Prompt: a character misplaced at his job, doing something he’s not meant to do 

Oh, jeez. This guy? All of 42 years old, three kids, one still in diapers, an adoring wife? This wasn’t right. Of course, neither was the woman next on his list, 92 and still volunteering at the homeless shelter. Who was he kidding, though? Sure, taking someone guilty of double homicide was somewhat easier and pedophiles he didn’t mind at all, but those were disheartening rare. His typical assignments were typical people. Families. Friends. Folks who would cry at at a well-attended funeral.

He knew everyone had to die. Obviously. He was Death, after all. But only because he couldn’t get a job as an angel. He’d really wanted to be one of those winged creatures who watched over speeding motorists and people who texted while walking. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. He hadn’t done well enough on his tests to make the final cut – tests made him nervous – and, desperate, he’d applied for an opening in Purgatory. He was as surprised as anyone else when, after two short years, he’d been promoted to Death. Which was a sort of angel and motorists were definitely involved, plus the pay was outstanding, but it wasn’t the dream he’d longed for in his youth.

It was just so depressing, the pleas for mercy, the last gasps, the mess. Ask anyone how they wanted to go and they’d say peacefully. In their sleep. But even when he showed up in the middle of the night, their spirits would cling to the pillows after being extracted, rend his garments, howl for the loss they should have expected but never did. Eventually, he was told, they settled down and accepted the new chapter in their afterlives. He didn’t get to see that part, however, tasked as he was with simply getting souls from point A to point B.

And now, this guy. What the hell was wrong with him? He knew he had high blood pressure and an inherited heart condition, but there he was, earlier today, sucking down chicken wings and throwing back beers as though a perfect summer day was some sort of inoculation against death. Death shook his head. People. They’d never learn.

Prompt:Two characters on a cruise ship

Gin, Ethan thought, once dimissed as a pathway to ruin, had regained popularity when colonists had discovered quinine to be an effective tool against mosquitos and, therefore, malaria. The problem was quinine tasted like baking soda. Antifreeze. Not that he’d tasted antifreeze. Point was, quinine was bitter. But with a little carbonated water and gin, squeeze of lime? Magic. Medicinal magic.

“Here you are, sir,” the waiter said, handing him a fresh glass. A blue umbrella stuck out of his drink, as did two straws and a plastic toothpick impaling a lime. The amount of garbage generated by this operation must equal that of a small city, he thought. Hell, probably the entire island of Manhattan.

“So what happens to the garbage?” Ethan asked the waiter, whose name, according to his shiny nametag, was Manny. Manny. Short for Manuel, most likely, but who the hell put Manny on a nametag? It looked ridiculous, like a man version of Jenny. Jenny, now she wouldn’t have tolerated all this waste, the straws, this stupid umbrella. “Plastic-free, please!” That’s how she ordered her drinks.

“The garbage?” Manny responded, his face puckering as if the very word offended him.

“Yes, the garbage.” Ethan gestured around, his sunburned arm swinging a circle encompassing the wave pool, the dreadlocked DJ, the screaming children. “We’re making a lot of trash. Where does it go?”

Now Manny’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “I’m sure I don’t know, sir.”

“You’re sure you don’t know?” he mocked. Jesus, what an asshole I am. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m not trying to bust your balls. Just curious.” He pulled a wet twenty out of his swim trunks pocket. “Here,” he said. “Thanks for the drink.” Ethan held the limp bill out to Manny.

Manny’s face assumed a stoic position. “The drinks are complimentary until 11 p.m., sir.”

“Yes, yes, I know. This is for you. A tip,” he implored.

Manny reached out, pinched the twenty between his fingers, folded it into his palm like a magician about to perform a trick. And, like a good audience, Ethan looked elsewhere.

“Thank you,” Manny said. And vanished.

Ethan rose, gin and tonic cradled in his hand. He wound his way through the oiled women, evaded the glances of bored men, stepped over two separate crying children, tuned out the womp womp womp emanating from what felt like every corner of the deck. Down the stairs, past the couple making out against the railing, two forty-somethings rekindling their marital spark, he surmised at a glance, their embrace too easy to be new, their kissing punctuated by giggles suggesting they couldn’t believe they were doing this.

To the front of the ship, where even the richest voyagers were subject to wind and spray. Nature could only be held at bay for so long, he thought. He lifted his glass. To Jenny, he thought. To nature, he thought. To getting the hell off this floating city and back to his real life. Cheers.

Ethan drank to that.

Prompt: Something you have to take a second look at to really be able to see.

(Disclaimer: Weak ending! Perhaps a deux et machina, too!)

