Wednesday October 31st, 2018

The exercise:

Happy Halloween! To celebrate, your first line in today's writing shall be: The dead came out to play that day.

2 comments:

Greg said...

Happy Hallowe'en to you too. Will you be posting pictures of the boys's costumes for us to admire?
Given that you've set the first line I'll stay away from Derby today and return to something more appropriate. :-}

Mine:
The dead came out to play that day. The woman's voice -- raised in justified annoyance -- cut through the hubbub of the small crowd, and Aubergine shivered.
"Are you cold?" asked Adrian, though she could see from the slight twist to his face and the tightness around his eyes that his foot was hurting a lot.
"No," she said, "It's just... that's how my favourite fairy-tale starts."
Do you want a school-shooting? He's home-schooled!
There was a small amount of nervous laughter running through the crowd now. Somewhere in the distance sirens started up; the counter-clerk must have had a silent alarm button to press, thought Aubergine. The clerk was serving people, working down the queue, and the would-be robber was lying on the floor, dazed.
Is it the cat? You want him to shoot the cat? You've never liked that cat, I knew it when we got it.
"I think, maybe, I could use that hospital," said Adrian. She looked up at him and realised that he'd gone so pale he was practically gray. She looked down then and saw that not only was the case of beer still on his foot, but there was something red pooling around the edges of it.
"I hope that's the red wine," she said, realising that her voice sounded childlike and dismal.
"I'm pretty sure it's not," said Adrian. "You picked white, remember?"
Your mother said I was too good for you, and I'm starting to think she was right. Give me that gun!
"Oh yes," said Aubergine. She lifted her hand, still holding the bottle. "And I have it here."
"I can pay if you call me an ambulance," said Adrian.
"Oh," she said, a familiar chill settling in the pit of her stomach. This was going to be like when the woman collapsed in Starbucks and everyone had looked at her expecting her to do CPR because she was dressed as a nurse-clown. The haunting shame of the paramedic staring at her and saying, "you thought those were chest compressions?" felt like an icy snake coiling around her hips.
Here, you got it for him, you can carry it. Now, we are going HOME!
"I don't...."
"I've got insurance," said Adrian, and she managed a half-smile. He smiled back, and looked oddly familiar. She struggled with her memory for another half-second before she realised he looked like the zombie-lead from Walking Dead.
"No," she said, "I don't know what the number is."
"Oh, sweetheart," said Adrian, reaching for her with his arms. "It's-"
He fell over, unconscious, the weight of his body bearing her to the ground where she felt his blood soaking into her tights and skirt.
Someone screamed.

Marc said...

Greg - yeah, I thought *maybe* you could work this into Derby but obviously the tale wasn't at a point where it would work.

And... these two are a fine, fine replacement for Derby. Bring them back as needed, please :)