doitwrite

[doitwrite]

Prompt: to write a creative story based on a photo of a little girl holding a jump rope on a playground)

The Playground

“Here we are…finally.” There were kids there. Screaming, laughing, playing on the grass. Isabel glared at her mother, coming to a dead stop outside of the black metal gate.

“Don’t wanna.” Isabel didn’t like other kids. They were too loud and never wanted to share their toys, and frankly, neither did she. Her mother shook her head wearily, dragging Isabel forward towards a park bench with an expression of long-suffering determination that only people who raised difficult pets or children could wear properly. The gravel path that wound through the park made an unpleasant grating sound beneath the soles of Isabel’s sneakers, startling a squirrel from the bushes. It shimmied up the side of a tree, scuttling up the bark in a series of quick, nervous movements as an icy draft blustered through. The branches, drooping with thick green leaves, bent for a moment, descending on the animal and concealing it from view. Isabel waited, but it didn’t emerge again. Sighing, her mother rubbed a hand over slightly bloodshot eyes and sank down onto the bench. It sagged under her weight with a quiet squeal of protest.

“Just…please. Go jump rope or something. Maybe you can ask that girl for hers when she’s done playing.” Her mother pointed at a girl with pigtails jumping rope on the turf beside the playground, kicking up dust from the bare spots where no grass grew to cover the parched soil. The park was in a sorry state, with tarnished metal benches and a field that was patchy from being trampled under hundreds of feet. The only thing that looked new about it was the jungle gym made out of eye-catchingly garish bright red and blue plastic towering at its center. Kids swarmed over it like termites on an anthill, scrambling up the rock wall and swinging from the monkey bars like clumsy, overly energetic acrobats.

Isabel pouted, turning away to watch a man on a bench nearby slump forward, eyes fluttering closed. His phone slipped out of his hand, hitting the pavement with a clack as he let out a quiet snore. All of the parents around were glued to their phones with bleary eyes or dozing lightly in positions that suggested they had drifted off without meaning to, heads lolling. Isabel wondered how they could sleep through the noise of pedestrians and traffic just outside of the park.

“No.” But her mother had already crossed her arms and closed her eyes, leaning her head back with a yawn. There was no point in whining any further. Isabel trudged away, circling around the edges of the playground, then paused. The ground here was soft. Like a wet sponge. Gross. She kicked at the dirt, stomping to a corner of the park, as far away from the other children and their parents as possible. Dropping to her knees, she reached down and ripped up handfuls of the grass at the base of the metal railing, relishing the wet tearing sound they made as they came up and wrinkling her nose at the faint smell of copper that rose around her. If she had looked up, she would have seen that just outside the fence, people crossing the street and on the sidewalk were braced against a harsh wind that sent coats flapping and hair whipping. Within the park, the children giggled as they frolicked on the jungle gym, and their parents, all overcome with an inexplicable exhaustion, lay sprawled on the ground or across the benches. No wind disturbed their clothes or made them shiver with sudden cold. The grass did not ripple. The tree branches did not shake. The air was thick, and still.

All at once, the children were swallowed up.

A girl sank into the sandbox where she had been playing, vanishing with a whispering sound among the golden grains. A boy laughed as he dove headfirst down the plastic blue tube slide and did not reappear at the bottom. Twin children yelped as they lost their grips on monkey bars that had suddenly grown too slippery to hold. They fell, right through the wood chips on the ground and into the earth. The girl with the pigtails giggled as the rope went around under her feet, and a moment later it landed in the dirt, alone. The sounds of chatter stopped all at once, because there were no longer any children to make them.

The sudden silence split the air like an ax. Isabel jerked her head up, blindsided. The playground looked desolate with the sudden absence of kids. Where did they all go? Goosebumps rose on her skin, even though there was no wind. Her eyes darted to the unconscious adults. Why were they all sleeping? The cars and people just outside the fence were still going about their business, showing no sign that any of them had noticed anything amiss. Other than the sounds of her own rapid breaths, it was completely quiet. As if the world outside was a massive screen, and someone had turned off the volume. In a panic, Isabel spotted her mother asleep on the bench she’d collapsed on, a strand of hair that had fallen across her face fluttering with each snore. Isabel jerked herself up to her feet and started to run, desperate for the safety of her mother’s arms, to escape the sudden wrongness that had descended on this place that was supposed to be safe, that had other children laughing and playing in it mere seconds ago. Her feet were suddenly pulled from beneath her and she pitched forward, barely catching herself on her hands and knees. The girl’s jump rope from earlier had coiled itself around her ankles, like a thick white snake. Isabel clawed wildly at it with shaking fingers. Her vision was too blurred with terrified tears to notice it twitching as she loosened loop after loop. Unraveling the last snag with one last desperate jerk of the handles, she leapt to her feet.

But something was wrong.

The rope was taut in her hands. With a slow, uncomprehending dread, her teary eyes followed it  from her hands, frozen around the handles, to the dirt at her feet. The center of the cord was tethered to the ground, as if welded there. She merely stood, grounded by a disorienting confusion, blindly realizing that the handles were oddly warm and were quivering slightly in her fists—for a second too long. The rope jerked, as if the earth itself was playing tug-of-war with her. She stumbled forward. The ground before her feet opened up as the grass split open in a yawning maw of darkness. A picture from a book she’d read flashed into her mind, of a girl with yellow hair and a blue dress tumbling down, down, down into a pit after a white rabbit in a waistcoat. Isabel teetered on the edge of the hole, eyes wide and mouth open in noiseless terror. She could see that the sides of the hole were a fleshy pink color, wet and slimy-looking. A warm, wet wind rose up out of it. It smelled.

With a sickening certainty, she knew there was no tea party waiting for her at the bottom.

The ground closed up a moment later with a moist sound.

The grass suddenly looked a little greener and fuller, and the jungle gym had grown a new set of swings. The rusty patches on the benches shrunk and disappeared, and the seat beneath Isabel’s snoring mother straightened up, like new. The jump rope lay innocently on the ground, waiting. For a single moment before the adults began to stir awake, before the sounds of traffic returned to the air, before the trees resumed their feigned swaying in the wind, the park sat in heavy, satiated silence.

Unlike Isabel, it liked kids well enough.

#once again #I am in a bit of a dry spell #but I dug this out of my dusty old documents #this was part of an accepted arts-related application lol

[doitwrite]

One word prompt: holly

Holly, Jolly

It was kind of cute at first, the way the first little sprig of holly appeared in his apartment randomly. The first time he noticed a sprig he was in the bathroom brushing his teeth. He was leaning over to spit in the sink when a flash of red caught his eye. Slowly he turned to look, and there it was- a perfect holly plant, complete with perfectly round, unblemished ruby-red berries surrounded by prickly leaves in rich green. It was curled around the light fixture hanging next to the mirror, attached by a sparkly garland. Kind of weird, considering that he wasn’t the one that put them up and he lived alone with his cat Jumbo…it probably should have caused him more concern than it did, but then Jumbo leaned up to bat at it with one of her tiny paws, and he laughed and forgot about it.

The next sprig appeared a few days later. He was getting ready to go to bed, rolling over to turn the lamp off when his fingers touched something sharp. He hissed and jerked his hand back at the sting of pain, wincing as a drop of blood beaded at the tip of his index finger. Vivid and colorful against the washed-out white of the light switch cover was a small holly plant, curling around the switch like a tiny wreath. Cradling his injured hand, he squinted closely at the plant growing innocently out of the ugly graying wallpaper. There was a small dab of blood on the edges of the sharp leaves, and he swept off to the bathroom. When he came back warily with a freshly band-aid finger and a pair of scissors, he could have sworn that the plant had gotten just a little bit bigger. The berries, which had been a deep red, were so rich in color now that they seemed to glow in the weak light of his bedside lamp. Was he imagining things? Feeling silly for being scared of a little plant, he leans down and carefully starts to dig it out of the wall, making sure to avoid the pointed ends of the leaves. Jumbo watches him quietly, her pupils like huge black holes in the dimness of the bedroom.

A week after that he was in the kitchen, listening to the news. The sun was shining weakly through the winter clouds, barely managing to push its way through the blinds and into the cramped, stained dining table. He snorted at the joke of a government they were living under, then tipped a large sip of his coffee–black—down his throat. Swallow. A stabbing pain shot his eyes open, and the mug dropped from his hand. It clipped the edge of the tabletop with a dry sound and then fell to the floor. He barely registered the crack of the ceramic splitting apart on the tiled floor. It was as if he’d swallowed a handful of thumbtacks, something sharp raking down the soft flesh of his esophagus. He coughed, grabbing at his throat, his face starting to dampen and flush with panic as air refused to move down into his lungs.

