In just six words

I never liked Hemingway. Odd then, that one of the first conversations that my husband and I ever had was about Hemingway. My disdain of the man, his near obsession with the man. Knowing how stubborn we both are, and how we don't like to bend on our opinions, it is a miracle we ever spoke after the Hemingway conversation.

I do share a love of polydactyl cats with Papa though. There is one thing that he wrote that has touched me, his famous six word story, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Even Papa himself called those six words his best work. Ever. Since reading those six words years ago, I have become a bit obsessed with six word stories and memoirs. I have two collections of six word memoirs and I comb the internet regularly for more. For every six word story that touches me, there are 100 that are weak. I have tried for years to come up with my own six word story, and I just can't.

Here are just a few that I really like.

With bloody hands, I say good-bye.- Frank Miller

I fell in Love. He didn't. —Helena Bradford

Nine months, eighteen years...wasn't mine.—Ásgeir Jóhannsson