Writing Prompt

“I just don’t understand what this has to do with me,” Tina said grumbled in her mother’s general direction. Both of them avoided eye contact.

“Your cousin texted me – you know how hard it is for him to reach out to people – and specifically asked if you would be there,” Tina’s mom replied, as if she was explaining this to her daughter for the first time.

Tina’s cousin Darryl hasn’t mentioned a friend to his parents, let alone spent time with one outside of school, since he started 6th grade. He and Tina went to the same junior high, but she was in 8th grade – which might as well have been college in the eyes of 11 year olds. Darryl enjoyed music with no lyrics, couldn’t stand sports or video games, and spent his Saturdays reading about obscure wars on Wikipedia. In other words, kids his age did not find him relatable.

He wanted to go watch the 8th grade Spring orchestra concert, but he didn’t want to sit alone. While he could get away with walking alone in class and only speaking when a teacher called on him, Darryl knew that attending an event alone would confirm everyone’s assumption that he had no friends.

“First, orchestra is lame. Two, I wanna go hang out with Maggie tonight,” Tina groaned through her rainbow braces. Her mother didn’t like picking unnecessary fights. Over the last year or so, Tina went from seeing her mother as her best friend to a mosquito that won’t stop buzzing in her ear. Not that her mother spoke much. But she often lingered, waiting for Tina to say something to her.

“Fine,” her mother said. “Maybe next time.”

To me, he was an idol. I saw him as if he were chiseled in stone in some ancient city, revered by men and women far and wide, as if people came to see him on pilgrimages. In reality, he was enabling my addiction and that made me see him like a hero; I see that now, but couldn’t ever then. He would hand me another glass, another shot, another bottle with generous hands. Always with trimmed nails and smooth skin, his palm would pass mine, and the drink would be with me again. He would watch as I drank, ready to give me another. Yet with love, he was sparse. That was all I really ever wanted from him - to be loved. Even in our last days together, I begged for it, hoped for it, made a fool of myself - as if he were some godly being and not a human being just like me. All that - to never receive it, and to only receive poison in return.

She’s a lanky ENABLING lady With long black hair She wears a TALL pointy Hat Her nose is a slight crook Not exactly pretty She is a GENEROUS soul
She gives out candy to those who dare knock! SPARCE is evil in her heart She maybe a witch but she’s a GOOD Witch

Josh had landed a job working in finance in his early twenties. He felt so lucky the hedge fund company he worked for , had picked him up. Josh was a child of a single mother and spent his childhood in an area that wasn’t he best. Even thought he had many responsibilities both in and out of work, he always made time to volunteer at the soup kitchen near his house. He also was involved in a mentor ship program for children. He wanted bother more that to give back and improve the his surroundings.

The long, meandering queue stretches beyond them like the River Nile. She can feel Eva’s quick, small slippery palm escaping from her own prying, desperate grasp. Her own fingers clutch, but falter. It’s too late. The echoing moment of calm that has passed between them only seconds ago, shatters.

“Mummy!” Eva’s voice rings out like an alarm bell and Kara’s heart falters, squeezes with that familiar tightness.

Kara looks down at her. Eva’s cheeks redden to her trademark shade of crimson. No, no, no. Not now. Her tiny hands curl into fists.

“Why are we waiting here?” Her bundle of joy bellows.

Kara feels another part of her soul take flight. Yet, somehow she’s heavier still. A concrete paperweight. Pushing the towering trolly away from them, she kneels, her face burning, feeling a sea of eyes on her. The rhythmic beep of the scanner and impatient sighs of shoppers resonate around them.

“What is it, love?” She wonders aloud what it could possibly, possibly be this time. In a world as small as Eva’s there seems to be an awful lot of obstacles. Kara studies her swollen, bloated daughter, squashed into her precious fuchsia tutu, her chubby cheeks wobbling as her mouth turns down further and further.

“I’m hungry!” She wails, and tears, somehow, miraculously, spring from her sapphire eyes.

Again? “Okay, can you please wait until we get home?” Kara pleads, her trembling knees aching for her to rise again.

“I said - I’m hungry! I want chocolate - now!” Eva’s determined gaze glints with a dangerous fury.

Kara’s heart gives another painful squeeze, feels her daughter’s unhappiness shrouding her, suffocating her.

She rises, as does the pitch of Eva’s frantic cries.

Her pale, quaking fingers fumble through the own brand items and finally she locates the magic packet.

Within moments, her cries are silenced.

She grins and bears the accusatory eyes of the checkout assistant as he scans the oddly light, empty packet, and leaves it for her to pack away on the other side of the conveyer belt.

On the way home, Kara erases the painfully recent memories of cards being declined, of dividing payments between them, praying they would not let her down again.

When they reach home, Eva begs Kara to play dollhouses with her, and despite the growing number of missed calls on her phone, emails piling up in the inbox titled “Urgent,” she agrees.

After she puts the shopping away, she goes to the bathroom and studies herself briefly in the mirror. Her face is lined, drawn, haggard, like a thousand sorrowful nights have passed by and she’s endured every single one. Her cheekbones slice through her skin, collar bones rising high like a barrier.

“Mummy!” Eva demands, impatience dripping off her tongue.

“Coming!” She replies, taking one last look at the ghost of the woman she once knew.

Robyn stretched the bowstring back. Her eyes focussed on the hay practice dummy and the red and white painted target. A large target on the chest and a smaller target on the head. She let loose the arrow and it burst through the air and struck home. She smiled and this followed a round of applause from eager trainees.