#20 minutes #*dusts off prompt and drops it here* #sorry for not posting in a hot minute I've been going through it #It's Christmastime so you know what that means #obligatory holiday horror #I'd really like to re-vist this and like extend/rewrite it sometime

[doitwrite]

Prompt: write a piece trying to imitate the 3rd person narration from a book

She supposed that it was inevitable that this would come to pass eventually, as she stood there in the doorway with soggy bags of groceries watching her husband stare blankly into the television. Perhaps she had some inkling, some notion from the day they had wed beneath the gnarled oak tree in the church near the town square. A certain slowness about him, which although she had found endearing at first, quickly developed into outright irritation every time she saw that the toilet seat had been left up again or saw the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. She shot an ugly look at the back of his head, balding and situated on top of a soiled dress shirt with a wilting collar, as she heaved the bags onto the counter. The cans at the bottom of the bag rang out against the cracking counter, but he made no move to indicate that he had heard it. Good God! She still remembered when he would trip over his feet to help her with the smallest of menial tasks, opening doors of their shining new motorcar for her after they arrived amidst the rolling green hills of Astoria for their honeymoon, the sun winking off the fresh green paint and making her blink its its brilliance.

“APT dropped five points today,” droned the television, and she heard him swear quietly under his breath, then take a swig of his beer. And suddenly she hated it, the tiny kitchen with the leaky tap and the cracked windows they didn’t have the money to repair and most of all she hated him, with his dead ambitions and curled up dead and dry on the stained carpet, rolling among the carcasses of the dented beer cans.

#so this was a writing exercise for class #i kinda like how it came out so #sorry it's been a hot minute since I posted...I've been super busy and my creativity has been taking an indefinite vacation #I picked the narrator from “The Enduring Chill” which is what we were reading #this is the second time I've written about a disgruntled wife #I wonder what that says abt me

[doitwrite]

Prompt: "Person A: 'What on earth are you doing? Something legal I hope!' Person B: '…If that’s the case, then it’s probably for the best that I don’t answer that question.'"

9 to 5

Tralina couldn’t believe that this was the option they’d landed on, that after consulting a room full of experts the best plan they had was, apparently, to Mission Impossible this shit. The day really had just been one fuck up after another, first Jordans chewing her out in his office about how the department was falling behind in their quotas, then the incident with the the thing with that Hopper piece and that intern’s stupid caramel frappucino…

Her hands curled into fists as she stared at the painting of a beach on the wall. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

Behind her, Rembrandt coughed. She could imagine him tugging on his too-stiff collar and smiling nervously around the rest of the table.

“Um…thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for that presentation. Perhaps it would be best if you all stepped out for a moment and gave us some time to decide—”

The first few notes of a cheery melody rang out from her left hip, the side without the gun holster. Automatically Tralina dug around in the pocket for her phone, recognizing the opening to that anime One Piece when it looped again. She’d long since stopped being embarrassed at the anime ringtones that Rico had taken to setting for her contact. Seriously, once you’ve interrupted a meeting with the opening of K-On!, there was really no going back. Besides, she didn’t feel obligated to step out of the room when it was full of idiots who thought that the state-of-the-art security system of the Dynastic Monx Museum of Holograms could be fooled by lowering someone through a hole in the ceiling.

“Hi babe.”

Right on cue, behind her came a yelp and the sound of crashing. She turned to see one of the presenters (Terry? Jerry? She’d already forgotten his name) looking mortified, glasses askew as he scrambled to pick up the projector he’d knocked over. Tralina glared at Rembrandt out of the corner of her eye. Get these idiots out of my sight. 

She faced the wall again, tracing her eye over the crest of white foam along the waves in the painting. “Sorry about that.”

“What on earth are you doing? Something legal I hope!” Rico always sounded like she said everything through a huge smile, and Tralina instantly felt a little less pissed. Behind her she heard the scraping of chairs and hurried footsteps as Rembrandt ushered those good-for-nothing consultants out of the room.

 If only she knew. “...If that’s the case, then it’s probably for the best that I don’t answer that question.” She ignored the way her gut twisted briefly at the laugh that answered. “Kidding. That wasn’t me, anyway. Someone tripped.”

Rico thought that she was working some high-paying archival management position at British Museum, and Tralina would do everything in her power to keep it that way. “Head of Relic Appropriation” wasn’t the sort of thing you put on your Tinder profile, not if you wanted to show up to a first date and not have to constantly look over your shoulder for the police as you had a cookies and cream fro-yo.

The glass doors hissed shut, and it was quiet again. Tralina turned around and leaned against the wall, eyes straying across the abandoned meeting table and the half-finished cups of coffee on the table. Perhaps sensing her foul mood, Rico responded, a little hesitant. “Is this a bad time? Hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

“Nah, they just left. Honestly, I’m impressed that they were able to find the door by themselves, given the complete idiocy of the pitch I just heard.” 1996 called, they want their heist back. A dull pain was starting to radiate out from about her right eyebrow, the beginnings of a headache that would no doubt explode into the vice grip of a migraine by evening.

“Not everyone can keep up with your 200 point IQ, you know.” There was the sound of rustling plastic through the phone, and Tralina pictured Rico struggling with three bags of groceries on both arms because “only losers took more than one trip.” She’d told Rico over and over that they could simply order the stuff online, but bizarrely Rico seemed to enjoy the errand that was so hated that Instacart had almost their projected earnings the last quarter. A brief smile tugged at the corner of her lip, despite everything.

“Sorry. It…was an unproductive meeting.”

“Do you wanna talk about it? I just came back from the store...Oh yeah, and I also got those little Lebkuchen crackers you like so much. Not the ones in the blue packaging, though, because—”

“‘Those are the dry, shitty ones.’” They finished the sentence together. Tralina’s heart did something funny, like expand and contract at the same time.

The word thanks stuck in her throat, so before she did something stupid like start crying over German cookies she muttered, “I’ll tell you about it when I get home. I have to…wrap some stuff up.”

“That’s okay! See you at seven, then. Drive carefully.”

“I will.”

She was staring at the wall when Rembrandt peeked uncertainly into the room.

“Come in,” she said without looking up. He cleared his throat, and she heard him shuffle the papers on his padfolio.

“So, that was…not as great as we’d been hoping, obviously. I was thinking we should rethink our connections—” his voice suddenly dropped off. “Are you…crying?”

“No.” She realized with some genuine surprise that her face was wet. When did that happen? Wordlessly he materialized at her elbow with a box of tissues, and Tralina dabbed carefully at her face, hoping that her makeup wasn’t running. The last thing she needed was to be seen leaving the building looking like a racoon. Rembrandt might be jittery and have more than a bit of a problem with micromanagement, but it was moments like this that she remembered why he had been the only one who managed to keep his post as her secretary for longer than two months.

“Maybe you should leave early today,” he suggested, delicately.

Should she? Jordans was already on her back for the department’s lackluster performance over the last two weeks, and she still had to check up on the state of the Hopper restoration and make sure that intern who liked carrying frappuccinos around priceless paintings so much could only drink out of the straw for the rest of his life. She thought of Yellowjackets and Lebkuchen cookies that didn’t come from the blue packaging and Rico’s bubbly smile.

No, she didn’t deserve not-shitty cookies. Not right now.

“I can’t.”

Rembrandt sighed, setting the box of tissues down as she checked her reflection in one of the huge floor to ceiling windows and straightened her blouse. Just a little longer, then she could go the fuck home.

“Well, then. Let’s go kick Robert’s ass.”

She cracked a small smile. Rembrandt never swore. “Who?”

“The intern. The one with the frappuccino?”

“Oh. Yeah, okay.” He stepped back, respectfully allowing her to take the lead. As she passed him, she made a mental note to put him up for a raise, and she never put anyone up for a raise.

#not my prompt #writing #writing exercise #decided to take a break from 3AM prompts for a bit #wow I really blinked and suddenly an hour had passed #cw: swearing

[doitwrite]

From The 3AM Epiphany

Exercise 18: "TV. Write a short interior scene during which a TV is on. Let the words and images on the screen interact interestingly with the activity going on in the room...500 words"

Rob

The vase teetered on the edge of the table, then tipped over with a CRASH, smashing to smithereens on the floor in an explosion of white and blue.