***

Mark breezed into the café, winked at the barista, who’d started his order before he even walked in. He sat in his usual spot, the table against the windows, halfway between the entrance and the doorway to the kitchen. He scanned the room.

The Women Entrepreneurs of Pine Woods had pushed two tables together and were alternating between recommending the best hair colorist and debating whether or not to take a stand on the City Council’s proposal to enact a new tax to save the library. Mark knew that both LaVonne Williams and Marcy Lewinson had attractive daughters, so he smiled at them a moment longer than the other ladies, gave a little wave. Women of that age were so often invisible, he knew, so any attention would warm them to you.

The barista brought over his triple soy latte. Kind of a girly drink, Mark admitted, but he liked the way the sweetness of the soy milk cut the bitterness of the coffee. He also liked that they knew what he wanted and so he didn’t have to ask for it out loud.

Pine Woods finest hovered around another table. They never sat, Mark had noticed, just shifted from one foot to another while sucking down lattes. A couple of what appeared to be community college kids sulked in front of their laptops, while two girls from the Young People for Jesus crew discussed, in most earnest terms, the best way to bring middle school children into the land of Christ. Mark wondered if the blonde one would talk to him if he sat down. Would she look at him as someone to save? How far would that get him? Those Christian girls refused to have sex due to the premarital prohibition, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had a surprisingly skilled blow job from one of Jesus’ most devout followers.

Or maybe, he thought, maybe the mousy woman in the corner, the one with the book. She looked tired, and as if putting her hair in a ponytail and changing from sweats to jeans was all she could manage on any given day. Single mom, he thought. Just got the kid to day care, having a “me” moment. He’d just read a survey that claimed single moms were the most likely to indulge in casual sex. He could have told them that.

He rose from his table, pretended he was walking toward the condiment counter, glanced down at the book the woman was reading.

“Hey, that’s a great book,” he said.

Single Mom Mousy Chick looked up. “Really? You like it?”

“Sure,” he answered.

“Ethan Frome? You’ve read this? What, like in a class?” she asked.

He wondered what he’d gotten into.

“Um, yeah. Long time ago – I don’t remember the details.” He flashed what he considered a winning grin.

“Maybe you should sit down and help me out then,” she said. “I have to write a paper on this stupid book and I don’t get the appeal at all.”

“Sure,” Mark said, sitting.

“Were you getting something?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You were heading to the condiment counter, right? Didn’t you want to get something before you sat down?” she asked.

“Oh, right,” Mark said. “Nothing that can’t wait.” He took a sip of his latte and smiled.

“OK, so the symbolism – what do you think about that?” she looked at him, expectation embedded in her face. A rather nice face, Mark noticed, not as mousy as he’d thought.

“Hi, I’m Mark,” he said, and held out his hand. He hoped she’d notice how large it was.

“Mattie,” she said. They shook. She maintained eye contact. Mark grinned, but noticed his facial muscles twitching.

“That’s a nice name,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes. Took a sip of her latte. The sun slanted in through the window, lit up Mattie’s eyes. They were green, the color of the leaves that trellised up outside Mark’s bedroom. The leaves would be lit up by the sun, too, just like her eyes, he thought. Wow.

“Mattie is the name of a character in the book,” Mattie said. “You failed.”

Mark grimaced. “I didn’t know I was being tested. Shit. I’m sorry. I haven’t read the book. I just wanted to say hi to you.”

Mattie, or whatever her name was, smiled. “It’s a terrible book,” she said. “I hate it.”

“What’s it about?”

“Oh, this married guy has a horrible wife that he can’t leave because she’s sick and he falls in love with the cousin who’s shown up to take care of her, but since they can’t be together, they crash into a tree while sledding in a failed suicide attempt, which leaves them crippled, so the horrible wife has to take care of them, which she loves, because she’s horrible.”

Mark whistled. “Wow. Sounds depressing.”

“Seriously. So do you read at all?”

“Sure,” Mark said. “I just prefer non-fiction.”

“Favorite book?” she challenged.

“Endurance,” he said. “Do you know that one? Ernest Shackleton?”

“No,” she said. “Tell me.”

“He was an explorer who wanted to cross Antarctica. Short story is, the ship became trapped in ice, the crew had to eat their dogs and cross icy stormy seas in canoes, and, this is the amazing part, everyone survived.” Mark leaned back and took a sip of his latte.

“You like that,” she said. “That everyone survived.”

“I do,” he said. “My wife – I was married for 3 years – died. Cancer. She fought it, but you know. It’s not something that can always be beat. Whatever the inspirational magazine articles say.”

