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StoryADay Day 10 – Flash Fiction [updated: In the Belly of the Whale]

Day 10 writers! A third of the way (more or less). Whether you’ve written one story, or 10, are you having fun? Are you writing more (and finishing more) than you otherwise would have? Then the challenge is a success. I’m running at a slight deficit myself, but have a couple of plane rides ahead of me I plan on using to get all caught up.

Today’s prompt is about creating some flash fiction. In the age of the Internet and blogs, this form has really come into its own. There are flash fiction contests galore and lots of publication calls for flash fiction pieces. We’re going to do a whole month of flash fiction in February (because, alliteration). There are lots of definitions out there, but the only real limitation is length. Flash should be short. Not as short as a 100-word drabble, but shorter than a traditional short story. About 1000 words. The reader literally just gets a flash, one scene. Something is happening and the curtain is ripped back, we get a tantalizing glimpse, can see where the whole thing is going, and then, show’s over. Except it’s not. The flash was provocative, compelling, and so the story continues in the reader’s mind. I read somewhere that all stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. But all of those pieces do not necessarily have to be on the page.

Check out some examples here.

Day 10 Prompt: “Write a story in under 1000 words focusing on creating one brilliant image in your reader’s mind … Make sure your story is about one thing, one moment. Aim to change your reader’s mind about something, whether it’s a person, an experience or a condition of life.”

[updated]

Here’s my flash piece. I thought I would have trouble keeping it under 1000 words, but once I got it in my head that it would not be a tidy narrative but just a glimpse at a world in which a whole lot more is going on, I wound up coming in way under 1000 words.

In the Belly of the Whale

The boy had a dream, once, that he was in the belly of a whale. He could feel it surging forward, plunging and rising in clouds of bubbles that reached him as a faraway drumming. And when he could no longer feel or hear it in that way, he still knew, from a ticking in his inner ear, or from the sudden uneasy shifting of his stomach, that the thing moved. Eventually, whether the creature stopped or whether the boy became acclimated to its watery gymnastics, there was nothing but the plinking echo of drops in a watery cave, the muffled thump and hum of the creature’s organs.

The boy felt no hunger, could not even summon the memory of hunger. And, though he did not sleep, he was lulled into a slumberous state. From time to time he made small movements, in his extremities, to reassure himself that he was still there.

It was hot. An animal that size is, first and foremost, a furnace, churning fuel into energy at an unfathomable rate. From time to time the boy felt the whale opening itself, as if on hinges, letting great expanses of ocean flow through it. He pictured hordes of sightless little barely-there organisms trapped in the riffling furrows of the great combs that lined the whales jaws—surfaces like the undersides of giant toadstools, hideous in their intricacy.

The boy had often pictured himself cowering under such toadstools, their caps glossy red or yellow with white dots, shades of blood and bile that hissed “poison!” in the mush-muted palette of a primeval forest. Mushrooms of such size were the preferred hiding places of children in the brutal nursery rhymes his German grandmother told him, the rushing river of her words slamming itself into hard consonants.

The boy was cowering under one now. Just like that. The whale was gone and the boy was alone in the angry darkness, full of the hiss and snarl of prowling things, the patter and screech of things, like him, imperfectly hidden. Cool air swished past him, like a puff from the mouth of a cave. Something was scissoring toward the boy, in the dark. Something that pulsed. Ominous, baleful, portending doom. It never arrived. It was always coming.

* * *

The man on the couch looks up at the doctor, asks wearily, “Does that answer your question?” The clock ticks on the wall.

The doctor sets down his pen and pad of paper. In an hour, he has written almost nothing down. “It does. Yes, it can be like that, sometimes. Like the belly of a whale.” The doctor seems to be thinking of something. “The mushrooms. All of it.” The clock ticks.

After a moment, “I’m going to prescribe you something, Dennis.”

Silence.

“Dennis, will you let me help you?” The doctor rises from his chair, puts his hand on the man’s shoulder.

But the man is gone. A little boy sits on the couch, his back hunched in a silent sob. His pupils are huge, as if he’s just stepped out of the darkness and into the light.

“Yes. Thank you, yes.”

[Day 11: 529 words]

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StoryADay May – Day 9 – Desire

Hello writers! We are nine days into StoryADay May! This is really challenging! But also empowering. I have a confession to make. In January I signed up for the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge. I was super excited. I had 7 days to write a short story and was assigned a genre, character, and an object I needed to incorporate into the story. I had what I thought was a pretty good idea. I parked myself in a coffee shop that weekend and … nothing. I typed a sentence. I erased it. I typed another. I erased it. I scribbled some notes in my notebook. I put it off. I wound up not submitting anything, because I realized a couple of days before the deadline that I wouldn’t have time to write anything that was very good. I wish I could go back and do it again! Not that I think what I have been writing this month is competition-winning material, but you know what, I can turn an idea into words on a page. I’m doing it. And the more times I do it, the less paralyzed I feel at the start. That’s what this challenge is all about.

So let’s keep writing! Here’s today’s prompt from StoryADay:

Day 9 Prompt: “Establish, within the first couple of sentences, your character’s desire. Put them in a situation that conflicts with that desire. Tell us how it works out.”

I just have to say, this is not so much a short story prompt as a definition of a short story. Your character wants/needs something and works to try to get it. I feel like we can do better. Here are three additional suggestions you might try, based, as my math test story “Sibling Rivalry” from yesterday was, on prompts from John Dufresne’s book, FLASH! Writing the Very Short Story.

– Maybe all your character wants is to survive. Write a very short horror story based on an urban legend. Check out this terror-inspiring list.

– Maybe all your character wants is to be heard. Write a story where two characters are in bed (or some other intimate setting) and having a conversation. Except they are really having two conversations. Neither one is responding to the other. They’re just talking right past each other.

– Your character is on the road, trying to get somewhere. Tell a story that takes place in a train, plane, or automobile.

Happy writing!

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StoryADay May – Day 8 – Conflict [updated: Sibling Rivalry]

Yesterday’s story, “Freya’s Return,” was meant to be a character sketch but wound up being a story about the relationship between two people, told through the life (and rebirth) of their dog.

I think I’m doing a pretty poor job of following the prompts. But … I’m writing stories!

Let’s get thinking about today’s prompt:

Day 8 Prompt: “Put your character in a mundane, everyday situation. Then introduce a strong element of conflict.” 

And as your character tries to resolve the conflict, throw obstacles in his or her way. As Nabokov said, “[t]he writer’s job is to get the main character up in a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.”

[updated]

When I thought of conflict I immediately wanted to write about sibling rivalry. And I decided to do something different and write my story in the form of a math problem. This is one of the nontraditional story forms suggested by John Dufresne in his book, FLASH! Writing the Very Short Story (see also, story as diary entry, personal ad, restaurant review, list, product advertisement, business memo, postcard). I was having some fun so I kept going and made it a little math test. I borrowed language from story problems I found on the Internet, but it has been a LONG time since I studied math, so please forgive me if the problems are not actually solvable.

Sibling Rivalry

1.  Carlos has taken several large doses of a prescription medication. The relationship between the elapsed time, t, in hours, since he took the first dose, and the amount of medication, M(t), in milligrams (mg), in his bloodstream is modeled by the following function:

M(t) = 20 ∙ e-0.8t

 In how many hours will Carlos have 1 mg of medication remaining in his bloodstream? Round your answer, if necessary, to the nearest hundredth.

2.  Five minutes before taking the medication, Carlos calls his younger sister, Graciela. Carlos and Graciela, long estranged, speak for five minutes before Carlos hangs up. Graciela, doubting Carlos’s sincerity and recalling past incidents that were mere cries for help, waits 5 minutes before leaving her house. But Carlos says he has a letter for Graciela. And he convinces her that it will be in her best interest to arrive first on the scene to retrieve it. Graciela leaves her house at 2:15 p.m.