Robert held his breath, cradling the figurine he’d barely managed to catch to his chest. The living room was awash in the soft blue glow of the television screen and the cackling of the old bat in the armchair. The cartoon dog that had bumped the table in the show attempted to flee, doing that thing where a character tries to run but momentarily stays in place, arms pinwheeling ridiculously.

Heart still racing, Robert looked back down. He never understood why old people like to keep such creepy mementos around. Shuddering, he replaced the demonic-looking cherub carefully on the doily-covered table. Luckily the scene had been loud enough to cover up any sounds he’d made.

Robert cast a quick eye around. The glint of something shiny drew his eye, and he instantly recognized the iconic, man-shaped trophy. Bingo.

A slide-whistle sound effect interrupted his thoughts as the dog onscreen relieved itself on a shoe.

Something wet soaked into his pant leg. He looked down.

A tiny white dog with scraggly hair that made it look like a walking, breathing mop had lifted its leg over his ankle. 

“What the–hey! Get away!” he whisper-yelled, stumbling ungracefully and trying to shoo the little monster off. It bared a set of miniature teeth at him and made a sound like a lawnmower on helium, then gave a series of squeaky-toy barks.

“Chi-Chi? Where did you get off to?” Oh, great. The old woman’s wheezy voice interrupted the canned laughter that boomed from the speakers. Robert whipped his head from left to right. He could risk making a dive for the kitchen, or escape upstairs.

Unfortunately, Chi-Chi had other plans. It sank its tiny jaws into his ankle, and he bit back a yelp of pain. The armchair trembled, as if its occupant was attempting to climb out.

Robert dragged the dog with him along the worn carpet, trying not to curse out loud as he limped as quickly as he could around the other side of the armchair. On the TV, someone tripped on a banana pee, landing on their backside with a cymbal crash. As if on cue, his foot catches on the edge of the hideous rug—

And with a magnificent WHUMP that shook the room, suddenly he’s on his belly, staring right into the vomit-green pattern of repeating triangles on the rug. Chi-Chi is barking at him, and he looks up in a daze to see two-time Academy Award winning screenwriter Greta Frendler peering down at him, lips pursed and eyes squinting from a face so wrinkled it looked like a prune.

“I assume you’re here to rob me?”

Before he can answer, she shuffles off to the kitchen in her carpet slippers.

“I have to say, you’re one of the less creative ones. Come have a cup of tea. I put the kettle on when I heard you knock over the mirror upstairs.”

#not my prompt #The 3AM Epiphany #writing #writing exercise #I like the idea but I'm not sure abt the execution... #may return to this #(but I always say that)

[doitwrite]

Prompt: "The manor is full of paintings, some cursed, most merely bored. Ladies step lightly from picture frames to gather in the kitchen. A lion leaves its canvas to stalk the upstairs halls."

The background of lush green vegetation and blooming flowers seemed to wilt without the gardener bending over them with his bright yellow gloves and floppy straw sunhat. I sighed, dusting off the gilded golden frame that enclosed the scene. Honestly, where had he gone off too? Stepping back, I swept my eyes to both my left and my right. Paintings of all shapes and sizes crowded the wall, all devoid of their usual occupants. A beach with a white spray of water crashing over the shore, a snowy winter field with barren trees clustered around the edges. All of them were empty. A few stray deer from the Holman portrait at the edge of my periphery leapt out of the scene, their oil-painted tails bouncing out of sight.

I flicked the feather duster in annoyance and pinched the bridge of my nose. The duke in the painting on the third floor landing was having another party, I bet.

Honestly. I should at the very least be granted the title of “Painting Control” in addition to maid. 

***

Mother had been sick for a few months when I saw the ad in the paper. I’d been sitting next to her in the living room while she lay on the couch, with the fire blazing because she kept complaining that she was cold. It was the middle of July. I had put Marigold to bed already, and I was reading aloud the weekly gossip column to Mother, trying to ignore the way that my back was sticking to the leather armchair when I noticed the ad.

It stood out from the rest of the paper because its colors were inverted—black background with white text. I pushed my glasses up my sweaty nose and peered closer. In bold, sharp font, it announced: “MAID WANTED. GOOD PAY. INQUIRE AT 485 BOGWOOD MANOR.” I read it a few more times, just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. This was the break I was waiting for. The Bogwoods lived in a pristine manor on the edge of town, and not even the mailman had the nerve to deliver their mail to the box at the front of the house. He just left it at the edge of the pathway leading up to the house, and even though no one ever saw who retrieved it, it would always be gone by the time he came around again. Brimstone is a small town, and everyone knew everyone else and their mother. But the Bogwoods were odd. They seemed to just show up out of the blue one day, and they’d never left. The Bogwoods never came to any of the town meetings, and their kids were apparently homeschooled. Summer, winter, autumn, spring—it didn’t matter what the weather was. The windows were always shuttered and the gate to their home was always locked, as sure as night follows day. We would have started to doubt their existence if every few weeks there wasn’t a rumor of someone in the neighborhood spotting a dark carriage in front of the walkway.

We’d all long since stopped trying to understand the family’s strange behavior, and eventually they settled into the town, like a tombstone in a field of wildflowers.

Well, I could cook and clean like nobody’s business, and I wasn’t afraid of some strange family.

The position promised “good pay,” and that was all I needed to know.

***

I tiptoed across the plush green carpet, taking care to be extra quiet as I passed the sleek black door at the end of the hall. I never saw anyone entering or exiting, but when I’d been admitted I was told in no uncertain terms never to disturb the occupants, not even if the house was on fire. In fact, the only person I ever saw here was Ruskins the butler, a startlingly cheerful young man who always seemed to gush rather than talk. Between his stark white hair and lively brown eyes, he stuck out from the dark Gothic furniture like a shining merry-go-round in a graveyard.

He’d given me a complete tour of the place with the unflinching enthusiasm of a cicerone, from the basement filled with machines that I suspected would not be out of place in a torture chamber to the garden filled with toothy plants that he’d airily warned me to stay away from if I wanted to keep all my fingers. I didn’t quite know what to make of him—There was something simultaneously magnetic and off putting about Ruskins. Despite his apparent good nature, there was something steely in the way he carried himself, like he wouldn’t hesitate to slit my throat with a smile if I acted out of line.

I had wanted to ask questions, but then I thought of the twenty pounds I was promised at the end of each week and decided to keep my mouth shut. As long as that crisp note was waiting for me on the dining table at the end of every Friday, they could be conducting demonic rituals for all I cared. And judging by the faint smell of sulfur and smoke that seemed to emanate from the crack beneath the door, they probably were. 

***

As soon as I reached the stairs, I scampered up silently, making sure to avoid the second step, which I learned the hard way triggered a booby trap that resulted in the dropping of an axe on the unfortunate victim’s head. I eye the gash in the wood with a touch of guilt as I step lightly over it.

 I kept an eye on the row of paintings hanging along the side of the wall as I made my way up. 

A luxurious sitting room with velvet furniture, a booth in a lonely diner. There’s still steam rising from the half-empty cup of coffee on the greasy plastic table.

The top of the landing looms over me, like a yawning maw. The spindly railing that runs along the balcony, which had always reminded me of teeth, only adds to the effect.

I strain my ears for a snatch of music, laughter, or conversation. But I don’t hear anything.

That’s odd.

It’s strangely dark up here too, even though Ruskins always lights the lamps on the walls by the time I get here to clean up in the evening.

But they aren’t on now.

A sense of foreboding starts to envelop me. There’s a distinct wrongness about finding yourself alone in the midst of a normally lively place, like stumbling upon the half-eaten remnants of an abandoned dinner party.

I paused at the top of the stairs with a soft creak. Without the lamps lit, I had to squint to see in the semidarkness. Even so, I could tell that the paintings are completely empty. 

“Armadius? Rosalia?” My voice seemed too loud. No response.

I jumped back, startled, as I stepped on something. It’s flat, like a book.

I reached for the knob of the nearest lamp, and a weak, yellow glow radiated from the bulb, barely keeping away the shadows. It illuminated the nearest canvas, and I stifled a gasp. Bits of it hung off the painting. It looks like someone took a carving knife to the piece, slashing with such ferocity that colorful chunks of painting were scattered around, like fallen petals from a huge flower.

What I’d stepped on was a ragged piece of canvas the size of my hand. A window.

I don’t like this at all. I take a slow, deep breath.

Rust.

And that’s what saved me.

In a split second, I spin around, just in time to see a silver glint of a blade whistling through the air, down toward the top of my head. The blade nearly nicks my forehead as I leap backwards. A few hairs from my bangs catch the dim light as they drift down onto the carpet.