Not-Mattie studied him. He sat still, letting her gaze move around his face, his shoulders. “I’m not a fan of attachment,” he blurted out. “Not since.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to be.” She tore a page out of her book, pulled a pen from her purse, scribbled something. “Here, call me.” She thrust the page at him. “I have to run. Class.”

“So you’re going back to school?” he asked.

“Back? Sort of. I never have time to read and I thought if I took some lit classes, I’d have to.” She stood up.

“What about your kids?” he asked.

“Kids?” she laughed. “ I don’t have any kids.”

Mark looked at the page. Alison, she’d scrawled, along with her digits.

“Good to meet you, Alison,” he said.

“Good to meet you, too, Mark.”

“That is my real name,” he added, holding his hand out again.

“Oh, I know,” she said. “I knew before you said. I heard the barista addressing you.” Alison smiled. “You’re not the only one paying attention.”

Mark raised his eyebrows as Alison left. Go figure, he thought. Go figure.

Prompt: Character walks into an unfamiliar bar. (I sort of cheated, I suppose.)

***

This time the place had been reborn as The Phoenix. Clever, Joey thought, given that the bar had gone through at least a dozen incarnations in as many years. Originally Bob’s, then Mary’s, then Frank’s. Pete had added Place to the name and Patricia, the next owner, had kept that part when she took the joint over. After Patty’s Place, things really changed. The Meeting Room had a dress code and doormen and died a quicker death than any of the others. From the remains of The Meeting Room sprang Ace’s, then Honey’s, then the Library, where the owners, an optimistic retired couple, passed out books with every whiskey neat. That was an idea Joey had appreciated. He still had four books from those days. Catcher in the Rye, Don’t Think of An Elephant, a Dolly Parton biography and a collection of short stories that included James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues. Joey had been enamored of that one, particularly the line, “Deep water and drowning were not the same thing.” Didn’t he know. But the Library’s regulars didn’t take kindly to reading and started ordering gin rather than be saddled with another book, a reaction that discouraged the owners tremendously. Last Joey heard, they’d fled to some part of Brooklyn where people were less suspicious of the written word.

From there, the bar turned into Ace’s 2, but the son of Ace had no more luck than his father and sold after six months. No one expected the ambitious agenda of the Seaview Bar & Grill to take root and everyone was right about that. The kids who opened Safe Haven thought the cute name would appeal to the younger crowd while paying homage to the town’s seafaring history, but they were wrong. Consensus among the college kids was too many oldies took up too many barstools while the veterans complained that the jukebox was too damn loud. The owners, college buddies themselves, argued about who should buy each other out first. The conflict grew until neither one ever showed up and the staff’s paychecks began to bounce. Joey hated each new opening, meeting all the optimistic new bartenders, cocktail waitresses and busboys, all so happy to have jobs, so sure that this time, this would be the miracle idea that would change all their fortunes forever.

Now The Phoenix.  Extremely optimistic, Joey thought. And also, didn’t the phoenix just keep burning up and being reborn? Wasn’t that the story of this place already? So did that make the name even more appropriate or were they failing to understand they’d condemned themselves to repeat the past.

He pushed open the door. The bar had been transformed. Again. The Safe Haven kids had plastered neon lights and beer-label mirrors on every square inch, hung framed bikini babes next to vintage photos of ships charging into the harbor and layered random sailing bits wherever they’d fit. Frat house meets boat house, Joey had privately thought. But this new version of his old place held none of that. The walls were bare, stripped back to the original wood and brick. The bar shone blonde, lacquered maple polished so slick Joey bet the bartender could slide a pint from one end to the other with only the slightest flick of the wrist.

The lighting behind the bar was bright, the lighting over the tables soft. Charlie Parker on the jukebox, Joey noted. Joey was the only customer so far.

“Welcome to the Phoenix,” the bartender said as he laid out a cocktail napkin. “What can I get for you?”

“Whiskey, neat,” Joey replied as he settled himself onto the same barstool he’d spent the last decade on. They’d refurbished the stools, he was pleased to note. Good. It’d been a while and his ass wasn’t getting any younger.

“Anything in particular?” the bartender asked.

“What do you recommend?” Joey tested.

The bartender narrowed his eyes, scanned Joey’s face. Joey felt himself being assessed. A sense of anxiety caught him by surprise. He was the veteran. What did he have to worry about? That the bartender would misread him and offer Joey some Jack Daniels thinking he was one of the illiterate men who’d never left the hills except to come here for his nightly does of Old Number 7?

“How do you feel about Redemption?” the bartender asked. “I’m a fan, myself.”

Joey grinned. “Sure, son. Serve it up.” The bartender grinned back, poured the drink, handed Joey the glass.