Graciela lives with her husband Craig in a sprawling gated community on the other side of town from Carlos’s apartment. It is a small town, only three miles square, and Graciela owns a fancy new SUV, but she is careful with it, and never exceeds the posted speed limit of 25 miles per hour. At 2:25 p.m., a train will pass by, just a block from Carlos’s apartment. If Graciela has not passed the tracks, she will have to stop and wait for the train to clear the tracks. This typically takes 4 minutes, but seems much longer.

Six minutes after calling his sister, Carlos calls 911. After 3 minutes on the line, 911 dispatch identifies Carlos’s location and notifies the local fire department. The closest fire station is 2.6 miles from Carlos’s apartment, on Carlos’s side of the train tracks. An ambulance, lights flashing and siren blaring, is immediately deployed, travelling 45 miles per hour.

Who will reach Carlos’s apartment first?

3.  Carlos is a high school band teacher. Finding himself between jobs, five years ago Carlos borrowed ​$500 from a storefront payday loan operation. Securing the loan with his most prized possession, an $8000 tuba, Carlos agreed to pay $95 biweekly. After six loan extensions, and having paid the maximum fees allowed by law, Carlos has still not paid off his loan. What is the total amount of interest that Carlos has paid? How much does he still owe?

4.  As a side gig, Carlos hauls music equipment from Chicago’s O’Hare airport to the Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo, MI, 86 miles away. Carlos’s old conversion van gets 14 mpg. Gas is currently $2.78/gallon in New Buffalo and $2.92/gallon in Chicago. Carlos gets paid $150 per trip. What is his net profit?

5.  Carlos sometimes stays to play blackjack at the casino while he waits to meet the stage manager. He winds up ahead only 34% of the time. But he gets meals comped and sometimes gets to see the band for free. How long will it take for Carlos to realize this is not the same as breaking even?

6.  Three weeks ago, Carlos and Graciela’s mother, Esperanta Ruiz, died of natural causes on her 99th birthday. Esperanta’s last will and testament, drafted by the family lawyer when Carlos and Graciela were children, provides that her modest estate, including her single-family home on a quiet, tree-lined street (value: $380,000) and her collection of autographed George Orwell memorabilia (value: $25,000), should be divided equally between her two children. Under this will, would Carlos’s inheritance cover his current debt? Would it provide him with a nice little down payment on a home in Wisconsin he has been eyeing, up in the North Woods, where he can fish and meditate and write a New York Times bestselling novel?

7.  Shortly after Esperanta’s death, a second will surfaced, drafted by Graciela’s lawyer just weeks before Esperanta’s death. This will leaves everything to Graciela. Graciela hires a legal team to defend this will in court and it is upheld. Graciela’s lawyer charges $500/hr and bills 127 hours to her case. Two associate attorneys, each billing $300/hr, bill 230 and 97 hours to the case, respectively. Costs, including filing fees, expert witness and court reporter fees, plus the cost of the very fancy legal pads and fountain pens Graciela’s lawyer insists on using, come to $10,289.56. Did Graciela spend more defending the will than she inherited? Was it still worth it?

8.  Graciela is married to Craig, a multi-millionaire movie producer with expansive holdings. Craig owns a Park Avenue penthouse worth $3.6 million more than his ranch in Colorado, and a chalet in the Swiss Alps that is worth twice as much as his Colorado estate and three times as much as his serialization rights in a blockbuster Hollywood action film, but only 1/4 the value of his classic car collection and 1/8 the value of his shares in a Silicon Valley startup. What is Craig’s net worth?

9.  Graciela and Craig have just celebrated their third wedding anniversary. Craig, who learned the hard way when his first marriage ended, insisted on a prenuptial agreement. The agreement provides that, if Graciela and Craig divorce within 5 years of their wedding day, Graciela receives nothing. On their fifth wedding anniversary, Graciela will receive a 1% interest in Craig’s estate. On their sixth wedding anniversary, she will receive an additional 2% interest in Craig’s estate; on their seventh anniversary, an additional 3% interest; on their eighth anniversary, an additional 4% interest; and on their ninth anniversary, an additional 5% interest. Under the agreement, adultery is grounds for immediate forfeiture of any interest Graciela has acquired in Craig’s estate. When Graciela and Craig have been married for ten years, the agreement expires, and the laws of the great state of Utopia, a community property jurisdiction, will apply in full force. How much money will Graciela have after each of her wedding anniversaries?

10. One week ago, Carlos left instructions with his lawyer to randomly deliver one of seven sealed envelopes to Craig each year on the day before Craig and Graciela’s wedding anniversary. Six of the envelopes contain unsolicited screenplay submissions, of the sort Craig receives hundreds of every week. The plots of three of the screenplays center on a young(ish) wife having an affair with the grown son of her rich, elderly husband. The seventh envelope contains photographic evidence of Graciela’s longtime affair with Craig’s adult son, Carlton. The letter that Carlos has for Graciela, that she is currently making her way across town to retrieve, is a copy of the lawyer’s instructions.

What are Graciela’s chances of living happily ever after?

Please show your work.

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StoryADay May – Day 7 – Character Sketch [updated: Freya’s Return]

I took yesterday’s prompt quite literally and for my story “A Nice Pinot Grigio,” not only stole an idea from myself, but a whole passage I’d written almost a decade and a half ago. Save those old notebooks, writers!

Today’s prompt is all about how character can drive a story. Put her in a situation and show us her reaction.

Day 7 Prompt: Pick one of the following 4 scenarios. How would your character deal with this situation?

  1. Backed into a corner, your character tells a lie to protect him/her self.
  2. Your character has been plotting blood-chilling revenge on someone. Now both are sitting down to dinner together.
  3. Your character goes to a psychic, who tells them something frightening that changes how they see their future.
  4. Your character is obsessed with something. They think they will do anything to obtain it. The person they love most in the world stands in their way.

[updated]

Well, I tried to do no. 4. I intended to write a story about a wife obsessed with cloning her dead dog, and her husband, who thinks it is a mistake and tries to keep her from doing it. It was supposed to be funny, and all about the wife’s character and her obsession, but it turned out to be a sort of tender story about the couple’s relationship, and their relationship to their dog. The obsession and the struggle sort of receded into the background.

Freya’s Return

Freya was a good dog. Steven certainly couldn’t argue with that. As a puppy, she’d been remarkably easy to house train. And she was a fine specimen of her breed. A beautiful toffee brown color, with a white nose, chest, and four white feet, as if she’d tipped forward into a bucket of paint and then scrambled out. Steven had done a fair amount of research, he recalled, before bringing her home to Dolores. Norwegian Lundehunds were small dogs, agile, hearty, advertised as “easy-to-live-with,” but quirky too, evolution having provided them with six toes on each foot and little pricked ears that could rotate like satellite dishes. Bred to roust puffins from tight spaces along the sea cliffs of Norway, lundehunds had extraordinary range of motion. Freya always concluded her morning stretch by bending her head backwards and touching her nose to her spine.

Dolores had been delighted. And little Freya had taken to her immediately, climbing the stairs to the writer’s loft he’d built above the garage and waiting patiently for attention, her little white muzzle resting on Dolores’s bare foot, her little back-springing tail twitching contentedly.

This was in the early days, when Steven and Dolores were both still aching, not only from the loss of their spouses, from the agony of their own powerlessness in the face of ravaging illness, but from the complete disruption of their life plans. Coming together at this time, they had fused to one another, almost as a matter of survival, selling the homes they had each intended to live out their days in, and purchasing this quiet house by the lake, with the big garden. They’d bought green Adirondack chairs and a firepit. In the evening, sipping wine and staring into the crackling fire, Freya content at their feet, Steven and Dolores were reassured that a Plan B could be built, not only on survival, but on happiness.

