Hi guys, here’s what I wrote for Day 5 of our June Read/Write Challenge. Hope you’re having fun generating your own literary writing prompts. Keep writing!
“To reach the restaurant we had to climb down seven dimly lit steps into a sort of cellar.” From The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, p. 78.
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To reach the restaurant we had to climb down seven dimly lit steps into a sort of cellar. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark. Our small group shuffled silently down into the space and, as I reached the last step, I must have placed my weight on it in just such a way, because it gave a great creaking sigh, as it had not done for any of the others. Like a dog, I thought, like the rumbling, deep-throated whine my mother’s old border collie made when it saw you’d come to the last bite of hamburger, pinched between your fingers.
I slowly removed my foot from the offended spot, thinking a gradual motion was likely to produce the least noise. This had the effect of drawing the sound out–unimaginably–ascending octaves from a low thrum to the prolonged groan of a man in ecstasy to–quickly, in the last instant as, abandoning all stealth, I stepped back off of the step and crushed the toes of the little girl and her mother waiting behind me to enter the room–the piercing wail of a hungry baby, cut off and left ringing in the air.
As the sound ratcheted through the pillowy silence, my face burned in the dark. A dozen pairs of eyes turned accusatorily towards me. But at that moment our guide, who had crossed the narrow space below, threw aside a stiff square of curtain, revealing a tiny glass-block window, the metal grommets screaming across the brass curtain rod like a steam engine pulling into the station.
The pairs of eyes all swung around in unison, as a shaft of sunlight sliced through the room, revealing small round tables and curving café chairs. Each table was set for two, with little glass candle holders and crumbling paper cocktail menus. Flocks of dust motes rushed through the air as if scurrying from the light. Through them, I could make out a tiny stage, raised one step from the floor, and a green velvet curtain hanging crookedly to one side.
“Welcome folks,” boomed the guide, “to prohibition-era Chicago, and to the Sugar Jar, the speakeasy that time forgot.”