Gold Rings

By Ashley L., Illinois

175-Word Micro Story Contest Winner - 9-12th Grades


The funny thing about tradition is its correlation with an old repetitive behavior. A special sequence passed down from your great-great-great-grandmother twice removed, who you couldn't even begin to guess the name of, but for some reason, you wear her thin, gold, rusted, ring on a chain around your neck. Given to the first-born girl for six generations, it happened into your hand on your 11th birthday, but for some reason feels special. A couple more owners and it's just a gold shimmer on a chain, desperately holding onto its history through grainy, blurry, tearing photos shoved in a water-damaged box. So impersonally personal to each hand that holds it as the previous possessor clasps it around the next. The original story of the ring will never be told or remembered again but the feeling of having the ring around her neck provides a singular purpose of importance as tradition isn't defined by machine-like repetition but rather maintaining an ideology of personal significance to the withholder.

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