But time passed, and little Freya grew old. One morning she ran straight into a wall and sat, shaking her head as if a bee were buzzing in her ear. “All right there, girl?” Steven had taken her by the chin and looked in her eyes, and though she’d panted in recognition, she’d stared back at him with clouded eyes. When she could no longer manage the steep steps to the loft, Dolores had carried her, or wrote in the garden, where Freya could nap in a patch of morning sun.

There was, as there always is, eventually very bad news. They brought Freya home from the vet and Dolores just held her, for the longest time. Barely responsive, when they took her into the garden, Freya still raised her little nose to drink in the sweet summer air. Dolores wrapped her in blankets and sat, as Steven quietly made a fire and took his place beside her. After a while, though it was the middle of the night, he lit the grill and made hamburgers. And they cried together, briefly, when Freya tried to eat a mouthful but couldn’t. By morning, she was gone.

Dolores was calm. Resolute. Although this passing brought to mind other passings, perhaps reminded them that, by joining their lives, they had years ago accepted the dark cloud of future passings as the price paid for having someone nearby, for waking to see that person still sleeping, for moving, in a million silent, unchoreographed ways, in and out of each other’s space. But this time, Dolores had a plan. She had given it a great deal of thought. An unhealthy amount of thought, Steven had suggested, one morning at breakfast. Her plan  was disturbing to him, in a way he could not quite articulate. But in the end, he could deny Dolores nothing.

And so, when Freya’s little heart had finally stopped beating, when her little curving tail had given its last flutter of recognition at Delores’s voice, Dolores had wept, had stroked her little friend and wept some more, but then had closed the lids over the little clouded eyes, wrapped the dog’s body in wet towels, and placed it on the top shelf of the refrigerator, where it would remain until the VitaGen representative came the next morning to swab Freya’s mouth for skin cells.

The cells would be flown overnight to Maryland. Eggs would be harvested from a donor dog and pulsed with ultraviolet light to strip them of their genetic material. Then Freya’s DNA would be inserted, and, in a scene straight out of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, a burst of electricity would be applied, to fuse the DNA to its host and jumpstart cell division. And voila, an embryo, ready for implantation in a surrogate dog. In approximately 60 days, a puppy. Dolores had explained to him that, miscarriages being common, and the runt of the litter sometimes not surviving, it was standard to implant five embryos at a time. The probability of more than one or two surviving was slim.

But probabilities are just that. As it happened, delivered to their house one sunny spring morning were four carbon copies of the puppy Steven had brought home with him a decade and a half ago. Emerging from a tiny dog carrier like clowns from a circus car, they stumbled over one another to explore their surroundings before falling asleep in a little exhausted heap on the sun-warmed slate of the patio.

They would keep them for two weeks, just long enough for Dolores to determine which was the most Freya-like. She was strictly forbidden from naming the other three, who had adoptive homes waiting for them.

* * *

Steven rose early, the Sunday paper tucked under one arm, and slipped out to the garden with his coffee. As he turned to pull the sliding door behind him, Freya II wriggled through the gap and stared up at him, her little head cocked to one side. Come on then, he muttered, leaving the door ajar so he would not have to come back and let her in if she changed her mind. Freya II followed him somberly to the patio and watched him sink into one of the Adirondacks. She sat on her haunches, her great wealth of toes all lined up in a row, and observed him, not impolitely. Her demeanor was so serious, so unlike that of a frolicking puppy, that Steven could almost believe that she was the original Freya, reincarnated.

Dolores soon joined them—Freya II’s three sisters padding along behind her—and took her seat, sitting, as she always did, with one leg bent beneath her. Freya II bounded over and settled at the base of the chair, her little white muzzle draped over the top of Dolores’s slipper. Steven glanced up from his paper, in mild surprise, when two of the other puppies, having observed their sister, draped themselves in like fashion over his own two feet. The fourth, looking about in dismay, finally clambered up onto Steven’s lap, circled once, and settled in, nose to tail.

They sat like that for a few moments before Steven ventured: “Are there many other goddesses, in Norse mythology? Or is it just Freya up there in Valhalla, with Thor and Odin?

“Oh no, there are others,” Dolores said evenly, not looking up from her writing.

“Who are they, then?”

“Well, there’s Sigyn. She’s like a mother nature or earth goddess. And Zisa, goddess of the harvest.”

Steven flexed his feet, one at a time, still covered with sleeping puppies. “And …?” He set down his paper and picked up the puppy in his lap, as if to inspect her.

Dolores didn’t miss a beat. “And Frigg, of course. Goddess of love and marriage. And destiny, I think.”

“Goddess of destiny, huh?” Steven set the puppy back down and patted it on its head.

“Mmm-hmm.” Dolores glanced up, suppressing a little smile.

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StoryADay May – Day 6 – Steal From Yourself [updated: A Nice Pinot Grigio]

Even though I took yesterday’s prompt in a little different direction, I think I had more fun writing it than any other story so far. That seems in the spirit of the prompt, at least. Check out my story, about that truly magical bedtime story, The Little Prince.

Now, today’s prompt has got me pretty stumped. I’m going to have to let this one percolate for a while. Good luck, writers!

Day 6 Prompt: “Steal from yourself. Retell a story you’ve told before, in a new way. This exercise opens up opportunities in future, when you have a piece that isn’t quite working. You can cast your mind back to today and remember that yeah, there’s more one way to tell this story, too.”

[updated]

For this prompt I looked through some old notebooks, took something I wrote back in 2004, and decided to finally finish it. I re-wrote a lot of it. I guess my writing style has changed a bit in 14 years!

A Nice Pinot Grigio

She was the sort of person who wore jewelry, anything, really, for the way it felt, never for the look of it. The way a blind person would dress, Jake had always thought. Tonight, it was a smooth metal cuff hanging down over her wrist. It had no doubt slid up and down her arm as she went about her day. But now her hand rested calmly on the table, relaxed and extended slightly toward him as she studied her menu. The thin edge of the bracelet pressed against a single blue vein running over the top of her hand.

Her hand was like a dead fish in the middle of the table, motionless, pinioned by that flashing metal cuff. For some reason, Jake could not stop looking at it. He felt the barest sheen of sweat break out on his forehead.

“Should we order a bottle of wine?” She drummed her fingers against the tablecloth, once, twice, the bracelet pressing just a bit harder, then releasing, then pressing down again. The blue vein bulged slightly, in response.

“Of course, red or white?” He kept his head down, as if studying his menu, but his eyes were glued to her hand. He suddenly knew that she was doing this on purpose. He drank half of his water and forced himself to return to his menu.

What was her hand even doing there? It was ridiculous. Why didn’t she unfold her napkin, brush back her hair, anything? Something. Why display her hand and that disgusting bracelet? He would have been less revolted if she had brought out a small bag of dog shit and placed it neatly before him, between the sculpted butter and the bread basket. And she knew it.

“Oh, let’s get a nice Pinot Grigio,” she said, snapping her menu shut and shaking out her napkin with one hand, all the while never moving the hand with the bracelet. She looked up at him, eyes wide, all is that alright dear? “I was thinking of getting the salmon.”

His gaze returned again and again to the razor-thin edge of her bracelet. What would happen, he thought, if he just pressed down? A little at first, then a lot. The blue vein would rise up, as her hand stiffened and then squirmed under the pressure, her water spilling over, half-soaked rye dinner rolls ballooning up on the tablecloth.

