This week’s prompt is a free write, so take the line below and run with it. It doesn’t have to turn into anything, just let the words flow and see where they go.
Continue this opening sentence: I never expected…
Skill tip: If you’re in the mood to polish your evocation skills, try focusing this free write on creating an emotional response. Bring out the emotions associated with this line and what someone dealing with something unexpected might feel.
Write as much or as little as you’d like.
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"What's your favorite color?" asked Ruth.
ReplyDeleteThe wall that was a newspaper on the other side of the table replied, in Paul's voice. "Blue, I suppose."
"Why blue?"
Paul pondered again. "Color of the sky."
"Really?" said Ruth. "I find that surprising. You work in an office all week long and spend most of the weekend watching sports on TV. When do you ever see the sky?"
Paul dropped the newspaper into his lap. "I see it when I'm driving. I see it when I'm mowing the lawn. I even see it on the TV during the games."
Ruth wasn't moved. "I didn't know pro basketball was played outdoors."
Paul sighed. "What's the problem? You asked about my favorite color and I told you."
"I just think a preference for blue because it's the color of the sky is unusual for you, that's all."
Paul raised his paper again. "Well, if you're not going to like the answer, why ask? Geez, I never expected a kind of Spanish Inquisition."
Suddenly, three men wearing long red robes burst through the front door and one announced, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
I never imagined it would end like this.
ReplyDeleteNoNoNoNoNoNo.
I was in love. This was my happily ever after. My dream come true. My promise to myself.
My hands shook as I lifted them up from Kyle's body. But soon the whole of me trembled, as if ice had penetrated the marrow of my bones. But it wasn't cold out. The night air dripped thick and hot, making me fight with each breath for what little oxygen wasn't squeezed out by the water that clung unseen.
I gulped for air, then lurched forward. My hands hit the still steaming asphalt just before my stomach churned up the Southern Comfort and mandarin chicken I had eaten just an hour ago. I sat back on my heels, the road grit burrowing into my bare knees like starving ticks. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and realized the tremors had gone.
A bird voice in my brain screamed, Run! But I just kneeled there, jelly-legged, staring as my vomit mixed with Kyle's blood under the orange glow of the lone street light.
I never expected this. I sit down on the bench and wait. For my husband.
ReplyDeleteNever in a lifetime did I expect that my husband - my own husband! - would forget something, leave something behind. At the airport. Ha! And surely not his camera bag.
Imagine this! This man, who was so accurate, so obnoxiously accurate, left his oh-so-valuable and oh-so-expensive camera bag at the security control at the airport.
We were already on our way to the gate. He walked slightly in front of me with his long strides, as always, not caring if I could keep up, or not when he suddenly stopped. Of course, I ran into him. He snorted.
"Gosh, Gretchen, do you never pay attention?"
"What's wrong?" I asked not even bothering to comment his rude question.
"What did you do with my camera bag?" He barked.
"Me? Nothing!"
My fearful mind started to turn and turn. What did I do with his camera bag? I pondered.
"You must have left it at the security." he looked at me as if I was the keeper of his bag. As always.
"ME? You didn't even let me touch it, remember?" I couldn't help myself.
Suddenly I start laughing. I just cannot fathom what had happened next.
He had dragged me back to security and demanded his bag. The security guy, a big black man with a balding head looked at him as he had two heads.
Then hell broke loose. As the bag had already gotten the status "dangerous" because it seemed to have no owner, the special unit had been called. And to make a long story short, they had arrested my husband as soon as they arrived. They took him away and left me to wait for him.
That is so hilariously funny that i just sit here, waiting for him and laugh and laugh and laugh. It is so good to know that i was not the one who had left HER bag behind and that the whole morning he was the one, who had guarded that bag like a hawk and did not even allow me to touch it.
I never had expected that. Not in my lifetime anyway.
I never expected it to be my flesh, my blood exploding from my thigh. The gun in his hand pointing at me but I heard nothing felt nothing just the globules of my body spreading like a scene from a movie. This was not how I imagined being shot would be like. This! was not the movies this was my home, my yard and the rape of my existence was two men stealing my gas bottle.
ReplyDeleteI never heard one shot nor felt the pain just saw the exploson of bits of my flesh spreading like a science TV show. I lifted my hands to stop the unfolding scene, all that happened, my fingers crumpled in a bloody mess. I screamed at him "Fuck You!" that impotent primal scream, it did nothing maybe I screamed at god it was all the same, because it did not stop.
I know time is an eternity now through that experience, seeing things slowed down wanting time to stop but life pushes on, the bullets continued against my will, against everything I could bring to bear, my faith, my hope, my life , my learning nothing would stop the bullets.
Six times against my will, the Police found 12 casings, six times as I tried to stop the madness, he ran away laughing his last bullet deflected from my rib cage, he fired point blank at my heart, it pierced my intestines bounced off my hip and they cut it from my arse all shinny copper, the bringer of destruction of my flesh a lifeless piece of metal.
I still bear the scars the empty spaces where my muscles tissue and skin used to be, I feel the dents sometimes, but I always see the image of the globules of my being blown into space that moment frozen in time that moment when I had a choice to be a victim or not.