Here in this sparse forest, away from all the hustle and bustle of the city, she trained those who respected the forest for what it symbolises. Life. When she stole from those who stole from the poor. She would give generously back to those affected by the cruel taxation burdening the honest farmers of the kingdom.

And it was when she took refuge from the law and bounty hunters, in this dense expanse of the forest of which she knew every nook and cranny, every stream and a every route; that she felt a maternal instinct in teaching and enabling her students to learn her ways. It was in her hopes that every rebel she taught to use a bow, to evade and chip away the corrupt barons.

That was her goal.

“Who wants to take the next shot?

They say you’re generous. You give, even when no one wants. But I know the truth. The truth you hide.

Your actual compassion is sparse. You do things only when you can get praise. Only when you are on top, the controller.

Enabler. That’s your other game. Manipulate and tease until you get your will. You’re not a victim when you enjoy it.

I know you.

Do you know yourself?

Edmund was a shortish, brainy-ish, happy sort of chap. Friendly and immensely gregarious, he was slightly overweight, somewhat out of breath, bespectacled and secretly balding. In a side wind his head resembled a sparsely feathered sparrow chick hiding under a ski jump.

Edmund did like to organise a party. His favourite venue was his generously proportioned back garden and he invariably spared no expense when laying on the party treats. On this particular June Saturday there were two barbecues, a ten piece band playing bluegrass music, a dance floor with a mad laser light show set up. There were several bouncy castles, a temporary but large swimming pool, replete with water slides and super-soakers. There were jugglers, clowns and magicians. There was Gipsy Lil, Edmund's trusted fortune teller, professors of philosophy, investment brokers, actors, authors, musicians and artists. Three different bars supplied various cocktails, wines, spirits and beers. A sharp looking type was there to provide for other less legal chemical perquisites.

All in all, everyone from age nine weeks to ninety was having an absolutely splendid time. Edmund was delighted that he had, simply by digging into his vastly deep pockets, enabled everyone to have such a wonderful experience. He looked around propriatorially and noticed a cadaverous stranger in an infinitely black cloak and black hood who was standing stock still at the pool side. Edmund didn’t know who this stranger was, but with his usual bonhomie he made his way over to welcome him. The stranger stood silently, alone, caliginous, insubstantial and fugacious.

As Edmund approached, the stranger turned towards him. An ice cold wind blew across the garden and the sky darkened with blue-black cloud. The biting cold chilled the hooting revellers in the pool to sudden and unexpected silence. Edmund stopped in his tracks opened his mouth to speak, but as he did so the stranger pointed a long skeletal finger at him. Edmund saw the stranger’s ice blue eyes glimmer for a moment in the darkness of his ragged cavernous black hood and then melodramatically clutched at his chest and fell silently to the wet grass. He was deathly pale. Cold. Deathly. Dead. The gaunt stranger, so ominously present just a moment ago was now nowhere to be seen. The sky cleared and the sun returned to shine.

The hooting revellers in the pool resumed hooting, the bar staff continued serving drinks, sausages sizzled, bouncy castles swayed to the boisterous jumping of excited children and the bluegrass music picked up from the exact semiquaver they had paused at when the sky darkened. The professors talked to the actors, the authors talked to themselves. Jugglers juggled while the magicians freed numerous white creatures from improbable hats.

Gypsy Lil, the fortune teller knelt by Edmund. She deftly picked his pockets and then on his mobile phone she called an ambulance.

“I did try and tell you,” She said. She took a star spangled blue cloak from a passing magician and laid it over Edmund.

Grass tickled her feet, the damp pasture of morning cool, a welcoming chill against her skin.
Sun peaked up over the horizon, up over the trees, throwing long beams of golden light through the canopies, through the low twisting mist and out over the meadow. She breathed in the fresh, delicate air. The smooth warmth of the new day sent tingles down her arms, and she ran a hand over them, over the sparse brown freckles that dotted her pale skin.

As she wandered further into the meadow, her dark-green dress billowed out behind her, hugging tightly to her generous stomach, caressing the ample curves of her hips. She inhaled and closed her eyes. Birds chirped. The wind whistled sweetly, running its light fingers through the trees emerald leaves. Heat grew in her chest like a new flame, steady and with purpose before it became desperate, almost painful, ready to erupt.
Then she opened her eyes and spread out her arms, her fingers, letting the pressure out and enabling the plants to grow.

The sparse space was sparse no more.

Grass began to bulge, rolling up into great heights before it split and wildflowers swelled, pushing out to touch the sun in a rainbow of colours. Daisies bloomed. Lilies flourished. And roses grew tall, twisting together into enchanted arches—doorways to worlds unknown.

She touched a finger to her lips and smiled; what a wonder she could create.

“Hey Johnnie, come here. Can I help you with your homework?” asked the balding teacher.

“I don’t understand this assignment at all.” said Johnnie.

“What don’t you understand?”

“We’re learning genetics in biology and there’s two words—genotype and phenotype. The definition of each word confuses me.” said Johnnie.

“Let’s look up the definitions on the internet. Type in each word with the word define behind it.” explained the teacher.

Johnnie typed in genotype and it said the genetic constitution of an individual. Then he typed in phenotype and it said the set of observable characteristics of an individual resulting from the interaction of its genotype with the environment.

“Did you learn how to do punnet squares in biology yet?” asked the teacher.

“Those are easy.” said Johnnie.

“The letters that you put around the punnet square and in the punnet square are the genotypes. The phenotype or physical characteristics is what those letter represent or what the organism looks like- purple, pink, red, tall, short, etc.”

“I understand now.” said Johnnie. “Thank you Mr. Doon.”

“Your welcome. I’m glad to be of help. You can come to me anytime you don’t understand something.” said Mr. Doon.