He tore his eyes away and answered, aware that the pause had been too long, but that it didn’t matter. She knew exactly what he was thinking. “I think that would be just fine, dear.” He felt his mouth spread mechanically into a smile as his eyes met hers for the fist time since they’d sat down.

But then, some barely detectable movement caused the bracelet to wink, in the candlelight, like a lighthouse in the great white sea of tablecloth. His hand shot up involuntarily from his lap and covered hers, rubbing it, encircling it, and—crossing the line of neutrality—depositing it firmly on her side of the table.

She reclaimed it, casually, like a possession she’d misplaced and found again, folding both of her hands in her lap and smiling at him icily. And just like that, she had won. She won everything. If she could no longer make him touch her out of love, or lust, or pity even, she could still make him do it out of sheer revulsion.

And that’s when Jake knew, as he calmly ordered a bottle of wine; he would kill his wife.

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StoryADay May – Day 5 – Fan Fiction [updated: The Little Prince]

I was bad last night and didn’t finish my story! I wrote for forty minutes but wasn’t able to wrap it up in that timeframe. I thought about just posting what I had, but I am committed to 31 complete stories this month. So, stay tuned …

For now, on to the next prompt!

Day 5 Prompt: “Have some fun today: steal something from a favorite published universe. Remember, you can’t sell a derivative work without permission, or a license, but that’s not the point today. Today is all about having fun in a world you know well, or with characters you already love.”

Ooh, fan fiction. The possibilities for this are enticing. Harry Potter? Lord of the Rings? The wonderful world of Jane Austin?

[updated]

I was going to set my story in the world of that magical childhood favorite, The Little Prince. And part of my story does take place there, but only indirectly. Stories have lives of their own. This one was fun to see unfold.

The Little Prince

“ ‘And that is how I made the acquaintance of the little prince.’ ” Sara snapped the book shut. Okay bud, time for bed.”

“But mom! Can we read a little more? Please? I’m not even tired!”

This was patently false. Will’s eyes were heavy, and she’d caught him blinking repeatedly during the sheep part. She hoped he was really interested in the story and not just stalling. It was one of her favorites.

“We can pick up where we left off tomorrow.” Will thrust his chin out in a little spasm of defiance and sulked at her. “And do you know what?” Sara continued, “We’ll find out tomorrow all about the little prince’s home. You know, he lives on his own planet. And guess what else?” Now she had him. “It’s actually an asteroid!”

“Really? How does he live on an asteroid? Don’t they go really fast?”

“We’ll have to wait and find out tomorrow. But trust me, he lives on an asteroid. And we’re going to read all about it. Good night, sweetie.”

“But mom?”

“Yeah baby?”

“I really want to read just one more page. Can we? Please? You will be my best mommy ever.” She had to laugh at his cheesy grin.

“Will. Come on. You have school tomorrow. And mommy …” Sara had a million things to do but was probably going to take a hot bath and go to bed early. It had been a long weekend. She was just about to put the book back on the shelf with the others when she stopped. “You know what? I have an idea.”

“What?”

“This is an old trick Nana taught me. If you put a book under your pillow, then when you fall asleep you can visit the book in your dreams.”

“Is that really true?” He seemed skeptical, but curious.

“Well, it worked for me. I remember a whole summer I stayed at Nana’s house and every night I climbed the Alps—those are big mountains—with a little girl named Heidi and her goats.” Sara paused for a minute. It was true, she thought, smiling. She hadn’t thought about that in so long. But every day she’d read that book with her grandmother, and every night she’d had the most delicious dreams about Heidi and her grandfather and the goats. Maybe it would be the same for Will. “Shall we try it?”

“Okay.” Will lifted his pillow and Sara slid the slim volume underneath. They smiled conspiratorially as she turned off the light.

* * *

“Mommy, mommy, it worked! It really worked, I am not even kidding!” Will burst into the kitchen, just as she was starting the coffee.

“What worked, honey?” Sara stifled a yawn. She couldn’t remember how many scoops she’d put in and had to dump the basket and started again. “And before you start telling me all about it, do you want waffles or Cheerios?” Once Will started talking, there was no stopping him.

“Cheerios.”

“The book, mom! The Little Prince! One minute I was lying in my bed, just starting to close my eyes, and the next minute … I was in a huge dessert! And do you know what I heard?” His face was so mischievous. Sara decided to play along. “A voice?” She set the bowl down in front of him at the counter and began slicing a banana over the top.

“Uh huh … and do you know what the voice said?”

“Um, take me to your leader?”

“No! It said, ‘If you please, draw me a sheep!’ Mommy, it was the little prince. He was in my dream, just like you said he would be!”

Sara smiled and ruffled Will’s hair. “Nana always did know the best tricks. I wish you could have met her buddy.” She poured herself some coffee and brought a stool around to sit across from him. “So what did you and the little prince do? Don’t tell me you went to his planet without me? We’re supposed to read that part tonight.”

“Um …” Will squirmed in his seat. “Yeah, we did. I’m sorry.”

“What!? I can’t believe it!”

His face lit up as he remembered something. “And it really was an asteroid, just like you said.”

“Mmm hmm.” Sara unwrapped the morning paper and began skimming the headlines.

“And it doesn’t have a name, only a number. Well, a letter and some numbers. Asteroid B-612.”

Sara paused, coffee mug halfway to her mouth, and looked at Will over her glasses. “Did the little prince tell you that?”

“No. I just knew what it was called. In my dream I just knew it. The little prince doesn’t call his planet that. He’s kind of mysterious about answering questions.”

Sara was sure they had not read that far yet. “Will, did daddy read The Little Prince to you?”

“No.”

“Did you watch a cartoon of it on TV?”

“No. Mom! I had a dream about it. I told you!”

“Okay, okay.” Will could sound out simple words now. He must been reading ahead. “Hurry up, honey, you need to get dressed for school.”

* * *

“ ‘ “Were you so sad, then?” I asked, “on the day of the forty-four sunsets?” But the little prince made no reply.’ ” Sara slipped a scrap of paper in the book for a bookmark and kissed Will on the forehead. “To be continued,” she said, sliding the book back into its place on the shelf.

She had installed the little shelf before Will was born, when they’d made the spare bedroom into a nursery. It had seemed like a good place for her Little Prince collection. Since she first began traveling, back in college, Sara had purchased a copy of the book in every country she’d visited. Almost every. She’d read once that The Little Prince was one of the most translated books in the world, but there were a few placed she’d been where she hadn’t been able to find a copy. Still, there were at least two dozen.

“No wait! Mommy! I need to put it under my pillow!”

Sara looked down at Will, sitting up straight in his bed. She was impressed that he remembered, and that he was willing to keep up the ruse. Who knew, maybe he’d actually had a dream about the little prince. She pulled the book back off the shelf and handed it to him. Will slid it somberly under his pillow and blew her a kiss.

* * *

“Con su permiso, dibujame una oveja!” No sooner had Will managed to get the words out than he erupted into a fit of giggles. “That’s what the little prince said this time. He’s funny, mommy. He was talking Spanish really fast, just like Ms. Nikolina.” Ms. Nikolina was his friend Bianca’s grandmother, who sometimes watched them after school, if Sara had a meeting that was ran late.

“Oh, does Bianca have The Little Prince too?” Maybe Ms. Nikolina had been reading the book to the kids in Spanish?

“No. Mommy, I could understand everything the little prince said, even though it was in Spanish.”

“Like when Ms. Nikolina speaks to you?”

“No! I don’t understand hardly anything she says! Bianca tells me everything in English.” He gave her a look that said “duh.”

Sara was stumped. Maybe they were learning Spanish in school? “Okay Mister, shoes, coat, backpack. Let’s go!”