Adrenaline fills my body, my heart kicking up to a thrum in my chest as I squint in an attempt to make out my attacker. I can’t make out anything distinctive in the dim light, though. I raised the feather duster like a pointer, which in hindsight was definitely not the most intimidating thing I could have been wielding.

“Show yourself,” I hissed.

Silence.

I waited, tense.

#not my prompt #writing #writing exercise #also a throwback from this March lol #I meant to finish it but it's just been gathering dust... #Text: The manor is full of paintings #some cursed

[doitwrite]

"Prompt #159: The portrait of Van Gogh stared at me wherever I sat down in the room."

Painted

The first time I noticed it was my first night on the job. My supervisor, Rusty, was explaining to me how the CCTV system worked, but I was only half-listening because I recognized the security system—it was the same one that the Stern Museum used, where I’d been transferred from. Same console, same slightly grainy footage that always seemed watered down.

“Anyway, you can change the direction of the cameras like this.” She reached over and moved the camera pointed down the Contemporary Artist exhibit. I rolled my eyes internally. Honestly, even though I’d worked as an art museum security guard for over a decade now, I still thought that modern art was pointless. Half the time they just splash some shit on a canvas and call it “art,” and the worst part is that rich assholes are just raring to buy that stuff for millions of dollars. I’d considered becoming a “modern artist” myself because the money seemed so easy, but my dignity wouldn’t let me. Besides, I enjoyed being a security guard. I love how the museum grows still and silent after closing, as the night seeps in through the huge windows. I love how my occasional rounds make me feel like the entire place is just for me, a private exhibition all to myself. I squinted at the screen as Rusty rambled on. There was a recreation of that self-portrait that Van Gogh made, only it was deep red and brown. You know how his style is all swirls and shit, and the brushstrokes make the pieces feel kind of dreamlike? This one was not like that. For one, it was massive, taking up almost the entire wall on the east side of the room, a behemoth compared to the rest of the pieces in there, none of which could have been much longer or wider than two feet. It looked like he was guarding the rest of the room, but something about the way the eyes were almost too large gave me the impression that Van Gogh wasn’t so much protecting the place as he was making sure nothing escaped. Rusty noticed the monitor I was staring at.

“Yeah, they’re still moving all the stuff in there, so just don’t go in there for now. We’ve got tighter security on that room- motion detectors, alarms, that sort of thing. Just make sure you keep an eye on it when you make your rounds, huh? I’ll be on the third floor if you need anything, just for tonight.”

***

It was 4am. I took another sip of the now-lukewarm coffee and rubbed my tired eyes. Time for another round. The swivel chair squeaked as I stood, groaning as I stretched, when I noticed it. I would have missed it if my eyes hadn't happened to pass over the screen. I rubbed my eyes, then stared hard. It was unmistakable. Van Gogh was gone. Sudden confusion and alarm woke me up better than the cold coffee could have as I seized my flashlight and keys, then snatched the walkie up. I pressed the button. A burst of static.

“Hey, uh. It’s Tim.”

I waited for a response. Nothing.

“Rusty?”

Silence.

It was almost like something out of a horror movie, only I never believed in any of that shit. I grabbed my phone, dialing Rusty’s number as I rewound the footage for the camera. The ring played faintly as I waited. Beep. Beep. None of the alarms had been tripped, that at least I was sure of. I squinted. The sped-up footage looked like it was a still picture, the only part of the screen that changed at all was the rapidly decreasing timestamp in the upper right hand corner. Still no Van Gogh. Then suddenly, he was back on the wall. I stopped the footage, the back of my neck prickling. I couldn’t believe it. One second he was on the wall, the next he wasn’t. Like the portrait had teleported. I checked the time stamp over and over—it must have glitched or something, but the numbers showed that there was no gap in the time that the painting was on the wall to the time that it suddenly wasn’t.

“Hello?” I jumped so badly that I nearly knocked the thermos over. I shoved the phone against my ear.

“Hey, uh. So you know that painting of Van Gogh in the new gallery?”

“Yeah, that big scary red thing. Kinda creepy, isn’t it?”

“Yes, well. It’s not there anymore.”

“I’m sorry, what? You mean someone came in and took it?”

“No, it’s just.” I hesitated, knowing I was about to sound crazy. “It’s just gone. I rewound the footage, and it doesn't show anyone coming in or anything. No alarms went off. It’s just not there anymore.”

“Huh. That’s pretty fuckin’ weird. You’re not messing with me, are you?”

I bristled. “Hell no. Come and look at it, I’ve got the footage right here.”

“Okay, I’m coming down there. You better not be messing with me.”

“I swear. But I’m staying right here, I don’t wanna go out there alone. I’m kinda freaking out here.” I chewed my thumbnail nervously.

A few minutes later, Rusty was rewinding through the footage herself, frowning.

“There! See?” She rewound the place where the painting disappeared, just as I did.

“You’re right. That’s…well, more than weird. We should go down there to check.”

I shivered. I didn’t want to seem like a coward, but this shit was getting way too weird for me. Plus, that portrait of Van Gogh was scary as hell.

“Well…okay. As long as we don’t have to split up.”

“What are you, a baby?”

“Are you kidding? Did you not see that picture just disappear?”

“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”

“Yeah, like what?”

“I don’t know, maybe the camera’s malfunctioning or something. But we’ll never know if we stay here yapping.”

I shook my head in disbelief, but Rusty just rolled her eyes.

We stepped out of the surveillance booth, and Rusty locked the door. I kept a hand on my baton, but I wasn’t even sure what I would be fighting with it. A ghost? I shook my head. There’s no such thing, dammit. But my heart was thrumming in my throat anyway.

The new art gallery was on the first floor, so we took the elevator down. The doors dinged open, revealing the doors at the end of the hall. The art gallery lay just beyond, waiting. I gulped nervously, but Rusty seemed completely fine, marching briskly toward the doors. I hung back a little.

“Aren’t you at least a little nervous?”

“No one’s going to be causing trouble in my museum, not on my watch. If it’s some people playing a joke, they’re gonna be real sorry.”

She shoved the doors open, unceremoniously. We stared at the east wall. Van Gogh was back, and in person it was twice as awful as on the monitor. The huge red eyes, the nightmarish background of violent reds and ragged streaks of black. What made it worse was its immensity: it was at least twice as tall as me and four times as wide, and I’m a big guy.

“Huh. Well, that’s odd, isn’t it?” She walked right next to the painting, where she’d be in frame of the surveillance camera. Rusty peered up at the security cam as I looked around behind us. I couldn’t hear or see anything odd, though. She waved her arms.

“Hey, check the camera.”

I pulled out the surveillance tablet. Sure enough, Rusty and the painting were both in frame, looking perfectly normal. Well, as normal as a terrifying painting can be, anyway. I shook my head in disbelief.

“Well, you’re both there.” I started to rewind the footage as I spoke. When did the painting get replaced? Just like when it disappeared, the footage seemed to show the painting suddenly reappearing. A few seconds later, Rusty came into frame.

“Hey, I-” I looked up. I was alone. Rusty and Van Gogh were both gone. Cold fear sank its teeth into the back of my neck. No fucking way. I considered, then immediately dismissed the idea that she was somehow playing a prank on me. That painting was gigantic, even I’d have a hard time lifting it, and Rusty was about twice as small as me. I was suddenly very aware of how alone I was. I snapped my head around, looking for movement, straining my ears for sound. The rest of the exhibit lay quiet and unassuming, the only thing audible was the sound of my nervous breaths. Okay. I took a shaky breath in. There were only three exits to this room. The one we came in from, and one to the left and right of the Van Gogh painting. I would have noticed Rusty is she’d ducked around me, so I ruled out the door behind me. I whipped around nervously again. I couldn’t see anything, but I hated the unpleasant feeling of not being able to see behind me. I sprinted over to the wall and turned, so my back was to it. There. Now nothing should be able to sneak up on me. I looked down at the surveillance screen in my slightly shaking hands. I was hesitant to rewind the footage…I didn’t know what I would see.

And then the lights went out.

My stomach plummeted as the suffocating darkness suddenly enveloped me, the only source of light the soft glow of the surveillance footage as Rusty speed-walked backward. My hand, already in motion, pressed the play button. I swallowed, staring at the screen as if transfixed. Rusty walked into frame again, then turned to face me.

