Since the summer of 2009, National Public Radio (NPR) has been inviting listeners to submit original stories to their Three-Minute Fiction contest. As the name implies, the stories are intended to be read in three minutes or less, which means they should be between 500 and 600 words long. As you may know, stories this short are considered to be flash fiction. Winning entries are read on the air and published on the NPR website.


Each round of the contest offers writers a particular prompt or rule to follow. Round 8 of the contest required every story to begin with the following sentence:

"She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door."

The Round 8 winner, 'Rainy Wedding' by Carrie MacKillop, depicts a terminally ill child whose mother tells him the story of the major events in his life -- like going through school, getting a job, and meeting his future wife -- so that he gets a chance to "live" them from his bed.

The Beauty of the Ordinary

In the narrative the mother creates for her son, he lives a successful, happy, but not unusual life. He becomes an architect -- not, for example, the first astronaut to visit Mars. The normalcy of her story helps underscore the devastation of her son's anticipated death. He (and she) will miss the opportunity to participate in the ordinary milestones that so many of us get to take for granted.

The mother laces the story with sweet details, the kind that might not impress other people but that the participants will cherish forever.

For instance, the son meets his fiancée when she loses her purse on a rainy day in Manhattan.

Because this is flash fiction, we certainly don't see all of the details she includes, but it's clear that she's giving the story of her son's life as much texture as she can. After all, the difference between "you won't be able to go to school" and "you did go to school" is all in the details.

Why the Rain?

MacKillop's story takes place on the son's wedding day. Interestingly, the mother tells the son it's likely to rain at 4:00 p.m., exactly when the ceremony is scheduled. It's her story. She could have given him sunshine if she wanted, but she chooses not to.

The rain does give her a chance to add festive, endearing details. For instance, after the maid of honor gets her hair done, she stops to buy mud boots for the wedding party. Halfway through the ceremony, the bride asks her best friend to cut off her wedding dress at the knee because it has absorbed so much muddy water.

But more importantly, the rain allows the mother to use her story not just to give her son experiences, but to give him the wisdom that comes from those experiences. Having it rain on his wedding day helps teach him what's important, not by telling him, but by having him experience it himself.

The Book

The contrast between the required prompt ("She closed the book …") and what happens in MacKillop's story is striking.

On one side of the door is the printed word -- a text that has already been written and completed. It's a lot like the script that the mother and father thought their child's life would follow -- "all the world their little man would devour" -- before he became ill.

But the mother closes the book, because that side of the door isn't for her. She has to go to the other side, the side of shared oral traditions, the side where she races against the clock to complete her story in time for the only listener who matters to hear it.