At bedtime, when Will was brushing his teeth, Sara slipped her hand under his pillow and drew the book out. She froze. It was the Spanish translation. She must have grabbed the wrong one from the shelf the night before. Will ran across the room and dove into his bed, pulling the blankets up and settling in for his story. “Will, what does this say?” Sara held the book out to him, open to a random page.

He squinted and made a face. “I can’t read that! He tried to sound out a word and giggled. Mom, that book is weird.” Frowning a little, Sara returned the book to the shelf and pulled down the English version.

When they were done, she traded it for the French volume, surreptitiously sliding it under Will’s pillow. See what you make of that, little man, she thought.

* * *

The next morning, Will slipped into the kitchen without a sound, making her jump when she turned to find him already sitting in his place at the counter. “Good morning.” She gave him a kiss on the forehead as she passed by to get the cereal.

“Good morning. S’il vous plaît, dessine-moi un mouton!”

There was a crash from the pantry. Little fruit-flavored Oh’s rolled across the floor in all directions.

* * *

Thinking herself very foolish, Sara nevertheless embarked on a series of experiments. The results were as follows. If she placed a foreign language version of The Little Prince under Will’s pillow, the next morning he claimed to have spoken to the little prince in that language in his dreams. He could even recite the prince’s first words—his plea for a drawing of a sheep—in the new language. She tried German, Hebrew, and, just to be sure, Cantonese. But Will grew bored with this approach. He seemed to be reliving the same scene each night, just in a different language. So she put the English version under his pillow for three nights in a row. And in the morning, over pancakes and syrup, bacon and eggs, bagels and cream cheese, he amazed her with his recounting of the story. His visits with the little prince did not necessarily track the order of scenes in the book. Sometimes he told her things that happened much later.

And the things he said! These were not a child’s made-up tales upon studying the illustrations in a book. He knew, for example, that the prince’s rose was not only beautiful, but that she was a little selfish. That the prince loved her, but that he also wanted to be free from her. “That’s why he left his planet, mommy,” Will explained, “And the rose knew, she knew that it was her fault that he wanted to go away. And she told him to go, because she could tell that something bad was going to happen. But you know what I think?”

“What baby?” Sara was leaning close to him over the counter, practically spellbound.

“I think the rose really wants the little prince to come back to her. But sometimes you have to let go of something to keep it.”

Tears sprung up in Sara’s eyes. “That’s true baby, that’s very true.” She blinked, thinking how silly she was being, and turned to clean up the mess from breakfast.

To round out her experiments, Sara one night slid the book out from under Will’s pillow, careful not to wake him. She stood in the doorway watching him sleep, then looked at the book for a long time. Instead of putting it back on the shelf, she placed it under her own pillow.

The next day was Saturday. No alarm clock. Will came bursting into her bedroom, distraught. “Mommy, mommy, I was talking to the little prince, just like always, and then, all of a sudden, he was gone! And it was just dark and quiet. I kept calling him, but he wouldn’t answer. And when I woke up, mommy, the book, was gone.”

Sara smiled, a little sadly, and drew the book out from her own pillow. Will gasped. Then a thought registered. “Mommy, did it work! Did you meet the little prince?”

“No baby, it didn’t work.” Incredibly, Sara felt a little sob grip her. It was ridiculous, but some part of her had actually believed that something magical was happening. And maybe something magical was happening. But it was a child’s magic. And she was a grown-up.

That night, after they had read her favorite scene, the one with the little fox who wished only to be tamed, Sara handed Will the Italian translation, her favorite, because of the beautiful illustration on the cover. “This was the first Little Prince I ever bought,” she told him. The English version had belonged to her mother. She placed the book under Will’s pillow and gave him a big, squeezy hug.

“Mommy? Will you sit with me until I fall asleep?” Sara looked at him. She didn’t typically go in for such things. They were usually just ploys to delay bedtime. But Will looked so serious.

“Are you scared, honey?” She remembered him studying the drawing of the first King the little prince came upon, after leaving his planet. The depiction—deliciously awkward, like all of the book’s illustrations—showed him as a severe-jawed man with a flowing star-spangled cloak. Rather intimidating, she had to admit.

“No. I just want you to sit with me. Just for a minute.”

“Okay, sure.” Sara dimmed the lights and sat on the edge of Will’s bed. She watched his long eyelashes flutter in the moonlight. Suddenly sleepy, Sara stretched out on the bed next to him. Will nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck and, just before they both drifted off, she twined her fingers through his and gave his hand a little squeeze.

* * *

Sara woke with a start, disoriented. She lay stiffly, uncovered, on the edge of Will’s bed. He was awake too, staring into her eyes, their hands still clasped together. She narrowed her eyes at him, questioningly, and he seemed to answer her, without saying a word, excitement lighting up his face.

At the same moment, they both bolted upright and shouted, “Se per favore, disegnami una pecora!” Sara yanked the book from underneath the pillow, held it in front of her triumphantly, and joined her son in a fit of giggles, until they were both rolling on the floor, tears in their eyes.

[Day 5: 2327 words]

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StoryADay May – Day 4 – 40-Minute Story

Wow writers, it was not as easy to write a 100-word story as I thought! I was really inspired by some of the short, short stories at 100wordstory.org. Some of them, like “Row,” by Charmaine Wilkerson and “First Run” by William O’Sullivan, really blur the lines between storytelling and prose poetry.

If you are ever feeling completely stumped by a prompt (like I was with this one) you can try this trick: find a nice big print dictionary, open it randomly to a page, and put your finger on a word without looking and try to use the word in your first sentence. My word was “Samara,” and I wound up making that my title too. Once I write a line or two, the words usually start flowing.

Adhering to a word-count limitation like this is one kind of arbitrary constraint we can impose on our writing. See my post from last month about how constraints like this actually boost our creativity. Today’s prompt imposes another type of constraint: a time limit. Happy writing and Happy Friday!

Day 4 Prompt: “Write a story in 40 minutes. Spend 10 minutes brainstorming and starting the story, 20 minutes complicating your character’s life, and the final 10 minutes reviewing what you’ve written, making notes and writing an ending.”

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StoryADay May – Day 3 – 100-Word Story [updated: Samara]

Hi writers! I hope you had fun with yesterday’s story formula. Mine led me, in “Mr. Bubble,” to describe the olfactory adventures of the talented Dr. Yi. I think it is safe to say that the story generator I used took me well outside of my comfort zone. It was fun!

On to today’s prompt:

Day 3 Prompt: Write a “drabble,” a story of only 100 words. Just a little splash of text on the page. This only gives you about 25 words to open, 10 words to wrap things up, and the rest to do all of the heavy lifting. Details must really pull their weight. Editing is your friend.

Wondering how on earth to do this? Me too. Julie at StoryADay recommends these examples. Good luck writers!

[UPDATE]

Here’s my drabble:

Samara

For eighteen years, until Botany 101, Samara did not know that her name was the word for the winged seed pods of maples—helicopters, whirlybirds, spinning jennies. Samara was adopted. Born in Boston, raised in a homogenous Midwestern suburb, she understood her name to be vaguely “ethnic,” had given it little thought. An hour in the library uncovered the following facts: (1) Ari Chaikin, published widely on seed dispersal and the biomechanics of plants, was an MIT professor; (2) eighteen years ago, Chaikin’s pregnant wife died tragically, (3) her baby miraculously survived; (3) in Hebrew, Samara means “protected by God.”

[Day 3: 100 words]

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StoryADay May – Day 2 – Story Formula [updated: Mr. Bubble]

Whew! The Day 1 prompt was fun. Check out my story, “Ms. Rankin’s Untimely Demise.” I hope you had fun with the first prompt too! Now, let’s keep going …

I like today’s prompt because you are basically going to have a finished story within the first five minutes. Then you can expand it as much as you want. But at least you know where it’s going.