And suddenly, that awful, bloody painting filled the frame, leering up into the camera. I screamed and dropped the tablet, and it clattered onto the ground. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness, and I couldn’t see anything except for the faint glow of the screen on the ground. Fear was prickling its way all over my screen. What the hell was going on? I made a wild grab for the tablet, but it skittered away, out of my reach. Like someone had kicked it, only I didn’t see anything. I gasped and pulled back, cowering against the wall. It was suddenly suffocatingly cold, like someone pressing ice into my nose, my eyes—

***

The portrait of the security guard stared at me whenever I sat down in the room. Interesting choice for a painting, I guess, but whatever. I squinted at the grainy screen of the surveillance camera in the modern art gallery. It was pretty scary, I’ll give it that. The person in the portrait looked absolutely terrified, mouth stretched open in a scream.

They say that the last guard and supervisor disappeared, which is why I’ve got such a good paycheck coming in: no one wanted the job after that. I snorted.

I’d be more scared if I believed in that kinda shit, which I don’t.

#not my prompt #writing #writing exercise #was digging around my writing journal and found this from last November lol #throwback Thursday ig #cw: swearing

[doitwrite]

From The 3 A.M. Epiphany

Exercise 17: "SYNESTHESIA. Use synesthesia...in a short scene—surreptitiously, without drawing too much attention to it—to convey to your reader an important understanding of some ineffable sensory experience. Use sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. 600 words"

Level 4

The sky was purple-green in the distance, sour and sharp like an unripe grape. The taste was unpleasant on Proctor’s tongue. That color indicated that the air was thick with Crustium…Level 4? Overhead, sea bats screeched warnings to each other. The waves shoved at The Storm, boiling up and sinking back into the depths. She could taste the approaching hurricane on the wind, the clouds crowded on the horizon in a wooly mess of gray shot through the metallic taste of a battery. The metal eyepiece of the telescope was warm from being held against her face. The world shrank into a circle.

They’d never come up against anything higher than a Level 3. Proctor strained her eye. Her lips were salty. The silhouette of something dark and huge snaked out of the water, no bigger than her thumb at this distance—a tentacle? An arm? It vanished back down just as quickly, and Proctor closed the telescope, stomach curdling. Her clothes flapped in the wind, which had risen sharply as if to hurry her along. Jethro barked, flicking his stump of a left ear as he observed her from his usual perch next to the steering wheel. That’s right, she wasn’t alone.

“Are you ready, boy?” She squatted, trying to calm herself by patting his head. His hair was matted, as always. He gave a happy bark and licked her hand.

Jethro followed her around as Proctor swept around the deck, jerking on the knots to guy lines to ensure they were tied down tight. All her books were already safe downstairs, and she’d locked up the rest of the rations in the cabinets.

When did it get so dark? The world seemed to have dropped into a minor key; just twenty minutes earlier the water had been a sparkling turquoise and the sky was a crisp pink, the color of a freshly sliced watermelon. Now it looked like the sun had been swathed in layers of green and purple tulle, light barely reaching a boiling dark sea that looked thick and poisonous. The sound of the crashing waves was drowned out by screams and distant splashes that echoed from the inside of her head. Bodies in the water, their staring eyes bloated with salt and webbed over with death.

Not like last time.

Proctor leapt up the stairs to the helm, dimly hearing the clack-clacking of nails behind her and felt a wet nose nudging at her hip. It took her two tries to pull up the digital navigator. The edges of the screensaver were pulsing red, warning her of the approaching threat. She’d jabbed at the glowing “Combat Mode” option on the dropdown menu when the First Call came.

It was so short.

 The deck tilted under her feet.

The other Gaunters had sounded exactly like she’d read about: deep, extended rumbling that sounded like the earth itself was splitting apart, hundreds of miles beneath the water.

But all she heard was a single clear note, silvery and cold as glass, as if someone had tapped on the side of a champagne flute.

Sweat trickled, gray and cold, down her back.

Had she made a mistake? With shaking hands she consulted the Axiom. Proctor’s eyes kept flicking around the screen. The sea was churning now, but there was no sign of the Gaunter.

Level 4 and above— Purple/Green/Blue Horizon.

Signs of approach: deep vibrations, rumbling, low roaring. Possible visual indicators of entity appendages or attack technique (see also: Identifying Gaunters, Preparing for Combat/Capture).

That couldn’t be right. Jethro whined at her feet.

Desperately, she clicked back to the search page.

A flume of water exploded upwards in a roar of white two feet from her face, and all she could think was no no no this was all wrong, all wrong—

#not my prompt #The 3AM Epiphany #writing #writing exercise #guess we didn't get to the actual action with this one guys... #I also wanted to see what happened lol #agh I realized too late that it probably would've been more dynamic for Proctor to be confident at first... #ah well

[doitwrite]

From The 3 A.M. Epiphany

Exercise 16: "TWO PAINTINGS....Write a story that is an attempt to bridge two photographs or paintings...Choose two paintings or photographs that are very dissimilar. 600 words)

Limbo

The gentle melody of classical piano had always been a part of the landscape, as much as the meaty smell of burning flesh and sulfur or the plastic clacking of poker chips from the Overseers’ table. Somehow it made everything twice as awful, as if the radio of some unfeeling god had drifted down from heaven to mock the eternal torment of the wretched souls trapped forever in various eternal torments. That was the intended impression, of course. But Thornin knew that was wrong—God listened to rock music. Thornin had met him once, when he’d first started working in Limbo. The guy was terrifying in a quiet way, like the few seconds before a hurricane.

Thornin scribbled down another rash of names on the filthy parchment unrolled on the poker table, shivering as he felt the gaze of the Master sweeping down from on high. The Master took the form of a floating cat head big enough to swallow the Troll Hole (that was what they called the gigantic humanoid head that ate people like tiny, screaming candies). Like the music, it appeared beautiful in its own strange way, a patchwork of stained glass that offered the only splash of color against the dull orange and shit-brown landscape. The Master saw and remembered everything, acting as intermediary between God and the Overseers.

The paper was greasy under Thornin’s hand, just like everything else in this godforsaken place. Well, that wasn’t quite true. Jesus came down here too sometimes, doling out a little extra punishment for his dad for the extra-shitty ones. In fact, He was currently a few meters away, spearing down mass murderers with a glowing cross in the Trenches.

The ink glistened wetly on the page as Thornin recorded the names of the rash of souls that had just arrived. Did time even exist down here? Hell if he knew. He’s been writing names and playing Crackle with the others forever.

Something tickled at the back of his mind. Forever?

Jester leaned in over the table, waving his hands.

“Oi, Thornin. We’re gonna start the next round.”

“Sure, sure. Give me a moment.” The scratching of the quill was inaudible over the dissonant sound of gentle piano and throat-tearing screams. The list was surprisingly long today—he wondered if God had planned an earthquake or something. The moment he reached the end of the page, the letters faded as if they’d never been written, and he returned to the top of a blank sheet.

There it was…the barely-there uneasiness.

How…many times had he repeated these motions?

“Okay, ready.”

Jester nodded at Orgen, who scooped up the dice with one clawed hand, then rattled them. A screaming severed head suddenly flew onto the table, nearly scattering the pile of poker chips. One of the guards working the Funnel of Death ran over and grabbed it, then dragged it, still screaming, off the table.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

Thornin stared at the smear of blood that had been left on the dirty felt. They’d play a round, then he’d write down the next slew of names, then another round, more names…

***

The Master appeared silently and suddenly. Led Zeppelin stopped singing.

“I think we might have a problem.” He blinked his sea-glass eyes.

“It’s unusual, isn’t it?”

“What would you like me to do about it?”

“Nothing, for now. It won’t change anything.”

“But—” A deep wave of terror rolled over it slowly, oppressively. The Master wasn’t familiar with the human concept of flinching, but it made a respectable attempt.

“Yes?”

“Nothing.”

Zeppelin started singing again.

There's still time to change the road you're on…

#not my prompt #The 3AM Epiphany #again with the repeated titles... #I was listening to a writing playlist while I wrote this so that’s why the piano thing is in there lol #the images I chose were this AI-generated image of a cat #and this Hieronymus Bosch painting called “Christ in Limbo” #Bosch did a lot of surrealist nightmarish paintings you should check them out #cw: swearing

[doitwrite]

From The 3 A.M. Epiphany

Exercise 15: "TWO IMAGES SEPARATED AT BIRTH. Think up a vivid, haunting image. Work hard to construct this image so it is not only visible to the reader but exciting and thought-provoking. Then think up another unrelated but equally vivid image. The key to this exercise is to work at comparing two unrelated images, two scenes or situations you do not think are part of a story. Then write a story fragment out of the two images. 600 words"

Family Breakfast

Tom yawned open a mouth the size of a small cave. The humans didn’t scream or cry like the old ones. They sat quietly in the rollercoaster, right up until the moment the car flew into his mouth and vanished down his unending maw. He pouted after swallowing everything in one noisy gulp.