“I’m Seth.”

“Joey.” He stuck out his hand. They shook.

“You come here much?”

“Oh, only for about 12, 13 years.”

Seth  cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve seen it all, then?”

“Oh, I don’t know about all, but I’ve seen a fair amount.” Joey sipped the whiskey. Redemption. Not bad, he thought. Real nice, in fact.

“Any advice?”

“On the bar?” Joey asked. “Or on life?”

“Either,” Seth answered. “Although I’m particularly interested in the fate of the bar, seeing as I’m the owner.”

“Well,” Joey said, “people haven’t had much luck making something stick. But you knew that going in.”

“Sure,” Seth said. “But I’m what they call an optimist.”

“Well,” Joey said, “it looks good. It feels good. It sounds good. You’re off to a hell of a decent start.”

He sipped his whiskey.

“Thanks, Joey,” Seth said. “That means a lot to me. Tell you what. First drink is on the house.”

Joey raised his glass, nodded, and took another sip.

“So, what’s your story, Joey?”

Joey pondered how to answer that question. Did he start with his youth, maybe the part where Little League gave way to cross country through which Joey had ultimately earned himself a scholarship to Harvey Mudd. He’d been kicked out of school for failing to attend classes, mostly because he was too busy hanging out in Los Angeles where his interest in building engineering had shifted to sound engineering. Joey had some good riffs about bands throwing temper tantrums in the studio and an even better one in which a band had repeatedly insulted the club sound guy from the stage until an embarrassed girlfriend came over to apologize for her boyfriend being like, omigod, such an asshole. That wasn’t the best part, the best part was that the girlfriend had ended up leaving the club with Joey during the encore. They’d picked up some donuts, blueberry old-fashioneds and maple bars, then driven to the beach, huddled under blankets and talked till the sun came up, tequila sunrise tinting the oil rigs like some sort of Parisian paintings. She’d said that, at least. Joey had no idea what Parisian paintings meant, but the scene was beautiful. Just like her.

They’d stayed together six months before she split to return to her boyfriend. He’d left L.A. after that, made his way back north, finished his degree through online correspondence, got the engineering job that had seen him through all these bars, all these years.

“My story?” Joey finally answered. “Seth, I have a lot of stories.” He drained his glass.

Seth poured Joey another shot, then pulled down a glass for himself. “Cheers,” he said. “Here’s to always rising in the end.”

Prompt: First line, “She looked up from her glass and smiled.” ; last line, “And then, finally, they all looked at her.”

***

She looked up from her glass and smiled. Inhaled the cedar-flavored heat of the fire. Pulled a hand through her hair, thick like a horse’s tail her father used to say. At some point, the comparison to a horse’s rear would displease her, but as a child, she loved her father and loved horses and so she would kick up her heels, fling her head about and whinny in reply.

The fire consumed the last log. She’d coated it with lighter fluid as it was not yet dry and the thought of going outside to fetch more wood wearied her. She knew she was supposed to take from the far stack while the near dried, but what kind of stupid system was that? Once this log burned, the house would turn cold. She should rise from the table now, slip into bed before the sheets turned from silk to ice. Silk. Ridiculous, in hindsight. But she was the daughter of a poor man, so once she came into money, all she knew was the clichéd purchases from the romance novels she’d sneak into her room as a teenager.

Now, now she would choose flannel. Something soft, yet practical, warm. Warmth was paramount. Her heart may stay cold, she mused, but at least her body would feel the pleasure of heat. Sometimes that meant another body, one moving against hers in the darkness, but lately it had meant stoking the fire more literally.

The flames flickered behind the glass, smudged with the smoke of a hundred fires. I should clean that, she mused, for the hundredth time. Meanwhile the computer screen sat bare, not a word laid down. She would not go to bed until she’d filled at least one page, she swore.  Immediately a ringing seared the air. Her phone. She’d left it on, what a mistake. She should ignore it and write. It pattered again, the cheery ringtone reminding her of a friend’s black lab who used to slobber on her arm every time she attended a dinner party. “Oh, Snooky Wooky wuvs you!” her friend would enthuse.

She hadn’t attended a dinner party for a while.

She snatched up the phone to make the ringing stop and in doing so, answered the call.

“Marissa?” a man’s voice asked.

“Tell her she must come over!” a woman nagged in the background.

“Hello?” Marissa said.

“Marissa! Hello! It’s Michael. I’m  having a little dinner thing and we realized you aren’t here. Why aren’t you here? Or rather, forget the why and just get here! We’re not taking no for an answer.”

“No,” Marissa tested.