Day 2 Prompt: Use this fill-in-the-blanks style “story formula” to get you going: A [adjective] [noun], who [verb] [subject], then [related verb] [resolution].

This prompt reminded me of a book I bought a while back: The Amazing Story Generator. You can turn the pages to create different story combinations. Here’s the one I randomly selected to use for this story:

So then I think my formula would be filled in as follows: A North Korean scientist, who is suffering a crisis of faith, refuses to leave the bathtub. I’m not sure refusing to leave the bathtub qualifies as a “resolution,” but I’m going with it.

If you’d like to try the story generator too, here are some other combinations that might speak to you. Happy writing!

[UPDATE]

Here’s the story I wrote from this prompt:

Mr. Bubble

From an early age, Sung-soo Yi had an extraordinary sense of smell. At family parties, he entertained his relatives by guessing the names of his aunts’ perfumes from across the room. He could tell the difference between his aunt Eun-mi’s authentic Chanel No. 5—which his uncle purchased in Pyonyang from a cash-only shop full of illicit goods from Singapore—and the cheap knockoff that his aunt Hye-jin wore. Due to some mysterious criss-crossing of his neural pathways, Sung-soo experienced scents not only as olfactory phenomena, but as colors and sounds. He once famously prevented his mother from eating spoiled kimchi—which made the rest of the family violently ill—by convincing her that, to him, the little jar of fermented vegetables smelled “all blue and jangly.”

A young professor from a nearby university proclaimed Sung-soo, at the age of seven, to be a genuine synesthete. He was not speaking in poetic metaphor. To him, the smell of spoiled kimchi was genuinely “blue” and really did emit a cacophonous din. And, although Sung-soo’s parents had prepared him from an early age for the two possible futures that awaited him—joining the military or working in a nearby factory—as luck would have it, the same professor went on to play a key role in the new supreme leader’s interest in scientific advancement. Remembering the little boy with the unusual capabilities, the professor sent a handful of official letters that changed the course of Sung-soo’s life. Sung-soo was placed in a prestigious university and, upon graduation, assigned to work at the government’s sleek new science and technology center.

This was a stroke of incredible good fortune, Sung-soo’s family all agreed. The nation’s few scientists received favorable treatment, including increased rations and government-appointed living accommodations. Sung-soo, now Doctor Yi, rose sharply in the ranks. He had no real competition. He was North Korea’s only aromachologist.

In France, a man with Dr. Yi’s talents might have gone to work in Paris, for an elite perfumier. In America, he surely would have been snatched up by one of the giant packaged food companies. But in his country, there was really only one outlet for Dr. Yi’s talents. He was charged with developing “behavioral fragrances.” Essentially, crowd control through aromatherapy. Dr. Yi was good at his job. He could tell you precisely which scents triggered the release of neurotransmitters inducing docility in the limbic brain. It was Dr. Yi who discovered that pumping factories full of the scent of jasmine increased workers’ problem-solving skills and motivation. Eucalyptus, rubbed under the noses of schoolchildren, increased their performances on standardized tests. Athletes recovered at a much higher rate when exposed to lemon and peppermint (in that order) after bouts of intense activity.

Dr. Yi’s extraordinary nose eventually caught the attention of the supreme leader himself, who saw impressive results from a high-blood-pressure-reducing concoction of Dr. Yi has developed specially for him, from nutmeg and maize extract, several rare oils, and a mysterious  ingredient secreted from the larvae of bees.

Dr. Yi proved so beneficial to the preeminence and prosperity of his country that he was granted certain unheard-of privileges. For example, he was allowed to attend—with appropriate government escorts—the International Symposium on Essential Oils. This marked a turning point in Dr. Yi’s career. While his olfactory prowess had certainly been appreciated by his comrades back at home, none of them really understood how he did what he did. To them, he was like a conjurer, whispering spells and stirring potions. But at the annual symposium, Dr. Yi was surrounded by academic and industry heavyweights, renowned scientists on the cutting edge of phytochemical and aromachological advancements. Though chock-full of heady lectures, the symposium also doubled as a sort of Olympics of the nose. Official and unofficial “smell-offs” abounded. And it soon became clear that no one could beat Dr. Yi.

This unexpected chance to upstage the world’s scientific elite was the reason that the supreme leader had allowed Dr. Yi to return to the symposium each year. Someone had slipped Kim Jong Un a copy of an article in the French paper Le Monde extolling the virtues of the mysterious Dr. Yi, who could distinguish between twelve different varieties of wild and domesticated roses, who could identify the terroir of lavender blossoms to within five miles of where they were grown, and who could tell you the very mountain peak from which a pebble of frankincense had been harvested. That article proclaimed Dr. Yi “Le Roi Des Nez,” the King of Noses. Dr. Yi had done his country proud.

As a result of his newfound status, however, certain things became apparent to Dr. Yi, which might not have occurred to him otherwise. The first year, Dr. Yi was just another scientist attending the symposium. He submitted his paper—read and edited in advance by a team of sensors—sat quietly in the back of a crowded auditorium, and found his way, with the help of his two handlers, back to his hotel room each night, where WiFi jammers and Bluetooth blockers were employed to ensure that his rest was not disturbed by the intrusions of the western world.

But by the second year, as Dr. Yi began beating out the aromachologists of the world in challenge after challenge, a buzz arose among the other symposium attendees. Dr. Yi was suddenly offered the best seats, invited to post-lecture cocktail parties and exclusive dinners, even asked to give a little talk at the closing session about the nature of his unique sense of smell. Dr. Yi’s handlers were in a quandary. They dared not hamper the position of prestige that Dr. Yi was claiming for his country. But this made it difficult to properly protect him from corrupting influences.

By the end of his second symposium, a few things were unavoidably clear to Dr. Yi. Scientists in other countries did not travel with handlers, were free to come and go as they pleased, and published their work free from suggestions. They were certainly not urged to inject propaganda into their public statements. Having occupied a relatively privileged position within his country’s scientific elite, Dr. Yi was a bit naïve. He questioned his handlers, at first, but grew tired of their standard reply: “That is a difficult question, comrade.” He grew to accept that the less he spoke to them, the better.

In the final session, Dr. Yi was asked to briefly address the symposium on the subject of his synesthesia. He explained that, when mixing scents, he closed his eyes, experiencing them as a swirl of dancing colors and sounds—from the tinkle of tiny bells to the roar and crackle of a bonfire. For Dr. Yi, creating a new scent was not unlike layering paint on a canvas, or choreographing a symphony. Dr. Yi left the stage to deafening applause.

It was then that he met Allegra Clarkson. Flashy, with a short hemline and tall hair, Ms. Clarkson gave Dr. Yi’s handlers heart palpitations. She insinuated herself between them and him as Dr. Yi walked from the stage, pumping his hand vigorously with her manicured fingers and leaning in close to introduce herself her in a throaty, lipgloss-scented whisper: “I see them too, Dr. Yi. I hear them, just like you.” Their eyes met, as he took in her meaning. “I’m sure we will meet again,” she continued. “You will attend next year, of course?” She did not wait for an answer but disappeared into the crowd of attendees just getting up from their seats. Just as she turned away, however, she added, “In your pocket, Dr. Yi. Try it in a hot bath.”

