geisha sayah
1. Write a story using “He turned the key in the lock and opened the door. To his horror, he saw…” as your first line.
2. You walk into your house and it’s completely different — furniture, decor, all changed. And nobody’s home.
3. Create a character who has a secret to confess, but who is afraid to confess it. Write the diary or journal entries that your character would write as she or he considers the secret, explores why it needs to be confessed, thinks about who will be affected if the secret is known, and considers why she or he is afraid. Write a series of diary or journal entries, as if they were written over a period of several days or a week. In the entries, you can incorporate the main character's interactions with others and explore the ways that the day-to-day events that the character experiences influence the way that she or he thinks about the secret and confession. Your character's decision to tell (or not) should be revealed in the final diary or journal entry.
4. Write a poem concerning the "absence" of something. Consider the absence as a positive, or a negative.
5. Write a poem using the title, "Paradise of Strangers".
6. Write a poem that starts at the end, moving backwards.
I pick 1.
He turned the key in the lock and opened the door. To his horror he saw ... that the maid hadn't come today. John stormed inside, slamming the door behind him in frustration. He didn't pay the woman to slack off. He decided she had better had a
pretty good reason to take a day off without notice, or she was out of a job. She picked a great time too, what with Sharron coming over for dinner tonight. What was she supposed to think when his entire house looked like it had been ravaged by some crazed wild animal? Perhaps it had been, John certainly wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. One thing was for sure; it was NOT going to give a positive first impression. Perhaps he should call her and tell her not to come because he was ... what? He would think of some excuse anyway. She wouldn't like it, but what else could he do?
First things first, John decided, he would call the maid and find out why she hadn't shown up. He would give her a talking to, oh yes he would. He waded through junk to the place he remembered the phone being. It was a corded phone, of course. He had intentionally avoided buying a wireless phone as he knew he would lose it if he did. He picked up and threw a sweaty shirt, a few socks and a tatty blanket across the room (resolving that the mess couldn't get any worse) and found the telephone set underneath. He had three voice messages. He listened to the first one.
"Hi Johny dear, it's your mother," as if he needed her to identify herself; no one else called him 'Johny dear' - unless of course they wanted a punch in the nose. It went on, "I'm just calling to check on you," of couse she was, it wasn't like she ever called for anything else, "You better be looking after yourself
Jonathon Anthony Jones, I can just
see the state your little shack must be in," John groaned, rolling his eyes, he was a grown man, but she would
never stop nagging at him like this. She had no right - even
if what she said was partly true. Or almost true. Or completely true. She went on "And
when am I going to meet this girl you keep going on about? Sheryl was it? I can't believe - " John hit delete before she could finish, upset with himself for listening this long. Perhaps a small part of him actually believed she might just have
something useful to say.
"MESSAGE DELETED. MESSAGE RECIEVED TODAY AT. FIVE. THIRTY. THREE. A.M. YOU HAVE. TWO. MORE. MESSAGES." The machine informed him, cutting its sentences to pieces - as machines did. It beeped, and continued onto the next message.
"Hi John, it's Sharron," his leaned forward, hopeful, "I know you're at work now and you probably won't get this till late. Sorry about that, but I don't seem to have the right mobile number," Of course! How stupid of him. He'd forgotten to tell her his new number, having changed it to avoid his mother. "I wanted to tell you, I can't come to dinner tonight, Something came up at work and I'll be there till late," John felt both disappointment and relief at the same time. He realised he still didn't know what Sharron actually did. Weird of him not to have asked by now. She went on "Sorry about that, really, but you can't control things like that, you know? Again, I'm sorry I had to get through to you this way, you've probably been preparing like mad by now. Anyway, I guess I'll see you later then. Bye."
"MESSAGE RECIEVED TODAY AT. SEVEN. FIFTY. TWO. A.M. YOU HAVE. ONE. MORE. MESSAGE." The machine informed, then beeped and played the next message.
"Mr Jones! It's Marianne." John didn't have a clue who Marianne was, but she spoke in a frantic whisper, and he could tell from her voice she'd been crying. "You know me? The maid." Oh. Now she was crying as she spoke, "Please Mr J-J-Jones! You have to hel-hel-help me!" She broke off into wordless sobs for a moment, "They picked me up, in front of your h-h-house ... they keep t-t-telling me I'm Sh-Sh-Sharron Wh-Wh-Whitehead." She took a sharp intake of breath, John listening in shocked silence, "I keep saying I'm M-Marianne Smith from the next street over, but they won't b-b-believe me! You have to -" She was cut off as a man swore in the background, there was a scuffle and Marianne screamed, then a male voice cut into the message.
"Whoever the HELL is listening, know this," the stranger said harshly, “If you do ANYTHING, if you breathe a SINGLE WORD, we WILL track you down and we WILL kill you. Slowly. Painfully. We have your number; soon we will have your name and then your address. It will be easy. Besides, there are many of us - and, I believe - only ONE of YOU. Always remember that. Good-bye, my friend." There was a yelp, in the background. The last thing John heard was the man again, yelling. "SHUT UP YOU F***ING - !" then the message cut off.
"MESSAGE RECIECEIVED TODAY AT. EIGHT. FORTY. TWO. A.M. YOU HAVE. NO. MORE. MESSAGES." The machine informed. John sat in stunned silence, his entire world turned on end. This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen. Not in his life. What's going on? Who was after Sharron and why? Why had they come to his house? Clearly they mustn't have even known what Sharron looked like, having mistaken plain, raven-haired Marianne for the stunning blond Sharron. It didn't make any sense. Why did it have to be
him trying to figure this out anyway? It wasn't his business. He should just stay out of it, that's what he should do. He wasn't a brave person, and he certainly was NOT a hero. But how could he leave Marianne to who knows who-or-what like that? Sure, he didn't know her, but well ... she
did clean his house periodically - quite a feat - and she was still a human being. He could at least call the police. He SHOULD call the police. But what about the man's threats? John knew these ...
people ... would have his details by now. They could hurt Marianne too. One thing was for sure, John was stuck. Every decision he made potentially had horrific consequences. John sat awake for a long while that night.
--Critique? Thoughts? Comments? Just typed this kind of on the spot, it's not exactly polished but oh well. I tried to mess with the general interpretation of this prompt
biggrin --
