642 Prompts: New Tenants

Artwork by Olaf Hajek 

Prompt: The people who will live in your house after you move out.

2/22/16

The uneven paint seams unnerved them. They assumed I must have been a sloppy person. They "refurbished" all the decay I called character. No appreciation for the decrepit and useless fruit-drying vents in the floor. They got rid of the green claw-foot tub. They ripped out the blackberry brambles and put in gravel. They called the gold ceilings gaudy. They swapped the whistling beveled panes for air tight glass that you can see miles away through. They amputated every vine fingering this home, the bastards. In fact, they let every vagabond who rolled up the cul de sac traipse through that old place and they sold off my collections, my monuments, my mementos, for $2-5. They gutted and de-souled that home until it was just a house - somebody else's house. But their daughter put an orchid in her window, and that's something. 

642 Prompts: The Lazy Son

Prompt: A woman is struggling to get a large package into the trunk of her car. Her son doesn't get out of the car to help her. Write the scene.

9/21/15

The boy is leaning against the door, staring at the unknown through his sunglasses. Or perhaps he's staring straight at his mother, but remains absolutely motionless. It's most likely the hottest day of the year, but all the windows are shut tightly.

Standing in a doorway across the street, shading myself in the shadows and puffing at my cigarette, I wonder - at what point do you call the police on a negligent mother, even if the child is able to care for himself? Or is he the careless one, sitting in there with the AC on, watching her struggle to move each industrial sized tupperware of guts into the car?

I hate to promote stereotypes, but the only explanation I can conjure is that she runs a street food stall selling menudo. Her strong Latina hands can probably put the fear of God into that child if she so pleases.

Another car drives by slowly and I see the passenger stare hard and pull out a phone. Whatever. People are so paranoid and racist these days. Why can't the lady have an equal chance to wear her body down in search of the American Dream? Why can't that little brat enjoy some laziness? I'm not going to spend my time doing someone else's parenting. She slams the trunk and pulls out.

Two nights later, I read in the newspaper about a woman who had been arrested on my block. She had kidnapped a boy and left his dead body in her car, along with vats of pig guts in her trunk. They also found three human livers. 

642 Prompts: Heaven is F'real.

Prompt: Describe Heaven.



8/24/15

Heaven is like New Orleans on acid. I've never been to NOLA or done acid, but by it's very nature, Heaven must be something you imagine but haven't experienced. Heaven is suffocated by magnolia blossom trees and tropical fruit. Heaven is a place where we all work, some of us as street sweepers, but we all take immense joy in our work. In Heaven we have every toy for our collection, and the high never wears off. In Heaven we're constantly giddy about our lovers, while enjoying that warmth of a lifetime of the mundane. We can be in love with many people at once without it being a conflict or a dishonor. Heaven is a commune housed in candy-colored painted lady homes, where everyone eats Turkish food with their fingers and no one ever gets drunk. You never get too old to stop enjoying your birthday. Heaven is constant synesthesia, but never overwhelming. Heaven is a library that never closes. In Heaven, all the water is warm and clear and you can breath beneath the surface and float without effort. God Almighty is an incredibly baker, and you never have to stand in line to sit next to It, on a velvet couch playing Cards For Humanity, Eternity expansion. Heaven is new every morning, but familiar forever. In Heaven, everything is as free as the smile of your son, and that never cheapens its quality. Everyone wears saris. Most sidewalks are paved with wallpaper in fantastical prints, and the weeds that grow along the edges are excellent in stew. In Heaven, I only cry because I want to.

It's crazy. As I was searching for a visual to put with this post, I decided that it needed to be something that moved and settled on the video above (runner ups here and here), and totally forgot that the still image I'd chosen before deciding this called for a video was this!: 

642 Prompts: Nearly Drowning

Prompt: Describe nearly drowning.

8/17/15

[fiction] painting by Paul Lee

Before you witness drowning, you imagine chaos, thrashing, gurgling screams. In fact, all available air goes to your blood and you're unable to make noise. Each millisecond above water is an inhale, not a sound.

Once I found a brand new sparrow, crippled in the water of our pool. His escaping life force was mute and bulging, a terrible Calm tightening its clutches more fiercely than any panic. I scooped him out and put him on a lawn chair to dry out.

I walked away without waiting to see if he'd recover, because all I could feel in that moment was my own heart going under the waves in a sea of choked back tears.

642 Prompts: The Ex's Wedding

I came upon this book, 642 Things to Write About at a thrift store the other day. Naturally, I bought it, because I have nothing else to do in my life. Also ignore the fact that I already have 131 drafts of posts that I could work on instead. 

My good friend Taylor recently shared some prose with me that he wrote as part of an exercise, simply to push himself as a writer. Um, why am I not doing this? I have aspirations of writing all kinds of books, eventually. A memoir, a cookbook, a collection of poetry, a novel (???), among other ideas. These prompt responses aren't a huge time commitment, and I would love to hone my skills as a writer, so I'm planning to post my responses to the prompts here on the blog now and again. 

I hand-wrote this scene in the book and used up all the space, which explains why it is so short. I could use some training in brevity. 

Here's the first prompt: You are looking down through the skylight as chefs prepare dinner for your ex-fiance's wedding. 

8/14/15

I was glad to see that there was a tray of of pigs in a blanket. Pigs in a blanket? What is this? Third grade home room? "Costco Deluxe Events"? I couldn't believe that someone who was once in love with me could now be in love with someone who serves pigs in a blanket at a party that's supposed to express the flavor of one's romance.

I was glad to see this because I felt less certain that Anthony really belonged with me if he was marrying a Pig in a Blanket. I wish I could say I was a leather-clad vixen burglar, and that's what I was doing on this roof top, but I'm more of a pathetic drunk with an ungodly ability to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I looked down again at the mini weenie fest unfolding below, only to see the last one disappearing into the mouth of the sous chef's daughter. I had missed her before, sitting under the 5th industrial sink, coloring with crayons. The other thing I missed that night was the fact that a room away, Anthony was pledging his life away to two men.

Nothing is ever as it seems.