As John, 34, walks to his job at six in the morning, holding his briefcase and in a rush to get there. His wife, Helen, awaits him at home, pregnant. 

John’s phone suddenly rings, he stops in his tracks, hesitant to pick up the phone. Helen is in her ninth month of pregnancy and she’s due any time soon. His excitement peers through him, as he’s always telling his coworkers and everyone around him how happy he is to be a father. 

He picks up the phone. At first a loud ring pops in his ear. Followed by his briefcase collapsing on the ground and spilling open. His eyes widen and he clutches his chest. 

John falls to the ground on his knees, distraught in utter disbelief. His mind is still not fully processing what he just heard. 

His whole world collapsed in front of him, he has lost everything that gave his life meaning. 

He saw his future with Helen and their child, and all of that was gone now. 

He was frozen, unable to move, the public around him staring all perplexed with what he might be experiencing. Everyone moves on pretty quickly. 

John gets up and starts walking back to his car, he starts to ball, the tears don’t stop. 

Rationale: Nothing inspired the story. I just went with the flow of my thoughts at the moment. I was mainly thinking about writing something tragic which would grab the reader’s attention. I created this story for one of the class prompts in which we describe the emotions of a character in a devastating scene without any dialogue. I didn’t encounter or experience any challenges while writing this piece. I hope that the reader can see and understand how people’s lives can change drastically in such a short amount of time and how people may react to hearing heartbreaking news for the first time.