PROMPTuesday #6 - Don't Be Yourself

San Diego Momma's PROMPTuesday #6:

Write in another voice — someone completely opposite from you (i.e. an oil tycoon, a four-year-old kid, a drunk dog) and argue in favor or opposition to something outlandish which should be legalized or outlawed (i.e. the oil tycoon might argue that all environmental groups be declared unconstitutional, the four-year-old may advocate mandatory dessert after dinner, etc.).

I can’t believe that little twerp actually TALKED to me after math. He tole me he likes my new cowboy boots. Dummy. He’d prolly trip if he ever had a pair of cowboy boots. I hate that kid. He thinks he’s so smart. I coulda figured out the problem on the board in another minute if he’d of just kept his big mouth shut. His big ugly metal mouth in his big ugly head. “Looks like a watermelon on a toothpick”, is what my dad would say. Who’s that kid he think he is, making me look dumb? I’ll show HIM who’s dumb. I’ll show the little creep how smart my fists are. He tole me he liked my cowboy boots this morning. I’ll give him a look up close. Show ‘im how pointy they are. Then I’ll let my boots kick his sorry little ass. He can’t even tell on me ‘cuz science says I got every right to beat up on him. Darwin says its “survival of the fittest”, and I’m way fitter to survive than Twerpy Mcgee. I’m bigger, I’m stronger, and I got REAL pointy boots.

Hah! There he his!

“Hey, shrimp!”. . .

PROMPTuesday #5 - It's All in the Tone

San Diego Momma's PROMPTuesday #5:

Write something spooky. It can be a made-up story, something that happened to you, dialogue, an urban legend re-told, anything. Experiment with tone, mood and atmosphere to create a sense of the scary. I’m not thinking gory here, but rather something less overt, more subtle; a story, description, poem, tidbit that uses description to convey a feeling of foreboding and spookiness.

I wake up lying in the street. Quite literally in the gutter. I wait for the world to coalesce beyond the gray mist that surrounds me. High above, a gaslight flickers. Night, then. It is not my eyes that have betrayed me. I am betrayed by the sun and this damnable fog.

How long I have lain here? Long enough to warm the cobblestone beneath my cheek. The stale mouth, the throbbing temples and the stench of alcohol permeating my skin tell me I have again succumbed to my baser urges. She will leave me if she finds out. But wait. Has she not already? Is that not that the very reason I find myself in such a state? Someone told her I was drinking. After I promised. But it was a lie, a vicious slander and I told her as much. She thought me false. And so I drank. How long ago now? Hours? Weeks?

I try to push myself upright, but a searing pain catches my breath and stops me short. Now on all fours, I reach around gingerly to finger a rib. Broken, I fear. How? And what is this on my hands? Blood? It is on my hands, the sleeves of my jacket. . . soaking into my shirt cuffs! Mine? Slowly I shift my weight to the curb and check for further injury. A small gash above one eyebrow. Nothing to account for all. . . this. . . blood.

What have I done?

PROMPTuesday #4 - My First Love

San Diego Momma's PROMPTuesday #4:

Write about your first love. Work the phrase, “Beauty in the shadows,” into the piece. This one can go to 250 words.

Sweet 16 and never been kissed, but I was determined.

The first time I saw the tall, wavy-haired, dark-eyed boy at that church in Carlsbad. I remember thinking to myself, “He’s the one! He is going to be my first boyfriend.” Until then, I felt like I had been hiding my beauty in the shadows, unwilling to risk revealing myself in sunlight for fear I should be found wanting, undesirable, ugly.

The preacher’s daughter had known Tall Dark and his brother most of her life. She introduced us. Now, six months later I had just turned 16, and the boy asks me after youth group if he can talk to me alone for a minute. I follow him into one of the small Sunday school classrooms off of the main fellowship hall and shyly, timidly, he gives me a gift, not knowing how I will react. Not knowing whether I would “get it”, and understand the significance of the gesture. I did, and it must have shown in my face enough to bolster his courage. He asked me to “go with him”, and I of course, said yes. It was then that he kissed me. My first kiss!

Apparently his first kiss too.

I distinctly remember our teeth colliding. Even in my inexperience, somehow I knew that wasn’t supposed to happen. Regardless, I was thrilled! I was validated! I was all over goose bumps to be viewed in the light, and welcomed, and loved. I felt like I had grabbed the brass ring and now I didn’t have to get off the Merry-go-round. MY ride was just starting. . .

PROMPTuesday #3 - The Door

San Diego Momma's PROMPTuesday #3:

You’ve been taken from your home, blindfolded and put on an airplane. After what seems like forever, you’re led off the plane, and left to stand, alone. You take off the blindfold and see this:

What’s behind the door?

I knock. What else can I do? After a moment, the wood slides away from behind the tiny barred window, and two pale, rheumy eyes beneath maniacal eyebrows peer out at me. “She’s here”, he croaks, to someone other than me. The door swings back on creaking hinges and the rheumy-eyed old man guides me inside.

The room isn’t so much a room as a cavern, carved from the stone of the mountainside into which it is nestled. The stone floor is covered in oriental rugs, showing their age, but spotlessly clean. There is a pride of place here that is palpable. The only light in the cavern room collects in pools around scattered oil lamps atop myriad antique tables. Placed strategically near and around these tables so as to take advantage of the lamp glow, are beautifully crafted wingback chairs, perfect for reading.

The walls, floor to ceiling are covered with books.