“Mom! Are these a different brand or something?” A smooth white egg as large as a mountain turned from the stove and glared at him. He could always tell what expression she was making, even thought she didn’t have a face.

“Now, now.” His stepbother Raymond, a 4D being that existed on a different plane, shook out a newspaper that was phasing into the table. Matthew shot him an irritated look.

They’ve been saying that organic humans are much healthier! Her voice was shrill as it echoed in their heads. She was a Tyverant, a species that didn’t have mouths, so they communicated directly via brainwaves. If they’re quiet, it means they’ve been raised in a cage-free environment. No more of that GMO stuff, she added. Matthew had long since stopped wondering how his mother managed to sniff when she didn’t have a nose.

She placed another roller coaster cart of humans onto the track. It was a huge wire contraption that folded out of the ceiling and snaked around the kitchen like a massive steel python. Matthew watched, apprehensive, as another cartful of those creepily quiet humans raced along the track. He was used to hearing them scream in terror. It helped wake him up in the mornings. But instead they just watched him with blank, beady eyes as they raced towards their deaths. Reluctantly he opened his mouth and swallowed the car.

“It’s no fun if they’re not screaming,” he tried. She ignored him.

With a pair of milk-white hands she pulled a dull-eyed man from a carton and neatly cracked him open over the smoking black pan. His skin pulled apart with a satisfying snap, intestines dropping and sizzling in the heat.

Dear? Would you like another helping? She asked, addressing Raymond. He lowered the paper. Was he looking at his mother? Matthew wrinkled his nose. He could never tell where Raymond was looking, and since he always spoke in that dreadful monotone, Matthew could never guess at what he was thinking or looking at.

“Yes, please, dear.” She neatly ducked under the spiraling track of the roller coaster with the pan and carefully scraped the steaming pile of warm meat onto Raymond’s plate. He folded up the paper and set it on the table, but it disappeared.

“Whoops.”

I keep telling you to remember to return things to their 3D form when you place them down, remember? His mother sighed. Matthew gulped down the mouthful of human and reached for his glass of gakberry juice to wash it down, using it to hide the face he was making.

“Sorry about that, darling.” He scooped up the meat with his fork, and Matthew peeked over the glass while trying to pretend he wasn’t looking. As much as he disliked him, watching Rayond eat was always fascinating. Whatever he put into his…face? Mouth? (What did you call the hole where food disappeared into a 4D being, anyway?) just seemed to dissolve into nothing the moment it touched him, and on more than one occasion the utensil vanished too, much to his mother’s chagrin.

His mother turned and yelped.

It’s 35PM! You’ll be late!

Raymond gulped down the rest of the food.

“Come on, sport. I’ll drive you to school today.”

“Don’t call me that,” Matthew mumbled as he climbed onto his foot.

#not my prompt #The 3AM Epiphany #writing #writing exercise #the two images I came up with were #A massive humanoid and monster with huge black eyes devouring a rollercoaster of people who are not screaming and just sit there #An egg cracking open a person into a pan #yeah this was another trippy and weird one haha #also weird that this is the second piece in a row I've written with the word “breakfast” in the title

[doitwrite]

From The 3 A.M. Epiphany

Exercise 14: "NO IDEAS, BUT IN THINGS. Write a very brief story told only in images—concrete, simple, visually efficient movements and details. This exercise does not ask you to eliminate people from your prose, just to watch what they do and what objects they crave and caress rather than what they say or think about these objects and actions. 300 words"

Breakfast Blend

Moving mechanically to the counter, she retrieves a chipped white mug from the shelf above the stove. Her eyes flicker to the cabinet beneath the sink. There’s a single bag left in the worn paper box. She drops it into the mug, wincing when the sound of Jeremiah’s angry yell at the telly rips through the flat. Her hand tightens into a fist around the handle of the mug, then loosens. She takes a deep breath and wipes her hands on her stained apron, pulling the rusted kettle from the stove and flicking its lid open. Her eyes are drawn to the cabinet again…The kettle is overflowing, water spilling into the sink.

A bright blue flame sparks to life as she turns the stove on and sets the kettle down. Her hands are shaking, and she twists the hem of her apron between her fingers, over and over the way you’d wring out a towel. Quietly, she moves out of the kitchen and lingers in the doorway of the living room, looking in. Jeremiah’s flabby, stubbled face is awash in the flickering blue light of the screen. Football players race back and forth on the blurry screen.

She jumps as the kettle shrieks, then flees back to the kitchen and thumbs the spout open. Steam rises from the mug as she pours with steady hands. The water in the mug turns a rust-colored brown. She opens the cabinet beneath the sink. The bright orange box she pulls out is emblazoned with an image of a cartoon rat lying on its back, with x-ed out eyes. “Odorless and undetectable,” the back promises.

The white tablets inside are each the size of her thumbnail and she methodically picks out five, dropping them into the tea and watching them disappear in the heated liquid.

Jeremiah doesn’t even bother looking away from the television as he reaches his hand out impatiently.

#not my prompt #The 3AM Epiphany #writing #writing exercise #I feel like one of my writing hangups is that I focus way too much on the action of any given scene already #so this was not that hard for me lol

[doitwrite]

From The 3 A.M. Epiphany

Exercise 13: "GOD....But God's POV is also, presumably, a first-person narration—or perhaps God speaks occasionally in the royal we or the second-person plural...Since God should know how to be efficient and get right to the point, do this exercise in only 200 words."

00:09:12:23, April 6, 2013

He’s having a good day. Nobody else was going to bring him down—not his unsympathetic landlady, not the couple who’s going to break up in a week living in the apartment above. He shaved with his cheap plastic razor and picked the wine-red tie he saved for special occasions. The instant coffee doesn’t taste quite as bitter and thin. We’re going to wonder if we should bring flowers or a gift.

He settles on a small bouquet from the florist on the corner and worries about whether the petals on the daisies are straight before he brings them to the counter. Fussing over the odds and ends in your lives, dealing in clothes and money and pleasure in the brief space between your nonexistence. It’s what you all live for.

The truck is idling two streets away, and the driver is going to be forced to take a different route to get to the warehouse. She floors the gas to make up for the extra distance.

Dominoes falling.

He’s leaving the florist, brows furrowed at the receipt. More expensive than I thought, he’s thinking as he steps onto the street.

He’s not going to see the truck coming.

#not my prompt #The 3AM Epiphany #writing #writing exercise #WOW this was difficult

[doitwrite]

From The 3 A.M. Epiphany

Exercise 11: "THE CHEERFUL SPECTATOR. “Introduce to yourself a narrator intimate to a story but outside it as well…This is a lot like The Reluctant I (Exercise 1), except in this exercise place an observer outside the stream of a story, but just outside. (In The Reluctant I, the narrator should be very important to the story.) 800 words”

The Quick-Fix Couples’ Hair Salon

Mack rubbed his hand over his matted hair in frustration, and I winced as I took in its sorry state in the mirror.

“I tell ya Juno, it ain’t easy bein’ married.” Juno nodded sympathetically as I nudged Mack’s hands out of the way, attacking his hair with a wet comb.

“I mean, it’s not like I killed someone! I just forgot to tell her that I—”

“—was going to the bar with his friends! Again!” Maria’s shrill voice was audible even over the sound of the hair dryer, and her two-inch long acrylic nails threatened to take one of Juno’s eyes as she waved them wildly. He dodged, then shot me an exasperated glance.

“Okay, and what did you say?” I smiled as I untied her ponytail. Juno was the therapist, and I just did hair. At least Marie bothered to brush hers once in a while, so I didn’t have to

wrestle with the unruly curls as he continued to complain.

“It was the only time I’d ever forgotten about our anniversary, you know! Once in twenty years!”

“Mm-hmm.” Juno scribbled something down in his notebook. I eyed my comb, which now had a few broken teeth. Another fallen soldier, I sighed as I tossed it over my shoulder into the trash with its brethren. Time for Plan B. I snatched the bright green bottle from the top shelf of the rolling cart as Mack ran out of steam and lay back.

“And did you apologize?” Juno asked.

