This week’s prompt is a chain story! I’ll give you the first line, and someone else comments and builds off that line. Next commenter will build off that line, and so on.
In the event of two commenters posting at the same time and sending the story in different directions, just pick the line you like best, or try to incorporate both if can.
A pumpkin. A freaking pumpkin.
Let the fun begin.
I was all for getting into the spirit of Thanksgiving this year until I was traumatized by the taste of Pumpkin spice toothpaste.
ReplyDeleteI throw the toothpaste in the sink and stomp downstairs. I need something to take the taste away.
ReplyDeleteBowl. Cereal. Milk.
The milk is orange. The milk is freaking pumpkin flavour. I peer at the cereal; tiny little pumpkins floating in orange milk. What the hell?
Marshmallow watches me from the sideboard, tail twitching. He washes his paw.
"You shouldn't be up there, Mal." Like my cat ever listens to me.
"I know," he said.
A cruel prank by my brother had me preying to the porcelain god.
ReplyDeleteI run back upstairs to see if he did what no other sibling dared to do...touch my room.
ReplyDeleteI open the door and scream some word that should probably never see the light of day. I don't want to even describe what he did, so just imagine a pumpkin, multiply it by 60, and that's my room.
Long story short, Bryan was dead.
Maybe I'm dreaming. I pinch myself and wince.
ReplyDelete"Shall I claw you a bit as well?" Marshmallow is eyeing me thoughtfully.
I must be hallucinating. Yes, that's it. Something at last night's holiday office party hasn't agreed with me. That's the problem with potluck; you never know what's in that crockpot or the origin of the lumps in the dip. Especially when your coworkers are a motley assortment of chemists, physicists, and geologists working together in a village on the outskirts of nowhere.
Okay, it's not a hallucination, then how can one not attend such functions if one wants to rise above the mediocrity? As I contemplate potlucks and -ists of all kinds, Marshmallow rubs up against me. He misses Byan, too. Probably wishes it were me instead.
ReplyDelete"Kara, you ready to go?" A voice calls from the front of the house.
ReplyDelete"Matt? How'd you get in?" OMG, I forgot all about Matt. We're supposed to go shopping for ingredients for the Thanksgiving cookie exchange at work.
"Door was open. Here, I got you something," hesays, shoving a cup towards me.
I wrap my hand around the warm corrugated cup holder. Starbucks! I love Starbucks! "Oh, yum...what kind?" Please please please let it be a double mocha cappuccino with sprinkles.
"Pumpkin Spice Latte!"
I set the cup in the counter. Pumpkin. More freakin' pumpkin.
"Did my brother put you up to this?"
Matt just shook his head at me; he didn't want any part of our sibling squabbles. So I haphazardly grabbed my jacket and followed him out, closing the front door behind me. I stumbled when my foot sunk into something.
ReplyDeleteThe pumpkin I had carved for Halloween.
"Are you--even--argh!" I kicked the pumpkin away, it's rotting face leering at me as though in ghostly laughter.
"Let's go, Matt," I threw over my shoulder as I stormed away, /praying/ my morning would improve on the drive to work.
With my foot all wet and soggy, I thought to myself "do I really care what Matt thought? Why not be merry and drink it all away"
ReplyDeleteAt the curb, I scraped pumpkin remains from my shoe, and got into the car. My purse was ridiculously heavy, and I wondered what the hell was in it. I looked. Oh, why did I look? A trio of miniature pumpkins leered up at me.
ReplyDeleteI snapped the purse shut.
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell is going on today? Jesus, did my drink get spiked last night?
"Hey, what's up?" Matt glanced at me, eyes narrowed.
"Nothing, just-- Jesus! Watch out!"
Pumpkin splatters across the windscreen, the car now weaving wildly.
Matt yanked on the steering wheel, and veering onto the sidewalk, we shrieked as the Escalade slammed into a tree. In the moments that followed, I recall Matt groaning in the driver's seat, and the sound of the engine coughing out smoke.
ReplyDelete"Matt?" He didn't answer. "Matt!" I shook his shoulder, praying that he was only stunned. I reached over to pull back his head. I felt for his hair, but instead I came in contact with a smooth, round surface. I wrenched my arm back, screaming frantically, because Matt's head, where his head should have been, was a grinning jack-o'-lantern.