The exercise:
Write about something that is: on lockdown.
I made a decision earlier today that this will be my last prompt that has anything to do with current events for at least a week. I'm certainly not trying to ignore it - I'm sure it will be in my face all day, every day at work - but I think we could all use a break from hearing and thinking about it.
Do what you will with the prompts heading your way, of course, but my hope will be lighter prompts leading to lighter writing. Either way, if you're as overwhelmed with all the updates and information coming out on an hourly basis as I am, you'll find a little bit of peace and quiet around these parts for the next little while.
2 comments:
Curiously enough the prompts around the current pandemic aren't proving problematic for this story at all. I was thinking about it over the weekend, and it's obviously a lucky coincidence that this story is really about a pandemic of its own that happened in the past and is now coming back to haunt the present. I started this far enough back that there's no way this can be anything other than coincidence, but if I wanted to draw a parallel between the Radiance and flu... well, it wouldn't be hard :)
Lockdown
They crossed the car-park quickly, following Timothy who was running ahead, sniffing and waiting for them to catch up. Rounding the building they saw that the windows had been boarded over with large, thick slabs of chipboard and the entrance was shuttered. A two-pump petrol station was further away from them with its own slip-road for entrance and exit, but Timothy led them towards the main entrance and exit and across a wide road. The other side was mostly residential, though a Chinese takeaway with bright red-and-yellow sign and a party-supplies shop stood in proud isolation between two blocks of terraced houses. The gardens, once again, were sprawling tangles of rampant vegetation obscuring paths to front doors.
Timothy sniffed around outside the takeaway, another shop with steel-shuttered door and boarded-up windows and then took them left.
“Why are the windows all boarded up?” Collins had been worrying over this since seeing the supermarket.
“To prevent theft,” said Adams. “You’re a policeman, shouldn’t that be obvious?”
Collins flinched from the contempt in her voice. “I thought Tanham was evacuated,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like people would have had time to board up windows.”
“It’s not like they came through with busses and herded people on. There would have plenty of time for people to put things in order and leave quietly.”
“Actually it was like that,” said the Inspectral. They crossed a narrow side-road. “The evacuation was announced publicly and in less than half-an-hour all public service vehicles were collecting people. Military transports came after and the soldiers removed anyone who’d resisted evacuating by themselves. Tanham was empty six hours after the evacuation was announced.”
Adams stayed silent, and little points of red blossomed in her cheeks.
“The boarding up happened in a second pass,” said the Inspectral. “Lockdown. All done by the army again. The orders for that were labelled Secret and have not, as far as I’m aware, been rescinded.”
“That means he’s not going to tell you,” said Ethel. He pointed across the street. “Ah, the County Snooker Club! I played there twice in County Championships. Grotty little venue, but the beer was cheap and there was a woman there in the kitchen who made a mean steak-and-onion pie.”
Timothy turned them down the next side-street and the Inspectral glanced at the road-name. “Hope Street,” he said. “I wonder if that’s a portent?”
They passed a hairdresser’s salon, this time with both door and windows boarded over, and a barbecue restaurant called the Roast Hog. A menu, so faded it was nearly illegible, was in a glass-fronted case on the wall outside.
“The Crisis centre is at the end of this street,” said the Inspectral quietly.
“So’s the airfield,” said Ethel a lot more loudly. “Isn’t anyone going to ask me if I won the County Championship trophy then?”
Greg - yes, it has certainly matched up with current events far more readily than any of us might like. And I'll admit that I've been tempted to start writing a fictional interpretation of what's going on in the world... but it's hard not to feel wrong about it. Maybe it's the 'too soon' factor? Perhaps I should get some of these ideas down for potential later use... because there is a whole buttload of stuff to take inspiration from these days, in that area.
Really enjoyed all the descriptions in this one, really bringing the scene to life. And Ethel continues to be a favorite :D
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