Dr. Yi knew better than to bring his hands anywhere near his pockets. But that night, in his hotel room, he discovered what she had placed there. A small vial of pink liquid. He shook it, once or twice, and a few bubbles appeared on the surface. Dr. Yi walked to the center of the little bathroom in his hotel suite and unscrewed the top. He waived it gently under his nose. His jaw slackened. His hand shook slightly. Fruit notes, at first: coconut, banana, peach. They danced about him in a chirping explosion of citrusy hues. But then, underneath, he could detect the heavy sweetness of vanilla, earthy tang of balsamic, and, all the way down, a powdery raspberry base. These appeared to him as infinite humming layers, wrapping him in alternating shades of translucent emerald, copper, and a rich, fulvous orange. Like a man in a dream, Dr. Yi turned on the water in the tub and poured the vial in.

Dr. Yi had always enjoyed a good bath. Even as a child, bathing in an old metal bucket his mother filled with soapy water, he would close his eyes and drift off, reluctant to get out even long after the water had cooled. For a true synesthete, a hot, scented bath was the closest to a super-sensorial experience as one could get. And as a man of some privilege in a country of almost none, Dr. Yi had access to black-market luxury products from around the world. He soon learned, however, that he needn’t pony up the cash to acquire such things. They would be provided for him, delivered directly to his laboratory, in fact, if he indicated that they were necessary to his research. In this way, Dr. Yi had filled his small government-issue bathtub with artisanal lathers from Paris, Dead Sea salt concoctions, distillations of ylang-ylang, bergamot, and sage. He had soaked for hours beneath blankets of bubbles courtesy of Penhaligons, Jo Malone, Nivea, and Aqua de Parma.

But this! This was something else entirely. The bubbles were so abundant, soft but not too slippery, the scent was incredibly enhanced by the steam from the water. It was somehow both synthetic and natural at the same time. For Dr. Yi, the next hour was an otherworldly experience.

It was only later, wrapped in towels, as he bent to pull the stopper in the tub, that Dr. Yi observed a tiny roll of paper. The precise circumference of the little glass vial, it must have been rolled tightly inside the stopper. With some hesitation, Dr. Yi unfolded it. “There is more where this came from. I can get you out. -A.C.” Dr. Yi stared at the paper for quite a long time. He cleaned his teeth at the sink, rinsed, and, with a gulp of water, swallowed the message down.

For a full year, the little message remained foremost in Dr. Yi’s mind. For a few terrifying moments it seemed as though he might not receive permission to attend the annual symposium for a third time. But then an official letter arrived. He opened it, trembling, and breathed a sigh of relief. He was going. And Dr. Yi had made up his mind.

* * *

Dr. Yi stepped from the taxi and stared up at the building in front of him, checking the address twice. He paid the driver, fumbling with the unfamiliar bills, and pushed his way through the revolving doors. In the elevator, his ears popped. The gleaming metal doors parted to reveal a carpeted hallway. At the end, a door with his new apartment number: 49C. Dr. Yi pulled a key from his pocket and, not daring to breathe, slid it into the lock. The bolt turned over and the door creaked open. The apartment was larger than he had expected, sparely furnished. The view from the window, out over the park below, was dizzying. Dr. Yi set down his satchel and walked, with some trepidation, to the spacious bathroom.

He slid the pocket door aside to reveal a temple of gleaming white surfaces. In the center, a huge claw-footed bathtub with antique copper fittings. Dr. Yi grasped the handle of the little linen closet beside the mirror. Drawing it back, he was momentarily blinded by a wall of garish pink bottles. On the front of each, the maniacal grinning face of a caricatured bubble, surrounded by stylized blue foam. Dr. Yi’s English was getting better. He read the labels: “Original Bubble. Mr. Bubble. America’s Favorite Bubble Bath. Bubblin’ fun for over 55 years!” Grasping a pink bottle with shaking hands, Dr. Yi twisted off the white cap and, closing his eyes, inhaled.

[Day 2: 2040 words]

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StoryADay May – Day 1 – Points of View [updated: Ms. Rankin’s Untimely Demise]

It’s the first of the month, writers. Time to begin a new challenge! If you don’t already know all about StoryADay May, check out the challenge description here at Write Words Now. And you can find lots of additional information and resources at the official StoryADay website. What kind of story can you write in only one day? A short one, probably. But I think we will surprise ourselves. I was surprised by how much I was able to write in just 30 minutes when I did the warm-up story prompt last week.

And check out the three tips for success from the most recent StoryADay podcast:

1. Keep a list of “story sparks,” and commit to writing down three new ones each day. These are not fully fleshed out plots, just the sparks of ideas. Here are a few from my list: a dog named Venkman; the safe in the beach house basement; the appointment of Britain’s first loneliness minister; a love story in travel posters.

2. Even if you don’t have time to write in the morning, think about the prompt and launch your idea first thing. Your brain will start working on the problem in the background, giving you insight throughout the day. And if you can write at least a few sentences, you have a solid start that you can pull out in the elevator, on the train, or in line at the store. Those scrawled sentences add up!

3. Finally, since this month is all about training our brains to write stories on demand, let’s conduct a little experiment. Remember Pavlov’s dog? Scientists rang the bell every time they fed the dog and, eventually, the dog would just start salivating when it heard the bell, even if there was no food around. So think of a sensorial trigger, a scent, a sound, a color (something portable so that you don’t have to be at your desk to make it work) and begin each of your writing sessions with that thing. Maybe your notebook is bright red. Maybe you have a little soundtrack that you listen to each time you start to write. Maybe you light a scented candle, chant three ohms, and bow to your creator (this might also clear you some space at that crowded coffee shop).

So, how will this work? I am going to follow the StoryADay prompts, at least at first. My plan is to share the prompt in the morning and then post an update with my story later in the day or the following morning. Good luck writers!

Day 1 Prompt: “Write a story about someone who leaves the house for work, and on the way has some kind of accident.” Write the story in three parts, of about 300 words each. Part 1: from the point of view of someone close to the main character; Part 2: from the point of view of someone who sees the main character only occasionally; Part 3: from the point of view of someone who has only just met the main character.”

[UPDATE]

Ms. Rankins Untimely Demise

Eleanor

I told her those shoes were trouble. Black suede Louboutins with a five-inch heel. You know the ones I’m talking about, with the flash of red soles. Just vulgar. Like a gaping wound. Like giving everyone a look up your dress. Susan loved those shoes. She thought they made her seem formidable. Susan was formidable. But it was important to her that she look the part.

You have to understand how it started, when she made partner at that big wall street firm—you know, the one with six names? Can you imagine answering the phone there? Poor girls. I guess when your former partners include supreme court justices and a vice president, you’re not in a big hurry to change your letterhead. Susan was the first woman to make equity partner at that firm. And, naturally, the guys gave her a hard time. She had to always be one step ahead of them. To start with, Susan was no den mother; she gave her associates hell. And the men respected that. I mean, she’d have you bring her a knife so she could stab you in the back with it. They called her Cutthroat. Behind her back, sure, but then later to her face. She loved that.

But Susan had another side too. Because they were men, after all. Don’t get me wrong. She didn’t lead anyone on. No, but the way she presented herself, the way she came to see herself, was as this perfectly desirable being. Perfectly desirable and perfectly unattainable. They respected her, like some beautiful, poisonous snake. You know the ones I’m talking about? On the Discovery Channel or something? Susan was a black mamba. Slender, powerful, with those big staring eyes. And fast. She would strike at a distance, never content to lie in wait.

In the end, they were scared of her. You notice they didn’t put up much of a fight when she walked out the door one day, taking a third of their clients with her, to some office in an exposed-brick loft in Chelsea. I can hear their little hearts thumping in their chests now. Prey always knows when it’s just escaped by the skin of its teeth.

And the loft! Oh my god Susan loved that old building. She loved how it made her highbrow clients a little uncomfortable. She thought it made them respect her more. She loved how the grit of the old place enhanced her polish. The incongruity of it all; she got off on it.