Michael sighed. “Marissa. Please. If you don’t show up, Daisy will label me a failure. I can’t have that. Please, just come for a bit?”

Marissa’s temple throbbed. She could feel the pain kick in, just below the hairline and to the side of her eyebrow. Just on the right side. She lifted a hand to press against her face.

“Marissa?” Michael asked.

“Okay,” she sighed. “I’ll be on my way in a few minutes.”

The fire smoldered, nothing but embers. A smart person would add a log, stoke the flames, ensure the warmth would continue through the night, Marissa thought as she rose, slipped on her coat, picked up her keys and walked out the door.

Michael’s apartment spilled onto the street. Music raced out the opened balcony door and fell to the street, crashing around Marissa as she stepped out of her car. Laughter echoed off the neighboring buildings. The fact that Michael could have parties like this on a regular basis and not wind up evicted testified, she thought, to either his charm or his foresight in always inviting the neighbors, no matter how weird or boring they were.

The rug man, for example. No one knew what to call him, despite introductions going round at every party. He sold rugs, he said, and he talked about selling rugs without pause, so that his name evaporated and all that was left was the memory of “the rug man.”

Marissa rang the bell instead of texting “here.” She rang again. And again. Finally Michael answered. “Marissa! Why didn’t you just text? Come in!” Marissa shrugged as the buzzer sounded,  pushed open the door, climbed the steps to the third floor and let herself into Michael’s apartment.

There was Daisy, the nagging voice. There was Frankie, Michael’s theater friend. There were Levi and Inga, a couple whose situation Marissa could never fully suss out. Married? Dating? Traveling? Friends? Every time she thought she knew, they’d surprise her by kissing or not kissing, talking about plans together and trips taken apart.

There were the rest of the people, Marissa noted, too tired to catalog or identify them all. She observed her shoulders drooping, noted the scent of pot in the air, heard the distant sirens of emergency vehicles flinging themselves to causes greater than hers.

For what was she, she thought, wine glass in hand, herself now perched on a sofa arm, her face thrown back in laughter over something said, what was she? One more writer scribbling down the details, one more writer driven to prove her voice mattered, even if only to herself.

“You’re so clinical,” he’d said before leaving her. “You’re never really present.” Whether sex or fighting, he said, only part of her attended to what was actually happening. “The real you, the part that matters, the part that I would kill to get hold of” – he could be a bit melodramatic, Marissa thought – “that part is hovering somewhere above it all, taking notes on the smells” – nicotine and sweat, she noted – “and the sounds” – his voice loud about the tumbling dryer – “and the taste” – she almost leaned forward to dart her tongue along his salt-flavored neck – “and you are not even listening to me now!” Marissa had started to defend herself, but shrugged instead. He was right. She was writing the story of them and the ending had written itself.

Marissa laughed. “To endings!” she announced, lifting her arms, wine bloodying the sides of the glass, splashing onto her hand, a red river tumbling over her knuckles and falling onto the, thankfully, brown carpet. Brown was the new white, Michael had joked when moving in. “To endings!” Marissa said again. “The expected and the not-so.” Her hand clenched, the wine glass snapped, the blood was suddenly hers. “Shit!” Marissa exclaimed. And then, finally, they all looked at her.

Assignment: One object, three scenarios

***

Scissors

1. Goddamn stupid screws and where the hell is that goddamn stupid screwdriver? I yanked the junk drawer out, dumped the whole goddamn thing on the floor. No screwdriver. Scissors, though. I grabbed the stupid things, remembered when I bought them, on sale, on sale because they were lefty scissors, which I didn’t realize till I arrived home and tried to used them to cut the legs off some pants I wanted to make into a cute skirt – I’d seen a how-to video online and a girl could always use another goddamn skirt, right? Especially if her stupid boyfriend had been cheating on her for the past two months with that goddamn Liza from the bar. He should be here screwing together this stupid table for the stupid TV. I don’t even like TV, but goddamn if I’m going to let him take it. These stupid lefty scissors work good enough to put it all together and tomorrow I’ll go down to the goddamn hardware store and get a screwdriver. Hell, I’ll wear a cute skirt and act confused until one of those hardbodied workers offers to come over and do it for me. Yeah, I’ll say, that’d be great. Wait till my stupid EX-boyfriend hears about that. Screw him.

