Monday November 23rd, 2015

The exercise:

Write something that has to do with: roses.

Looks like I've got company again tonight. He doesn't seem particularly sick during the day, other than being more tired (and cranky) than usual. So I'm hoping this will pass fairly quickly.

Found time to chop and haul wood this morning. Which is good, because it is currently snowing pretty hard out there.

Max will be so pleased when he wakes up tomorrow and looks out the window.

Mine:

Miranda closed the door behind her as she entered her hotel room and paused to regain her composure in the soothing darkness. The first three breaths were shallow and ragged. The two that followed were more controlled but still too rapid. It was three or four breaths later that she remembered to breathe in through her nostrils and out through her mouth.

Which was when she finally noticed the smell.

She pawed the wall to her right until she finally found the light switch. The sudden brightness hurt her eyes and reduced her vision down to a pained squint. Swearing softly she edged her way further into the room she'd called home for the last five nights.

"Hello?" she called out as the smell grew stronger.

There was no answer. Nor should there have been. The only people who had entered that space since her arrival had been Miranda herself and the cleaning staff. As far as she knew.

"Is anyone in here?" she tried again. "Because if so I'm pretty sure you're in the wrong room..."

The narrow hallway opened into the living area and Miranda pulled up short. On the coffee table someone had placed a black ceramic vase filled with white and red roses. Even from fifteen feet away she could tell that they had been heavily perfumed.

"Ugh," she muttered. That was before she saw the envelope leaning against the vase. The words that followed that discovery were... quite definitely unladylike.

Miranda didn't need to see the handwriting to know who was responsible for this "gift". The keynote speaker had not left her alone since the conference had begun. She was a happily married woman but no rebuffs were working, no discouragement so much as acknowledged. This, however, this was going too far. Stronger measures were obviously required.

Steeling herself for the task ahead, she turned on a heel to go find him. As it happened, she didn't have to go very far.

He was standing right behind her.