Even that shitty elevator! Especially that shitty elevator. I’ll never forget this one time, when opposing counsel was late for a deposition—very unlike him—Susan marched down six flights of stairs to the security office to speak to the guy through the intercom. She told him to quit being such a baby, that he would be out in a minute. Then she slipped the security guard a twenty, telling him to take his time calling the fire department.

I always thought the elevator was dangerous. But this … I mean, my god, this was criminal. The news said “severe mutilation.” Those words. A direct quote from one of the first responders. There’s going to be a huge lawsuit over this. Mark my words, Jeffrey and the twins will be set for life. And, I guess now they don’t have to put up with any more of Susan’s shit.

Manny

     THE COURT: Raise your right hand, please.

(Witness sworn.)

MANUEL ORTIZ,

called as a witness herein, having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:

DIRECT EXAMINATION

BY MS. MESSING:

Q. Mr. Ortiz, could you please introduce yourself and spell your name.

A. I’m Manuel Ortiz—M-A-N-U-E-L—O-R-T-I-Z. You can call me Manny. I work front desk security at The Commons.

Q. Did you know the deceased?

A. Oh yes, everyone knew Ms. Rankin. She had her office on the top floor of the building. I knew her for about three years, ever since I started working there.

Q. And did Ms. Rankin typically take the elevator to her office?

A. Yes.

Q. Manny, were you working the front desk at The Commons on the morning of June 11, 2008?

A. Yes, I was.

Q. Can you tell us, in your own words, what you saw that morning?

A. Sure. Okay, so it was a Monday. A little after nine o’clock. I remember that because it was unusual for Ms. Rankin to arrive at work so late on a Monday. But you know, she had been working day and night on a big case. When she did that, she might work all weekend and then come in late on Monday.

Q. Did Ms. Rankin seem to be in a hurry?

BY MR. CARTER: Objection. Why is that relevant?

THE COURT: Overruled. Ms. Messing, you asked him to tell it in his own words. Are you going to let him?

BY MS. MESSING: I am, your honor.

THE COURT: Mr. Ortiz, you can answer.

A. Yeah, she was in a hurry. But Ms. Rankin was one of those people, she was always in a hurry. She came through the door and said hello—Ms. Rankin always said “Good Morning Manny. She’d ask about my wife, my kids. She was always real nice to us who worked in the building. But that day, she came through the door and she saw that the elevator door was open. There were two people in there already, a man and a woman. And Ms. Rankin …

Q. Manny, can I just interrupt you for a second. The man and woman in the elevator, were they Mark Felter and Elise Paige?

A. Yes. I learned later that’s who they were. I didn’t know their names then.

Q. But you recognized them from the building?

A. Mr. Felter I did. I think the woman was not from the building.

Q. Thank you. Please continue.

A. So Ms. Rankin yells out for them to hold the elevator. And they did. Mr. Felter put his arm across the doors so they wouldn’t shut. After a few seconds the doors would try to shut anyway, but then the sensor opens them again. With that elevator, you could do it three times, I think, before a little buzzer went off.

Q. Then what would happen?

A. Nothing. The doors would still open if something triggered the sensor. The buzzer was just like, telling the people to hurry up, you know, they can’t hold the elevator all day. So the buzzer went off, but Mr. Felter was still holding the door open. Ms. Rankin stepped into the elevator. She had, like, one foot through the door, and Mr. Felter stepped back, to let her in. And then, the elevator, it just shot up, straight up, with no warning.

Q. What did you do?

A. It took me a second to realize what happened. I mean, Ms. Rankin didn’t cry out or anything. There was just this crack, and this horrible grinding noise, as the elevator tried to keep rising up. But then I heard Mr. Felter yelling, he was just saying “Oh my god, Oh my god!” And the woman, Ms. Paige, she started screaming. Screaming and crying and pushing down the emergency call button.

Q. Did you call the fire department?

A. I ran over to the elevator first. Then I radioed my partner to call the fire department, paramedics, all that.

Q. What did you see, Manny?

A. Oh … I don’t even know how to describe it. Ms. Rankin’s leg was … was separated from her body. I don’t know how else to put it. I could see the heel of her shoe was stuck in the little groove that the elevator doors slide back and forth in. There was blood everywhere, and just, well, there were pieces of Ms. Rankin on the doors of the elevator and on the bricks of the elevator shaft going down. The car had gone up almost one floor, and it was stuck there. I could see Mr. Felter and the woman, Ms. Paige, through a little crack though. About six inches.

Q. So the elevator was stopped there?

A. Well, it was still trying to go up. I think Ms. Rankin’s body was stuck in the shaft and was keeping it from going. I really didn’t know what to do. This is not the kind of thing we are trained for, you know? I was trying to talk to Mr. Felter. I could see he was trying to calm Ms. Paige down. And then, pretty soon, everyone arrived, the fire department and everyone. It was just, chaotic after that.

MS. MESSING: Thank you, Manny.

Elise

Even now, let me tell you, not a day goes by that I don’t think abut it. I’m serious. Something like that, it changes you forever. I’ll be in line at the grocery store, and suddenly I’m back there, and its happening all over again. One moment this glamorous woman is storming across the lobby, yelling for us to hold the elevator, and the next … oh God. Do you know it ripped her apart!? Right in front of our eyes. I can see her face now. Shock, then panic, then … nothing. She was gone, just like that. Someone’s wife. Someone’s mother.

“Susan Rankin. Beloved wife of Jeffrey, loving mother of Liam and Connor.” She was a lawyer, I guess. She worked in that building. All of that was in the obituary. But it took them a while to post it. I checked every day. There was an autopsy, naturally, a big investigation.

When they finally let me go home that day, when the paramedics and the police were done—do you know they even made me talk to a shrink?—I came home to my empty apartment and just cried. But at some point, I’m not sure exactly when, I realized that the bag they’d pressed into my hands as I was leaving was not mine. It was hers.

I knew I needed to return it, to get it to her family. I left messages with the police, but I guess recovering dead people’s misplaced belongings is not a high priority for them. So finally, I looked in the bag. I thought probably her wallet would be in there, with an I.D. It was. But there was something else. Just a sheet of paper, folded in half, with the words “I’m sorry” on the front. I remember the handwriting was very neat. Ha, I don’t know why I remember that.

It was a suicide note, dated the same day as the accident. There was hardly anything to it. Don’t blame yourself, this was my fault—really vague stuff. But, you know, I think she really meant to kill herself. There were bottles of prescription pills in the bag too. And on her tablet—yeah, I looked at that eventually too—her e-mails made it sound like she was in some serious trouble. A client had done something illegal and she’d covered for it. I’m not a lawyer, I didn’t really understand all of it, but I could tell she wasn’t just being paranoid. She was going to be disbarred I think, where they tell you you can’t be a lawyer anymore? Maybe arrested too.

Really, I had just one thought. I could not give this to her family. But then I had doubts. I drove by the address on her driver’s license a half a dozen times, having convinced myself that her husband, at the very least, deserved to know. But I chickened out every time. That bag haunted me. I moved it from closet to closet. I couldn’t sleep.

Some time passed, and I read in the paper that the lawsuit, against the elevator company, I guess, had gone to trial. There was a statement on the news, from the husband. He was indignant, was devoting his life to making buildings safer or something. I sort of stopped hearing his words. I was fixated on his face, all that righteous anger. That was how he was coping. I studied his grainy photo in the paper for days, begging him to give me a clue. But in the end, I knew, I just needed to get rid of that bag.

I drove out of town, farther than necessary, I’m sure, and tossed it in a dumpster. I cried all the way home. You have no idea. I was just so glad to be rid of it.

[Day 1: 2097 words]