2. The silk slipped through her fingers, a pink waterfall splashing onto the tiled floor. Drats, Melanie thought. Everything that made it attractive made it hard to work with. She re-gathered the fabric, pinched it tightly, returned to sliding pins through the doubled yards. Isabella slept on the couch. She’d wanted to help, but exhaustion had overtaken her. Melanie considered moving her to her bed, but was afraid Bella would wake and try to assist in the costume construction once again. She understood that allowing her to take part in the project was hypothetically a good thing, that it would make her feel self-sufficient and provide a bonding moment in their mother-daughter relationship. It would slow her down, however, and she needed to finish this and get some sleep herself. Sirens flared up outside, grew louder, then softer. The windchimes nudged each other. Isabella had picked out those chimes, enamored of the metal birds and the way the wind made them take flight, make music. Melanie saw crashing cranes and another layer of noise in a neighborhood that already had too much of it – but she couldn’t say no to Isabella. Which is why she found herself hunched over the kitchen table, cutting fabric under flickering fluorescents. Isabella needed a Halloween costume and she wanted to be an angel. A pink angel ballerina. She was an angel, Melanie thought, working the scissors carefully, keeping the line straight. She deserves beautiful.

3. “So anyway, there I was, banging this chick,” Joey began. Robert winced. His stomach clenched.

“Yeah, I don’t need to hear this,” he said.

“Dude, why so uptight?” Joey whined. “You need to get laid.” No, Robert thought, no, I don’t. What I need is to not cross paths with you every day. If only I’d taken the other apartment in the other building. No doubt I’d be happily comparing Chicken Cordon Bleu recipes with a better neighbor. We’d agree that locally raised, free-range chickens are best, of course, but argue about which cheese complimented and whether or not you should partially fry before you bake.

“Look, just let me tell you this story,”  Joey continued. “It’s fucking hilarious.” Robert prayed the elevator would get to the 10^th floor before Joey achieved climax. Floor 9. Too late. “So, yeah, and not only did she like it like that, but she asked me to do it again,” Joey said. The indicator lit up. 10. The doors opened.

“Your floor,” Robert said. “Dude, come have a drink with me,” Joey said, stopping in the elevator doorway. The doors wanted to close, Robert thought. They’re poised, waiting for this jerk to step out of the way.

“Come on,” Joey continued. “I’ve got some excellent whiskey.” “Can’t,” Robert said. “So much work. Thanks, though.” Joey didn’t budge. “But it’s my birthday, dude. You have to at least have one drink with me.” The very upbringing that caused bile to erupt in Robert’s throat every time Joey opened his mouth also insisted that, for politeness’ sake, he have a drink with the man. For his birthday.

“In that case,” Robert shrugged and followed Joey to number 1004. “Apartment 10-4,” Joey announced. “Roger that, good buddy? Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if your name was Roger?”

Jesus, was Joey already drunk? Robert thought. He could feel his desire to be elsewhere scuttle through his skin. “Oh, hey, here’s that chick from last night.” Joey leaned over his computer, clicked his mouse. “See? Hot, right?” Robert glanced despite himself. To be polite. Then looked for real. The hair. The curve of neck. The way she held her head slightly to the side, just like she used to in softball games. He hadn’t seen her since the ugly, ugly divorce, but he wrote to her every week, sure that with enough time, she’d, if not understand, at least know she could have a relationship with her father again. Girls needed their fathers, he knew. Otherwise they ended up in terrible situations with awful men. Like Joey.

“I don’t even know if she was legal, man, but lookit that ass!” Joey gaped at the computer screen. Robert’s hand moved to the scissors lying on the desk. He watched as his hand lifted the scissors, clenched them, drove them hard into the side of Joey’s throat. Joey’s eyes turned from the screen to Robert. His mouth formed an O. He fell. Blood spurted, then puddled. Robert stepped back to avoid the mess. He kept the scissors in his hand and touched nothing as he left.

Prompt: Write a still life of a scene where something just happened. Describe either before or after the scene:

—————————————

The crash of glass on glass. A mirror, spiderwebbed. Chrysanthemums splayed across the rug. Rain pelting in through the open window. She could smell the electricity.

She used to love that – the way a storm could make the hair on her arms rise, the lightning splintering the desert sky. But that was before. Now she wished the storm away. Envisioned white sands and turquoise waters. Some sort of sparkly drink tasting of cucumber and garnished with lemon slices.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. She shuddered despite efforts to still herself. Broken glass kaleidoscoped the lights outside. Taxis honked. She waited for the trembling to pass. The vein in her forehead throbbed, throbbed again, stopped. A slow inhale… one… two.. three… four… hold… two… three… four… exhale. She looked around at her apartment assessing the damage. Her grandmother’s floor-length mirror, destroyed. The rug, soaking, but cleanable. The vase she’d lovingly packed home from a trip to Italy, history. The flowers, well, they were doomed to die anyway.

