hurricane coming," Susan fumed. "I haven't even had time to board up the windows or glue down the silverware."
The dark storm clouds crept closer and closer and closer to her home.
"Why is that godforsaken mailbox so far from the house?" she cried, needing to focus her frustration at being completely helpless on something, on anything.
Susan tried to stretch out her back, tried to stand up, but the pain snapped at her lower back lips whips. She cried out, hoping...

The lone zombie shambled toward the clubhouse, where we watched, armed with nine irons and pitching wedges. I turned to Adam and said, "Par three, buddy."

"You're on, Sev," Adam replied, and grabbed a bucket of balls, ran out to the porch, and teed up.

His swing was a bit off, and he hooked it, but the ball stayed on the fairway. Not bad, considering the threat of gruesome zombie death that potentially loomed.

"Okay, this time I got him!" Adam shouted, and teed up another ball.

This time, his shot was picture-perfect, and the ball whizzed through the air,...

Bocci. Bocci ball. Bowling on a lawn. That's what I was doing in that old photo. But strange. Usually you bowl with other people. Usually there's markings on the ground, a target ball to shoot from. In the photo, I'm just standing there in the middle of the lawn, facing the house. My house? God, I don't know whose house that is. It could be a field house, or a club house, and I'm playing bocci, a game I don't know how to play, have never, as far as I'm aware, ever played before in my life, and I'm hunched...