The exercise:
Sneaking it in before we hit the end of the month, as promised, today we return to the House of Mercy.
I've got some figuring out to do here, so I'm just going to get right to it.
Mine:
Anne was nearly back to solid ground when the voice froze her in place.
"That's far enough, Miss."
Looking down between her feet, she saw that it was only a few more feet until she could rest her aching, shaking arms. It seemed to her that in this case, far enough was not nearly far enough at all.
"Why don't you just climb back up there and go right back through whatever window you snuck out of, okay? Before anybody else sees you?"
"What?" Anne asked, finally finding her voice again.
"I don't know why you folks insist on trying to escape. You know we've been told to shoot to kill anybody we find making the attempt, right?"
"Shoot to...?" For a moment Anne forgot all about her trembling arms.
"On account of y'all being so dangerous? Not that I've seen none of you do anything scary enough to warrant being shot. And I especially ain't gonna shoot no woman. Not unless you got a knife hidden on you somewheres and you plan on coming at me with it?"
"I'm not a patient here. I was just trying to visit a friend."
"Uh huh. You know visiting hours are most definitely over?"
"I came earlier, they wouldn't let me see her."
"Uh huh. Whatever you say, Miss. Now if you'd just please scoot back up there? I can't exactly walk you back in the front door or they'd start asking questions as to why you're still breathing and then I'd most likely wind up losing my job. And I can't afford that, no ma'am."
"Call the front desk, then. They can verify that I'm not a patient here. Then you can -"
"Can what, Miss? Tell them I found somebody, most likely a patient, who is claiming she's not a patient, climbing down the wall? And could they please tell me if she's telling the truth or not? Because, you know, I haven't shot her yet? Ma'am, you're lucky I found you and not Bradley. He'd a shot you five times by now."
It was then that Anne's arms finally gave out and she collapsed the rest of the way down to the ground.
2 comments:
Well, it's the 1st of May as I write this, so I guess we'll back at the House of Mercy sooner rather than later! However, now that Anne is trying to find things out, and the guards are required to shoot people on sight, you've left me with a tricky conundrum – if I kill Anne what's going to happen to Julie? And if I don't kill Anne, then why not?
I lke the guard though, and I hope we can keep him in the story. He's pragmatic and clearly doesn't know what's going on inside the building too much, which might be essential if Julie is ever to get away!
"Anne, isn't it?"
There was a muzziness to everything. The world seemed to be a hazy white distance away from her, held off by something. She felt like she was wrapped in a cloud and nothing really mattered, nothing could hurt her while she was here. There was a distant sensation of heat in her leg but it wasn't really happening to her. It was just happening to something she owned, a body or something, that she'd taken off and put aside for a while.
"Anne? You are called Anne, aren't you?"
The voice was coming from somewhere nearby, and it sounded familiar.
"Anne? Can you look at me please, dear?"
That's right, it was her grandmother. She liked her grandmother, and it was rude not to listen to her. Where was she now? Anne twisted, feeling the white cloud that held her twist with her, hugging her and holding her like her mother used to hold her when she was a child. Ah, there it was, that was how it moved. There was a horse standing by her, talking to her, and it smelled of her grandmother's perfume.
"Anne, can you speak yet? Please try."
She tried. "Hello? Hello? Am I on?"
The horse grinned in that horsey way where it pulled its flexible lips back and shows those enormous teeth. She ought to be scared, but she wasn't; her body wasn't here to get hurt.
"I'm so pleased you're talking Anne. I'm Babs. How are you feeling?"
"I'm cotton wool," said Anne. "No, cotton candy. Um. You're a horse."
"It's not nice to call people names, dear." There was the harshness of reprimand, but it was softened by sympathy. "You're on morphine though, so I understand that things might seem a little strange. Just think before you speak." She sounded exactly like her grandmother, and granny would never have tolerated being called a horse. Though she had the dentures for it. Anne giggled. "You've been shot dear, so we brought you in. You're sharing a room for now, with a lovely young lady called Julie. She's here because she's insane, but you're not. Are you, Anne?"
"I'm a pumpkin," said Anne. "Is that why I was shot?"
"Security thought you were trying to break in, dear. I know you weren't, and we're all very pleased you were only shot in the leg. Now, when the morphine wears off just scream until someone comes with more for you, dear."
Greg - yeah, I should probably get us back here soon. At least now I've replied to April's entry so I feel better about doing it!
Pleased with where you went with this. I think my goal was to get Anne in there with Julie and then hopefully they'd be able to figure out an escape together. Or at least make it easier for Anne to get Julie out.
I guess we shall see where things go next... quite soon!
P.S Really enjoyed how you described the fuzziness Anne is feeling here.
Post a Comment