The broken glass and the increasingly dumping rain concerned her. The rest could wait. She lifted herself from the couch, stepped to the window, held her breath against the storm, inched the window down until the frame tapped the sill, eased the latch into place.

The shards that once served as a lovely container for the fresh flowers she insisted on glistened. Fetching the broom seemed too ambitious, so she lifted the rug edge with her foot, flipped it over top the broken glass. She might trip on the rug later, but at least nothing would slice her open during a midnight trip to the bathroom. Her bedroom stood all the way on the other side of the apartment, so she sunk back down on the couch, tugged the afghan from the couch’s back over her body. She closed her eyes.

A trick for insomnia, she had learned, was to rewind her day. To think backwards over each thing that happened, the idea being a person would fall asleep before reaching, “I woke up this morning.” Reliving the events of the past hour didn’t appeal to her, but if she could get through them to a more peaceful place, perhaps sleep would allow her entry.

I pulled the blanket over me, she thought.

I laid down on the couch, she thought.

I kicked the rug over the broken glass, she thought.

I closed the window, she thought.

I breathed slowly, she thought.

I thought about a beautiful island, she thought.

I could smell the storm, she thought.

I came back to myself, she thought.

I was sobbing, she thought.

I threw the vase at the mirror, she thought.

I screamed into the phone, she thought.

He mocked me, she thought.

I told him, I hate this game, she thought.

He asked me to name 10 women who would have him, she thought.

I answered the phone, she thought.

I shouldn’t answer the phone, I thought.

I saw his name light up my screen, she thought.

My phone rang, she thought.

I wrote about how stupid this relationship has been, she thought.

I thought about how stupid this relationship has been, she thought.

He hung up on me, she thought.

I told him to fuck off, she thought.

He told me he’d been invited to Puerto Rico by another woman, she thought. A petite, sporty woman.

I told him I loved him, she thought.

He told me he was sad, that no one loved him, she thought.

I asked how he was, she thought.

He said hello in that way he says hello when he feels life has defeated his best attempts to be amazing, she thought.

I saw his name light up my screen, she thought.

My phone rang, she thought.

I thought about how stupid this relationship has been, she thought.

Can’t make it, she remembered.

I had a new text, she thought.

My phone dinged, she thought.

I came home from the store, she thought, dumped out the groceries on the counter: noodles, peanuts, cilantro. I was going to make him dinner, she thought.

I stopped at the grocer’s, she thought. I wanted to make him dinner. I wanted to break up with him. I wanted him to love me. I thought if I made him dinner, things would be easier. That was stupid. Breakups should take place in neutral territory. Declarations of love shouldn’t be contrived. What I wanted didn’t relate to the reality of what I had. Which was a lousy boyfriend.

I exited the subway, she thought.

I stumbled when that excessively tall German crashed into me, she thought.

Someone was eating curry on the train, she thought. The smell pervaded the train. Normally aloof faces screwed into expressions of annoyance. No one wants to smell anything on the train, she thought. We have a tacit understanding: engage no senses other than sight and sound and only those when necessary.

I left work and entered the subway and got on the train, she thought, bored with how long this was taking.

I worked on TPS reports all day, she giggled.

Be serious, she thought.

You’ll be awake all night, she thought.

She hated him, she thought.

She loved him, she thought.

She didn’t care either way, she thought.

Fuck, she’d blown the exercise, she thought.

Where was I?

Left work.

Before that?

Worked.

Lunch at the Greek place. It had a name, a long, hard-to-pronounce name and even though they all liked to think they were clever and worldly, they all defaulted to calling it “the Greek place.”

She’d had an imaginary conversation with him, she thought, one in which she asked the questions and he’d answered them.

They’d argued about politics. She was pro gun-control. He was pro-gun.

They’d gone to breakfast.

“Let’s get breakfast,” he’d said.

I saw his name light up my screen.

My phone rang.

I’d been

A combination of holidays, travel and illness had prevented our writers’ group from meeting for weeks. Three-quarters of us finally reconnected Thursday night. The assignment was to have a first line and a last line, then write the story in between. We each wrote two lines, shuffled the papers, then drew ones not our own. Here’s what I began with:

First line: “The shrink leaned back on his padded chair and tried not to grimace.”

Last line: “Two steps in and already turning, turning, to exit unnoticed.”

————————-

The shrink leaned back on his padded chair and tried not to grimace. The screen above flashed, “64A, 14H, 29C.” He glanced at his own ticket, 42H, once again. At the pace they were progressing, it’d be Thursday before his number came up. Good thing he didn’t run his own office like this. And the filth! He glanced around at the other clientele. Not a one like him. Sweatpants and bad skin. He recrossed his legs, admired his perfectly cuffed pants. He found that cuffing the pants made them lay better, flatter in the front. No tacky bunching for him. He’d read the advice in a men’s magazine once – he really did read the articles. He wished he had something to read, anything, right now.