“No! I honestly didn’t see what the big deal was, ya know? I mean—”

“I can’t believe that he was so selfish!” Marie kicked her feet. “And to think that I even dressed up all nice!” Her face crumpled, and Juno retrieved a tissue box from the corner.

“Thank you, dear.” She dabbed at her running mascara. Her hair was straight, so it was going to be difficult getting it to fluff up. She was going to need a round in the perm machine if I was going to get her the sort of volume she was asking for.

“It was once in twenty years! Give a man a break.” Mack grumbled. I sighed as I wrestled another comb through his hair. It was like trying to brush a shag carpet.

It was Juno’s turn to look at me smugly before he turned his attention back to Mack.

“Mack, this sort of thing means a lot to ladies. I’m sure you love her very much, but you should try to apologize for forgetting. I’m sure she’ll forgive you.”

“Apologize…” he muttered. “Huh.” He stood up suddenly from the chair, his hair still a tangled mess. He slapped down a few bills at the desk and swept out the door. I was about to run out after him and insist that he come back so I could fix his hair, but a few second later Marie stalked in through the door, and the look on her face made it clear that we had better drop everything and assist her right that second or there was going to be hell to pay.

***

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to forget,” Juno soothed as I guided Marie over to the machine.

“Didn’t mean to forget!” she screeched. “We’ve been married for twenty years! I’m going to call that douche and give him a piece of my mind.” She clawed a phone out of her purse. Juno winced as I positioned the machine over Marie’s head. 

There came a crash from the lobby. The door to the salon had been thrown wide open. Mack’s huge frame filled the doorway. I flinched when I took in his rat’s nest of hair, but Marie had gone quiet, staring at her husband with a stunned look on her face. His arms were crammed with an explosion of color—daisies, tulips, and roses.

He spotted Marie immediately and made a beeline for her, then threw himself onto his knees.

“Marie, baby, I’m so sorry that I forgot our anniversary. I’m so lucky to have you, and I promise I’ll make it up to you!”

Silence. I realized I could smell something burning and quickly turned off the perm machine.

“Oh, Mack! Sweetheart!” She leapt out of the chair, and the couple collided in an explosion of petals.

“Wait! Your hair…”

“Oh, Juno! Georgina! Thank you so much!” Marie tossed a handful of twenties at my receptionist, Sheila, as Mack carried her out the door.

I stood there for a moment, a comb dangling from my hand. Juno got up from his chair and stretched, then came over and put his arms around me.

“Another job well done,” he mumbled into my hair.

I snorted. “For you, perhaps. Did you see the state of their hair?!”

He snickered. “Hey, as long as we get paid."

It was just another day at The Quick-Fix Couples’ Hair Salon. (“Where We Fix Your Hair And Your Relationship!”)

#not my prompt #The 3AM Epiphany #writing #writing exercise #cw: swearing

[doitwrite]

From The 3 A.M. Epiphany

Exercise 10: "THE IRONIST. Create an observer of events outside her own direct experience, someone who knows more than she lets on, who jokes with us (the readers) but also indirectly reveals a complex reading of the events she is describing…500 words."

Bon Appétit

I set the glasses down on the table, and picked up the champagne bottle from the bucket of ice. It was cool through the towel I was holding it with.

POP. The cork sailed up and away. I made eye contact with Gel as he carried the empty trays out of the room.

Don’t be stupid.

Fizzy golden liquid arced down into the waiting flutes.

“Enjoy your meal,” I sang. The men were too busy laughing among themselves to notice or respond.

The sound of glasses clinking filled the air behind me, like tinkly death knells.

I all but skipped back out the door as the raucous conversation came to a screeching halt as hacking and choking filled the air. 

Oh, my. Looks like someone scarfed down their Frasinelli a little too quickly, no?

The faces that had been with cheer were now turning purple, eyes bulging as froth dribbled from their lips onto their expensive ties.

“Sir!” I dashed to the nearest patron. His eyes had rolled backwards into his head. How awful!

I shook his shoulder. He slumped down in his seat and slid beneath the table. Clinks and tinkles filled the air as silverware and plates laden with foie gras and filet mignon crashed to the floor.

I imagined Pinball’s face when he came in for cleanup duty later tonight. He was going to be pissed off beyond belief. The place was an absolute mess. Men had fallen face first into their plates or jerked the tablecloth with them as they crashed to the ground.

A fork flipped through the air and landed onto the shards of a shattered dinner plate. Everything was still again.

The door opened behind me as Gel returned to survey the mess.

“What a waste of perfectly good food,” he commented. There was the barest hint of a metallic clack from his pocket as he bent over to inspect a vomit-smeared corpse.

Inwardly, I shook my head. And here I’d thought that Gel was the first partner I’d had with some sense.

I snickered aloud, nudging someone’s unmoving arm as I straightened up.

“Just be glad you’re not on cleanup duty this shift.”

He shook his head. “Poor Pinball. By the way, there’s some mashed potato on your shoe.” He nodded at my boot.

I’d been so hoping that I was wrong! And yet… I bent over as if to wipe it off, then tilted my head to the right as a deafening bang shattered the quiet. I stared at the smoking bullet hole in the carpet in front of me and tsked.

Gel was standing with a smoking revolver in his hand, his gaze impassive as he looked down at me. To his credit, he didn’t look frightened or surprised. He slid another bullet into the chamber as I remembered that he once told me the click was one of his favorite sounds in the world.

I smiled as I drew a knife from my pocket.

“I guess I should have seen this coming,” he sighed.

“You really should have!” I laughed, then lunged.

#not my prompt #The 3AM Epiphany #writing #writing exercise #yeah this one was weird and I wasn't really feeling it #¯\_(ツ)_/¯ that just how it is sometimes #did I do this prompt right? #who knows #not me

[doitwrite]

From The 3 A.M. Epiphany

Exercise 9: “HISTORICAL OMNISCIENCE. Write about an event set well in the past, twenty or one hundred years ago. Write from above, as if from means of researched opinion (but I suggest you do little actual research). By this I mean write about several historical characters or an interesting event, imagining any POV you want. 700 words"

Crewman Earl Gray’s Account of the First Instance of the Raincloud’s Near Destruction - Port 21st, 3262

The first time the ship nearly fell apart was also the first and only time we’d ever seen the Captain cry.

Back then, the Raincloud was just another maintenance craft, a tiny, rickety mishmash of rusty gears and creaking joints barely the size of a commercial airplane. It was always dwarfed by the massive, polished cruise ships built in the latest Chromium style, and looked like a dirty bug buzzing around a smooth-petaled flower whenever we were called out to do a checkup. As ragtag as we were, the crew of the Raincloud worked like a well-oiled machine under the direction of the Captain and earned great reviews, which was the only reason Crate Corps still allowed us to exist, as he always made sure to remind us at the end of every meeting. The SM Union wouldn’t be formed for another three years, so the rule of surviving as a small fry of the skies was to keep your head down and your mouth shut. However, the only real issue with the Raincloud was that it still used Model L pistons, which had stopped being manufactured on Snezin two years ago. The higher ups had refused to allocate more funds for an upgrade, though, since it was cheaper to just get them replaced at the next planet over, Teris, every time we finished a job.

That’s why we happened to be at Teris when the raid happened, and it was the only reason we had a fighting chance when it did.

Well, that and because of the Captain, of course.

Cube and Razor had snuck away from the mess hall to take the new speeder, the Lightning A-X3, out to the track again even though it had just gotten a new paint job and the Captain warned us multiple times that we needed to wait until the next day before operating it. That was the reason they’d been booted to the Raincloud—no other captain had wanted to put up with a pair of slippery, troublemaking mechanics who didn’t listen to basic instructions. But they could fix malfunctioning assets in a quarter of the time it took the rest of us and respected the Captain enough to not commit any major felonies when we landed, so he mostly turned a blind eye to their antics. Anna-3 was on the deck, writing her daily journal entry, and Mezzanine was taking a nap in his quarters. I remember because I could hear his metallic snoring all the way down the hall between the crew’s accommodations and the maintenance closet. I had been trying to weld the leaky pipe that had been dripping ever since Cube knocked his head against it two days ago when the ship…shifted. It was a gentle sway, the way you might rock a baby to sleep. But the Raincloud was specifically engineered to stay steady in inclement weather, so nothing short of a hurricane would have budged her, and there had been nothing but clear skies all morning. It was unusual, and I had worked on the Raincloud long enough to know that unusual almost always meant impending disaster.

