The exercise:
Write four lines of prose about: the chain reaction.
Max had a marginally better night, but not enough to avoid a visit to the doctor's office. I brought him in this afternoon and his ears and lungs checked out fine, with the only concerns being the cough and a fever. So we're working on keeping his body temperature within range of normal and doing what we can to ease his cough.
Seems to be working so far, as he's had a much better start to the night than last night.
The inspiration for the prompt actually came from the night before, when Max woke up with a horrible coughing fit, which woke Kat up, which woke me up. Miles woke up somewhere in there as well. Once we had Max settled down it was a ridiculous revolving door of trying to get the both of them back to sleep.
I think Kat started off with trying to do both at the same time, then I took a turn with Miles while she tried Max. And then we traded. And then... I dunno. At some point we just gave up and accepted that we were awake for the day and it was best to just get on with things.
Anyway. Now Miles just woke up coughing. So feel free to shoot me anytime, really.
Mine:
You wish to lay the blame on me. As though I could have possibly known that my initial action could have led us to the mess we're in, here and now.
Well I can assure you of this much: if I had that kind of control over the future, I would be wearing a crown right now, surrounded by... actually, never you mind all that.
In the end the choice is yours: take your revenge and then eventually starve, or work with me and stand a significantly better chance of surviving this disaster.
That's a lot of wakeful people and coughing! I hope it all clears up soon -- I think it's often worse when kids are young because they're still building up their immune system. As for the shooting... I've hired the assassin through Amazon's Mechanical Turk :)
ReplyDeleteI think your narrator is protesting too much. It definitely sounds to me like he deserves the blame :) I guess chain reactions can be hard to predict... but I'm still blaming him!
The chain reaction
The Royal Alchemist had been replaced (out of necessity) twice while purifying Caesium out of pollucite, but finally the third Royal Alchemist handed Prince Charming a necklace, coated in mineral oil, of the pale grey metal. Tiny chain links connected beautifully with one another, branching here and there into a sunburst; in the centre was a fragile jewel that had required another four Royal Alchemists to fill with Hydrogen gas.
When the Prince laid the necklace around his mother's neck for her 73rd birthday she smiled, thanked him effusively, and then looked slightly puzzled as the mineral oil trickled away and let the metal come into contact with her skin. The chain reaction lifted her head from her shoulders and sent it soaring higher than the highest tower of the castle, and the Prince was sure that she had retained consciousness long enough to see the whole of her Queendom from a bird's eye view, just as she'd always wanted.
More an indirect chain reaction, but today's contribution comes to you from the force of lurking stubborn spite that the narrator of your contribution roused:
ReplyDeleteI don't wish to blame you—I do blame you, I blame you entirely. Because I practically killed myself trying to dissuade you, warn you, beat it into your thick skull how terribly this would end up.
I was right—of course I was right—but despite ignoring me when it was convenient for your delusions you have the gall to shirk my blame and demand my coöperation in the same breath?
You need me far more than I need you; all I need for revenge is to watch you face your disaster of a mistake and wither like I know you will.
Greg - ah, I thought I saw that Hit. I am not impressed with how much you're paying for my demise :P
ReplyDeleteThat is a clever take on the prompt. Rather horrific in execution, but, you know, still good stuff :D
g2 - good to see you again, and I'm super pleased to see you continue mine. I think you've nailed the appropriate response :)