Moving on...

Here's few more! I finished these up yesterday evening. Oh, by the way, major disclaimer here: The characters and events in these writings are COMPLETELY fiction! They are not in any way shape or form intended to represent actual people or events. It's all FICTION (I had to put that in after the first one, my mom was concerned that it was supposed to be her. It's not, by the way. She's way too cool for that.)


1/6/10

Prompt: "The butter melted slowly in the pan..." (Me)

Time seemed to drag. It was only 8:30, and he wasn’t coming over until 11:00. She turned on the stove and started her breakfast. Everything seemed to drag. Even the butter melted slowly in the pan, taking its own sweet time. The water took forever to boil, then the tea took even longer to steep. She looked at the clock again, groaning when she saw that only 5 minutes had gone by. Would the time never pass?

Finally, breakfast was ready. She sat down to eat, her book at hand. Every paragraph she looked up, hoping that more time had gone by. It hadn’t. The clock seemed stuck, frozen in time. The seconds clicked by, slowly, ever so slowly, seeming to take minutes, even hours instead of the usual heartbeat. She washed her dishes, glancing at the clock again and again. 8:45, only 15 minutes had passed. She curled up on the couch with her book, hoping that the pages would help the time move more quickly. It didn’t. After what felt like an hour, she looked up, only to find that it was barely 9:15. Gritting her teeth, she turned back to her book.

When she looked up again, she’d finished the book. The clock read 10:00. What the hell. She tossed the book on the couch, then froze, startled, as the doorbell rang. She answered it, somewhat confused. He was here. She let him in, then he chuckled as he glanced at the clock.

“I think you need a new clock,” he said. “This one’s an hour slow.”

Total Time: 6 minutes
Word Count: 260


1/7/10

Prompt: "The plant was wilting on the windowsill..." (Kaitlyn Roy, my sister)

It was a hot July day in rural Florida. The sun beat down on the small house, sending it’s vicious rays straight through the old tin roof. Julia sat on the front porch, a glass of icy lemonade in one hand and a bamboo fan in the other. Nothing seemed to survive this heat wave. Her yellow lab, Bruno, lay underneath the magnolia tree, his pink tongue lolling as he tried to cool himself. Even the small plant on the kitchen windowsill was wilting, and Julia had been given strict assurances by the woman at the garden shop that it would survive even the most brutal of heat waves.

With a heavy sigh, Julia rose and made her way into the kitchen. She filled a jug with cold water and stepped back on the porch. As soon as he heard the water being splashed into the ceramic water dish, Bruno perked up and loped over, slurping thirstily at the cool liquid. Julia watched him, smiling. The condensation on her own glass was cold as well, and she pressed it to her forehead, exhaling slightly as the cool droplets soothed her warm skin. It was no use going back indoors, she had no air conditioning, and it was actually cooler outside. The tin roof, while wonderful and soothing during a rainstorm, locked heat in like an oven. What she wouldn’t give for a freezer full of ice, or maybe a freak snowstorm, but neither of those were likely to be had.

She sat back down on the porch swing as Bruno flopped down back under the magnolia tree. With another sigh, Julia fanned herself slowly. The bamboo fan didn’t get rid of the heat altogether, but at least it kept the bugs away. And oh, were the bugs bad. Huge horseflies played with the mosquitoes in a painful game of ‘who can bite more skin’, and the irritating lovebugs dotted nearly every visible surface. Fly paper didn’t help—in a mere matter of minutes, it would be filled with dying insects. There was no breeze save for Julia’s lazy fanning, and it didn’t look like there would be one for at least another week.

The fanning slowly stopped as Julia nodded off, sleep a pleasant respite from the unbearable heat. Ah well, this was her home, and to live here, one had to put up with these sorts of things.

Total Time: 10 minutes
Word Count: 399


1/8/10

Prompt: "The soggy noodles dripped from the pan..." (Moriah Lee, my sister)

She cursed in frustration as the soggy noodles dripped out of the pan and landed in a slimy lump on the plate. Would she never get this right? First she put them in before the water was boiling properly, then she left them in for too long, and now she was stuck with a gloppy lump of overcooked, mushy noodles. Gross. She glanced at the clock, praying for the first time ever that a freak snowstorm would delay her dinner guests long enough for her to whip something else up. A glance out the window ultimately denied that wish. The sky was clear as day, and it was highly unlikely that they’d get even a small shower.

