Week 1: Storytelling Again of Doctor Foster

There once was a young man named Francis D. Foster who grew up in a small town called Gloster. As far as young boys go, Francis was particularly skinny and very clumsy. The whole town called him by the nickname of Footloose Foster because he always tripped on things whenever he was walking down the street. Eventually, Francis became fed up with this nickname and decided to prove to the whole town that he could become something useful! He was very smart, but unfortunately his small town did not have the proper training in the subject which would hopefully deliver him from his horrible nickname, medicine.

When he became old enough, Francis moved away to the big city to become a doctor. For years, he studied hard and worked two jobs to pay for his schooling until finally, ten years later, he gained enough experience to open up his own practice. But, not forgetting the citizens of his hometown and their years of mockery they put him through, he returned to show them his success. When he showed up he had expected everyone to immediately recognize him and he would gloat in all their amazement at his triumphs! But, like for most of his life, people simply did not notice. In fact, even when he would announce that he was Dr. Francis D. Foster, people had no idea who he was.

For days, he talked to everyone he could find to see if they remembered Francis Foster, but he had no luck. On his final day of his trip, the annual town garden festival started. Thinking that there had to be someone there that remembered him, he planned to make an announcement at the big championship banquet in front of the whole town. Though this was at its core a very well- thought out plan, there was one part that had alluded Francis. It had been raining all day long, and he was so distracted by his grand plan that he had forgotten all about his tendency to trip in front of large crowds. When the time came to make his announcement, poor Dr. Foster walked up to the stage, tripped on a rock, and fell face first into a giant puddle! Then, all at once, the town recognized him and all shouted out "It's Dr. Footloose Foster!" and pointed and laughed. The doctor, finally accepting that in his hometown, he would always be seen as a clumsy little boy, pointed his body toward the big city and walked all the way there, only tripping two or three times.

The End.

Puddle Hopping by T. Keller. Wikimedia

Author's Note: 

This story was inspired by the nursery rhyme, Doctor Foster. The rhyme originally went as follows: Doctor Foster went to Glo'ster in a shower of rain; He stepped in a puddle, up to his middle, And never went there again. 

I decided to take this story as it was and continue to let my story be as odd and sad. The original work can be found using the info in the bibliography.

Bibliography:

T. Eden Keller. Flickr. CC-BY-2.0 Wikimedia Commons. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0