Wrench still in hand, I was about to turn the corner of the hallway to the Captain’s quarters when the door eased open. I shrank back instinctively. The Captain only ever threw the door open so every one of his appearances literally started with a bang, and it was an unspoken rule that no one else was allowed inside. Our crew wore only worn-down work boots, and the approaching click-clack on the metal grate of the floor was as foreign as an Snezin ice rat in an oven. I rapidly tiptoed backwards and turned to sprint to the maintenance closet when Mezzanine woke up.

Mezzanine was loud when he was sleeping, but awake he was a full-on brass band. Cyborg-grade prosthetics were still making their way across the galaxy to Sector 243-Riv half a decade ago, so of course during the Raincloud’s time they were practically unheard of. Mezzanine’s aunt was a renowned doctor on Earth, however, so she’d managed to provide him with the cutting-edge prosthetics that the planet had to offer at the time.

Which, of course, were unbelievably clunky and loud because Earth was—and still is—light-years behind the rest of the universe when it comes to technology.

#not my prompt #The 3AM Epiphany #writing #writing exercise #Okay so is “writing from above” supposed to be like third person omniscient or something #but the prompt says “any POV” so #Am I just bad at understanding prompts or something #Also I didn't get to finish before I hit 700 words but I think I'm going to continue just because I like where this is going lol

[doitwrite]

From The 3 A.M. Epiphany

Exercise 8: “THIRD TO FIRST. Rewrite a part of an old story of yours that was originally in the third person in first person (or vice versa). When you're making this change, count the number of hes or shes (or Is) in the original piece. Reduce the number from the original to the rewrite by half...500 words (at first)"

The Stranger (rewrite)

It’s freezing today. She pulls her coat tightly around herself to block out the chill— shouldn’t have waited until the end of the day to ask Professor Landon that geometry question. It’s completely dark now because there are no street lamps in this stretch of town. The frigid wind howls around her, casting the dried-up corpses of leaves around the street. She looks straight ahead, not looking at the dark yards around or thinking about who could be watching from the shadows behind the dark rows of fences. The single streetlamp that guards the corner of West and Astor stares at her, a sodium-orange eye glaring out of the dark, creating a round pool of light right below it. Almost home. She speeds up, sneakers scuffing against the rough pavement.

She stops.

There’s someone under it.

Her hands break out in an icy sweat. The dim glow of the lamp creates rough shadows on that face, eye sockets dark, like two holes. But she knows that shirt, the slump of the shoulders, the roughed-up Vans. The same shoes that she’s trembling in right now, herself.

Her double is smiling, the fake one she uses for strangers. But in the dark it looks more like a leer.

Her hands are shaking. She want to blink hard, wants the reset of darkness to wipe away this smudge in her reality, because surely this is a mistake. But terror of what might be waiting when she opens them again stops her.

Keep walking? Step back? Run?

She can’t move.

But this other her does. One step back, still smiling that grotesque parody. And the circle of light is empty again.

Her hands are shaking. The wind sighs, cold across her damp neck. Not seeing is worse. Much worse. That other could be anywhere, wearing that unnatural grin that at the same time is her and not her.

She feels shaky from the adrenaline, her backpack straps heavy on her shoulders as the lamp floats toward her as if in a dream, and everything else melts away in a smeary blur of lit windows.

She trips and stumbles forward into the light, the ground slamming up to meet her face and stopping short to scrape the skin off her outstretched hands. Heart still racing, she crawls to her feet. Raises her head. The darkness all around is motionless. The shadowy looming forms of houses stand still and unmoving. Nothing. No one’s there.

She stands up, knees smarting. It must have been a mistake, a trick of the light, her mind tired from a long day of classes. 

Just get home.

Her head is turned every step of the way, peering over her shoulder, straining to catch a flicker of movement in the dark even as fear rolls slowly and thickly through her limbs like cold honey.

The light above the driveway throws a warm, friendly pool of light in front of the house, and a flood of relief fills her. 

Then she stops.

Because the driveway lights are motion activated.

#not my prompt #The 3AM Epiphany #writing #writing exercise #Hmm I didn't actually change all that much so maybe I was calling it in... ^^" #but I do like the few revisions I made!

[doitwrite]

From The 3 A.M. Epiphany

Exercise 7: "FAMILY CONSCIOUSNESS. In a short piece of prose, dip into the consciousness of a family. Rather than one or two distinct points of view, this fiction should allow us into the minds of a marriage with children—adult children or young children. This will be different than limited omniscience because a family can reasonably know a good deal about the goings-on of its various parts. You could also use the royal we as an occasional pronoun to make general pronouncements. 800 words"

Our Average Surreality

Redwood sighed and rolled over, curling into a fetal position in an attempt to stay warm in the freezing room. His wife, Laurencia, must have forgotten to turn the air conditioner off again. Not wanting to get up, he tossed and turned, trying to trick his body into thinking he could feel his fingers and toes before giving up the fight. He opened his eyes, then sat up. There was someone standing in the corner of the room. A shaft of moonlight from the window fell across the figure, revealing a decaying face, wrinkled and shriveled as a prune. In the watery white light, he saw something moving on the figure’s face, and realized that it was a maggot crawling out of its empty eye socket. The fat, wriggling grub squirmed before falling to the carpet with a nearly inaudible thump.

Redwood yawned, then sat up, rubbing his eyes. He reached out and jerked on an ornate metal chain that dangled from the ceiling within arm’s reach of his side of the bed.

The door to the bedroom opened, throwing a shaft of warm yellow light into the dark room, and a pristinely dressed woman stood at attention, as if she’d been waiting outside the door the entire time. She was dressed in a crisp blue suit that matched her blue pixie cut perfectly.

Redwood waved his arm wearily at the corpse still standing at the corner of the room.

“One of the bodies got in again.” He stifled another yawn. “Get rid of it, please.”

The woman stepped inside. The next second, both she, the corpse, and the maggot had vanished. The door closed, leaving the room in near-darkness again. Redwood made to lie down again, then sat up in frustration. He’d forgotten to ask Merry to turn off the air conditioner, too. Of course, all the servants were at their beck and call, but somehow asking a houseservant who had survived the training to come all the way up to the bedroom for Redwood to ask them to turn off the AC felt demeaning. He groaned, then slipped his feet into his blue bunny slippers and shuffled to the door, muttering in annoyance.

A bar of light illuminates his wife’s dozing face before disappearing again. Laurencia rolled over, an arm thrown across her eyes. She was in their garden having a tea party with a giant blue-eyed teddy bear and a strange man in a hat. Huge blue flowers adorned the center of the table, along with a variety of pastries and finger sandwiches. It was supremely difficult to hold a conversation with either one of her dining mates, as they talked in contradictions and riddles as they poured tea into teacups with no bottoms, then drank them noisily. There was something written at the non existing bottom of her own teacup, barely visible beneath the rich blue liquid. Laurencia swallowed the contents, which tasted like melted butter, and saw that the tiny gold letters spelled out “Leave.”

Redwood made his way down the darkened hallway, cursing softly as he tripped over something soft. Two glowing blue eyes blinked to life in the darkness. It’s Teen and Tawn’s “Kill-a-Bear,” and the mangled plushie shuffled away from him toward the twins’ room, dragging its miniature axe with it as he turned and made his way down the stairs, shivering at the cold air still blowing out of the vents.

Tawn blinks awake, then rolls over as a tiny axe buries itself into the pillow where her head had been a second before. Zeroing in on the glowing blue eyes at the end of her bed, she smiles in delight as she reaches for the child-friendly safety scissors stashed under the now-ripped pillow as quietly as she can, so as not to wake her slumbering sister and thus have to share. It was finally her turn with the bear! Both she and Tawn knew that Daddy only bought it for them as a way of making up for the increasingly violent arguments he’d been having with Mama over the past few weeks ever since that man showed up with a bouquet of blue roses, but then she saw in the dim glow of the nightlight that the bear had armed itself with a tiny set of throwing knives, and in her excitement she forgot about all about it.

Redwood smiled tiredly as he passed the sounds of things breaking in Teen and Tawn’s room. Looks like that bear had been a good purchase, even if it was an apology gift. He softly closed the bedroom door and lay down again, closing his eyes with a sigh. The room was already warmer.

He feels the mattress dip as his wife rolls over, and braces himself because he knows it was an annoyed roll.

“Did you turn off the air conditioner?” she asks, irritated.

#not my prompt #The 3AM Epiphany #writing #writing exercise #...not me realizing AGAIN that I didn't fulfill the prompt correctly AFTER I finished writing... #ah well #I actually really liked how this one came out haha