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 Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2010 9:58 pm
This month, I'm starting a new experiment. Each challenge from now until next summer will come in three parts: a poetry challenge, a prose challenge and a new section, a character, story and world creation project taken one month at a time.
The Prose Challenge:
Write a short story (beginning, middle and end) that includes:
a chapel
a metal sign
the phrase: "Sure, you believe, but then you drink the Kool Aid."
A second thought
and a strange e-mail
The Poetry Challenge:
Write a sonnet (Shakespearean or Petrarchan) about a color and your interpretation or what it represents.
The Character Creation Challenge:
Write a back story for an original character (pre-existing or created specifically for this prompt) in the form of an essay. Plan to use this character in the following eight prompts.
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Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2010 9:38 pm
Part One of the Prose Challenge. (more will be added.)
She invited him to dinner, the night her test results came in.
In retrospect, her cryptic e-mail must have spooked him. He arrived that night wearing a dark, clean pressed shirt and the fancy, pleated slacks he hated, with the same flowers in hand he brought her on their first date, the crisp, fresh daisies and peonies she decided must come from his mother's garden.
He looked as shaken as she felt and something deep within her chest tightened as he walked through her door, driving her to outward pity for the first time in days.
So she accepted the bouquet with the same gracious smile she always gave him when he presented her with a gift, and a swift, smiling kiss for good measure, before stepping into the kitchen to fill a vase to keep them fresh.
“Dora,” he said with a gravity she knew to be entirely contrived for her entertainment. “You look ravishing, as always.”
“Alan,” she returned with similar intensity. “Your bravado never ceases to amuse me.”
“Always glad to be of service,” he replied with a laugh not so easy as his customarily sounded.
“So,” he continued with the same forced joviality. “What's the occasion?'
“A surprise,” she told him, smoothing his ruffled feathers with a light touch to his shoulder, guiding him to the immaculately set table, the residue of her restless afternoon.
“I thought for once dinner could be on me,” she explained, seating him across from her at the small, normally unassuming table.
“I'm not complaining,” he returned, perturbed but, for the time being, at least, content ot play along. “You should have told me, though. I could have made something.”
“And spoiled the surprise? No way,” she seated herself across from him, legs stretched out comfortably to intertwine with his own.
They worked their way through the meal like that, light, cheerful banter concealing the worry at the heart of the evening.
He was confused, she knew. Dinner should have indicated a positive result, but an impromptu summons to her home could mean any one of a variety of terrifying outcomes.
But he had been so good, for so long, that she knew even if only out of respect for her equest he would stay with her for an hour or two more.
So, once their dessert plates were set to the side, the tiramisu, their common favorite, mostly finished, she broached the subject.
“You must be so confused,” she began, leaning forward to rest her chin on her cupped hands.
“Yeah, mostly. So,” he continued, leaning his chair back onto its rear legs. “What's the bad news?”
He was superficially kidding, she knew, and the humor in his voice made her grateful, no matter how unfounded it appeared.
“It's hard, that's all,” she explained, even though nothing was, or would ever again be 'that's all.'
“Well,” he replied, the first stirrings of unease creeping into his voice, “don't keep me in suspense.”
“I got the test results back today,” she began, turning rapidly back to face him.
“Ah,” he began, cleverly, obviously unsure of how to broach the subject. “And they-?”
“I'm okay,” she told him shakily. “The cancer's in remission and they – my doctors – are hopeful that it'll be gone for good.”
“That's fantastic!” he exclaimed, leaning forward, a grin spreading slowly across his face, a lingering shadow hiding in the creases at the corners of his eyes. “So why all this?”
Her eyes followed his sweeping gesture, encompassing the table in all its glory, the half-eaten dishes and elaborate dessert.
“It wasn't all good news,” she explained cautiously. “The radiation... it messed up my system.”
“Messed up how?” he inquired, the shadows creeping forward onto the plane of his face.
“Alan, I'm sterile. I can't have children. We can't have children.”
He had no answer to that, only a stunned, incredulous silence, a chasm open across the center of the table. He stood after a moment and reached out as though to hold her, a gesture she shied away from, lost an confused in this unfamiliar territory.
“Don't,” she implored him, and he stopped, half in his seat and half out of it. “I just – don't. Not right now.”
She stood and walked over to the bookshelf, fingering the spines of the novels there, her back to him until she heard him move.
When she turned again, he had his back to her where he stood, gazing out of her portrait window, hands clasped behind his back.
“What should we do?” she asked after the silence dragged on for several long moments.
“I don't know,” he replied, voice hollow, small and shocked. “Can I just have some time?”
“How long?” she asked, resigned, sinking into a nearby chair and folding down into its plush, suffocating depths, resting her head on her knees.
“I don't know,” he repeated. “Does it matter?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her reply muffled into nonexistence by her legs.
“You'll call?” she inquired with more volume.
“Eventually,” he murmured, finally turning back to face her.
She heard his soft tread as he crossed the room to where she sat, saw the worn toes of his favorite leather dress shoes enter her field of vision. Her head still rested on her knees as though the futile gesture could somehow tame the nausea winding like a snake within her stomach.
“I promise,” he stated, one hand firmly griping her knee as he knelt down.
She looked up to meet his eyes, gauging the sincerity there. If Alan's tone lacked its customary conviction, so too did it lack malice and, content with what she saw, Dora nodded reluctantly. With a sad, small smile, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him close to her for several long seconds. Finally, he returned the gesture and they stood together, she stepping around him to take up his post at the window.
She heard him slide into his jacket without another word, open her door and disappear into the night. She watched him walk down the street in front of her house, climb into his car and drive slowly away, the glow of his headlight fading into the encroaching dusk, his customary 'love you' resounding only in her memory.
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