With a sigh of resignation, she dumped the soggy noodles down the garbage disposal and turned to the pantry. Nothing. Then her eye fell on the phonebook lying on the counter. Wait a minute…no one was expecting fanciness for supper, and the pizza place delivered in thirty minutes or less. She smiled in relief and punched in the number. Well, pepperoni pizza would have to do.

Total Time: 5 minutes
Word Count: 183


1/9/10

Prompt: "The hooded figure slunk from the corner..." (Moriah Lee)

The hooded figure slunk from the corner, making his way slowly out into the alley way. Sounds of drinking and carousing emanated from the tavern he’d just left, but they simply washed over him, the sounds of the typical area nightlife. He hadn’t been in town long, but he didn’t need to. His name was known by all inhabitants of the underbelly, and not just of this small town. No sooner had he arrived, then the whispers had begun.

“Lock up your treasures tight, Arkanis the Mask is here!”

“Don’t wander about at night, Arkanis the Mask is here!”

Arkanis the Mask, the most feared name in all alleys and taverns. Everyone knew who he was, the hooded, masked man who could change his appearance at whim. No one was ever safe when Arkanis the Mask was in town. No secret remained a secret, for who knows, Arkanis the Mask could be listening. Who was your server tonight? Was it Maggie O’Dell, or Arkanis the Mask? Who was the patrolling enforcer? Was it Taryn the Brave, or Arkanis the Mask? He could take any appearance, any form, and his voice was as fluid as a warm beaker of mulled wine.

If Arkanis the Mask was in town, nothing was secret, and nothing was safe.

Beware of Arkanis the Mask.

Total Time: 5 minutes
Word Count: 219


1/10/10

Prompt: "Maybe he likes patients who are dying because they don't give him any trouble." (Kaitlyn Roy)

No one really knew Dr. Grayson. He was a loner, a solitary man, and one who didn’t talk much. In fact, he had never been known to make light conversation with any of the other staff at Mercy General Hospital, not even his head nurse. The only conversations he ever had were patient-related, and usually kept to a cursory few statements. Most of the staff had their own opinions of him, and they ranged from the very outlandish “Perhaps he’s a drug-runner” to the more commonplace “Maybe he’s just introverted.” Regardless, his lack of verbosity had made him a less than favored supervisor among the nursing staff. Add to that his penchant for taking hospice patients, those who were fully prepared to die, and you had a very eccentric man.

Rosie McKinley, his head nurse, was one of the few who defended him. Unlike the rest of the staff, she was content to simply observe Dr. Grayson. She kept her eyes and ears open, and she once overheard a telephone conversation he had, she assumed it was with his wife or daughter. When he hung up the phone, the sheer exhaustion on his features had shocked the motherly nurse, and she’d felt like giving him a nice temple massage to ease his headache. She didn’t of course, that would be a serious breach of professional boundaries, not to mention just plain awkward. But still, that image had stayed with her for quite some time. She hadn’t heard much of the conversation, except to ntoe that it was definitely money-related, and the woman he was talking to had been asking for more. Oh, how long that argument lasted. It wasn’t fair, really, that such a talented and giving doctor had to deal with such people, trying to suck him dry. His salary wasn’t really all it could be, for although he was the best physician in Mercy General, he did nearly a third of his work pro bono, as a donation to the less fortunate.

Rosie knew all this, and maybe that was why she defended him so staunchly to the other staff members. Shortly after she’d overheard the conversation, one of the receptionists had been criticizing the good doctor’s preference for hospice patients. Rosie had sighed, tossing a comment to the young woman as she passed by.

“Did you ever think that maybe he likes patients who are dying because they don’t give him any trouble?”

Apparently the girl hadn’t thought of that, for she quickly shut her mouth and went back to her filing. Rosie smiled as she continued down the hallway. Dr. Grayson was a good man, and she wouldn’t have anyone slandering his good name.

Total Time: 10 minutes
Word Count: 448