“65A, 16H, 33C.” The latest numbers came up. He’d left his phone in his car, deterred from bringing it in by the signs explicitly stating, “No cell phones.” Apparently, no one else had paid attention. Or maybe they couldn’t read, he thought. Without fail, all the sweat-panted, bad-haired people in the waiting area had phones in their hands. A teenage girl, pink sweats and skyscraper hair, jackhammered her thumbs without a pause. He waited for her to pause. Minutes passed. More numbers popped up on the screen. Perhaps she was writing a novel, he thought. Wouldn’t that be something, he thought. Maybe he had these people all wrong. Maybe they were all secret creatives, slack-jawed on the surface, burning underneath, about to step away from their jobs as janitors, temp agency receptionists, discount grocery clerks to be big time mystery authors or famous rappers.

He wondered if he could name any famous rappers. No, he thought, he could not.

The florescent light nearest him flickered, once. A beat. Again. A beat, again and now without stopping. He closed his eyes to ward off the madness. Breathed in through his nose, held it, counted to four in his head, exhaled, counted to four again, inhaled.

“Sir? Are you okay?” The teenager was looking at him, brown eyes clear in a face pitted with acne.

“Sure,” he said. He pulled himself more upright, recrossed his legs. “Why?”

“You looked like maybe you’d passed out.” She shrugged, turned her attention back to her phone.

“66A, 22H, 34C.” The numbers moved forward unevenly. The ticket holders shuffled forward. People entered, people left, but the sluggish turnover reminded him of eddies on the side of the river where too little movement turned the clear water to algae-ridden muck.

When was the last time he’d been to the river, he wondered. Last year? The year before? He’d loved the river once, the way it bent around the rocks, water seeking ever lower ground in an unstoppable quest to get to the ocean. An irresistible force. They would go to the river together, tromp to their favorite spot, just far enough away from everyone else, but not so far that they’d waste the day hiking. They’d pull each other’s clothes off, in love with the feel of skin on skin but unable to withstand the heat of the day, they’d pull away and jump in, the relief of the water a world away from the monotony of the office, the arguments about money, the threatening stagnation of their lives.

What he loved more than anything, almost anything, was to get back out, lie on the flat rock, so hot in the midday sun that he had to be dripping wet in order to place his skin upon it, to lay there until the sun had dried him and between the air and the rock he felt as if he was literally baking like bread in an oven, so near to passing out, and then he would rise, dizzy, and step off the rock, torpedo eight feet back into the river, bam, the cold shock reanimating every cell within his body, making him, as they say, in the moment, all else but the physical pleasure evaporating away. He could spend hours alternating between the heat of the rock and the cold of the river. Once. Now he only traveled between the air conditioned office and his air conditioned car and the air conditioned upscale food boutique, inconvenienced by the bursts of heats in between as if it were a bothersome fly.

“67A, 23H, 41C.” He slumped back into the padded chair, this time giving way to the grimace. He glanced at his watch. If he left now, he could be at the river in 40 minutes. What would happen if he left, he wondered. The clerks moved without buoyancy and the rent-a-cop security had more gut than awareness. He stood up, slipped his ticket, damp now from being clenched in his palm, into his pocket, which lay flat against his thigh, the crease in his pants intact. He made for the door.

“Sir?” The “Start Here” clerk called out. “Sir, if you leave, we can’t guarantee your place. Sir?” The rent-a-cop shifted his weight, rolled his shoulders back.

“You might as well wait,” the guard said. “It doesn’t get any easier when you come back.” He put his hand on his belt, a belt above pants that bunched badly, but he didn’t make a move to stop him.

He pushed by the guard, leaned on the glass door handle, felt the grease from all the hands that had been there before and pushed out into the sunlight. The heat dizzied him, but he had purpose now and moved fast. Keys in hand, car, driving, open road, trees edged gold by the sunshine. Better to be in beauty, he thought. In beauty, we are alive, he thought. So much of living involved resisting the dullness and ugliness, he thought, rebelling against the inertia in which death was a matter of degree by minuscule degree so that by the time it arrived he would be too numb to notice.

Car parked, trail traversed, river reached, clothes stripped away. It was too early in the year, really. The air was hot like summer, but the water retained winter’s cold, ran high and powerful. He was reminded of the flip side of tranquility as he stepped to water’s edge. Two steps in and already turning, turning, to exit unnoticed.

Prompt: Write a letter and in it, describe a room.

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