Write and Win! Monday Writing Prompt
Write and Win! continues this week.
All you have to do is write a response to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday's writing prompt and you are automatically entered for a chance to win a copy of It Happens in Threes and a You don't say no to girls T-shirt.
Last week, Ceri won!
Monday Writing Prompt: She opened her email. . .
Have fun and post what you come up with. You have until Saturday to do all three prompts this week.
10 comments:
Yeah!!! Thanks Denise! I hope you'll allow me to play this week, just for the chance to post prompts because I love them so!
Of course you can!
Just found you through Twitter. I love what you offer. I was hesitant to do this, but what the hell. You never know until you try. So here goes:
She opened her email but decided to only read the one marked urgent. Pushing aside the mouse, she reaches for her coffee and wonders how much longer she has before they arrive.
What would it change if they knew the truth? They wouldn’t believe me anyway, so why should I bother?
The morning had been going well. Nothing unusual, not even the green tint to the clouds had her worried. Tornado season was well under way and Longbow always saw its fair share of action. The town has a warning system, which seems pointless to Joanna since the storm chasers always hit town long before the weather, giving them ample time to prepare.
They’re a welcome sight. After losing the refinery, the town began to shrivel up and crack like a field suffering from a severe drought. Some days, the caravans heading out of town reminded her of the images of fleeing refugees she once saw on CNN. Now, Longbow was getting by, able to rely on the business the storms brought in.
Swallowing the last sip, she looks out the open window towards a massive shape swirling in the distance, slowing moving across the horizon. As the sirens begin to wail, she re-reads the message.
Joanna makes a couple of quick calculations and figures she has just enough time to make it out to the gravesite and ensure it looks no different than the landscape surrounding it. They made her promise never to tell. No sense in it anyway they told her. Just make sure you visit us every so often, and remember us the way we were, not what we’d become.
She’d kept her vow. She’d taken care of everything. It’d been easy to explain that they’d left town while they still had the means to start over. Someone’s been talking and she has a good idea who. She curses herself for being stupid enough to trust him.
Deleting the message, she turns off the laptop and sets out to protect the world from a knowledge it isn’t ready for and couldn’t handle anyway. As soon as the investigators leave, she packs up the Jeep and heads toward Dallas. One more time she thinks. After him, I’m through.
JC -
I so want to know what Joanna is protecting the world from.
Looking forward to seeing what you write for Wednesday's prompt.
Denise
Excellent job, JC! I want to read more!
Here we go...
~~~~~~~~~~~~
She opened her email. Nothing will be there. It’s too soon. But amidst the dozen or so junk mail, was a message simply entitled “To Riona”. She clicked on it quickly, her heart thundering.
“Dear Leonora, or Wren, or Riona. I’m not sure which to call you. I’m floored at how quickly I got a reply from my post. I really thought I’d have to wait months or longer and still not get a reply. Thank you for all the information you provided. Much of it validates the information I was able to collect so far. Information that only a very few have access to. I’m not surprised you don’t remember me, I was fifteen when we became separated. I hope someday I can tell you more about it, though it’s a sad story.
“At this point I don’t know what kind of information I can provide to help you determine if we’re indeed related. The only thing I can do is attach some photos of Riona (you?) and Seamus when ‘they’ were about three. I’m going to give you my cell phone number, I have a very strong feeling about this. I’m living in southern New Hampshire, not far from where I believe Seamus is living. You can call me anytime, because I think we’re going to need to meet very soon.”
Wren scrolled and looked at the three photos attached to the mail. They were black and white and grainy, but the little girl in them was identical to the photos of herself when she was three or four. It was a struggle to keep her emotions in check, as her eyes savored the face of the little boy in the photo next to her, so like herself and so like the images of the little boy who played in her mind for so long.
Keep it cool. Last thing she wanted was to draw attention to herself. She swept the back of her hand over her eyes, taking the tears away in haste. Inhaling deeply, she let the cool air fill her lungs before releasing it slowly.
She aimed the cursor at the reply button and clicked.
“Dear Aidan, I can’t explain what those photos made me feel, joy mostly, disbelief, shock. Seamus is exactly how I pictured him. Makes me wonder what he looks like now. I wish I could see a picture of you as well so I can remember. It makes me feel bad that I can’t. I would like nothing better than to meet you. You say you know where Seamus is, does that mean you’ve contacted him too? I will try everything in my power to meet you, but things tend to be difficult here. That’s a whole long story for another time. I don’t want to cast a shadow over a moment in my life that is just overflowing with happiness.
“I can’t leave you a phone number, but I’ll call you soon, I promise. Until then, take care. Wren”
She almost typed “Riona” but she had been Wren for so long that the other name still was foreign. Someday she would use it. She knew it.
Okay, here's my shot.
She opened her email. . .
She opened her email and saw a message from LoveOnline, the online dating service she signed up for on a whim. Wonder what they want? Jane double-clicked the message and found a greeting card inside.
“Cool.” She sat back, smiling, and hit the ‘play me’ link.
On the screen, two cartoon puppies sitting on a teeter-totter went up and down until the one puppy slid to the other side and they kissed. Then a big red heart covered the faces and written on the screen came the words “Your kisses are sinful delight. . .wanting more! Until next time, Bob.”
Ugh! She went out with Bob exactly three times, three times too many. The first date they met at the restaurant, that way she could leave when she wanted. At the end of the evening, he gave her a peck on the cheek and she thought that sweet. In spite of the actual dinner conversation boring her to tears, she decided to give Bob a second opportunity, shrugging it off to first date jitters.
The second date consisted of a light dinner and a movie. She had enjoyed that outing until they sat in the darkened movie theater and Bob wanted to hold hands. The man had all his sweat glands in his palms. By the time the movie ended, she needed a chamois cloth to soak to dry up. At the end of the evening, he kissed her on the lips, a hard, fast, closed-mouth chicken lip kiss. Again, she chalked it up to nerves and onions the waiter forgot to leave off his hamburger.
Unbelievably, the third date had been the worst of all dates in the history of loser dates. Bob took her dancing. However, Bob could not dance, and she had the swollen and bruised toes to prove it. Add to the purple toes, his slimy hands holding hers, and what could have been a very romantic evening turned out to be the kind where she wished for an escape hatch in the ladies’ room. The entire time he held her in his arms, her face buried in his stanky armpit, she kept picturing herself hiking her dress up, stepping up on a toilet, and crawling up and out of a window to freedom and fresh, dry air. But, that night, after much persistence from Bob, she let him pick her up from her place.
As the date drew to a close her stomach churned with dread for the upcoming goodnight kiss. Standing on her front porch, Jane steeled her nerves for what she just knew would be the worst kiss of her life. She had not been disappointed. His tongue went everywhere, reminding her of a tube going down an ice-covered slope. It slid everywhere, leaving her mouth and half her face wet and feeling as if an airplane toilet had sucked her lips off.
She shuddered at the memory.
“Thanks, but no thanks Bob.”
She really did not enjoy going out on a date where she felt like she needed to wear a full-body raincoat.
Ceri,
Hm. Want to know why she has different names. Loved the email conversation between the two characters. Very real.
Denise
Denise, you totally grossed me out with the description of that last kiss. Very well done. *shudder*
HA! That was the idea.
Denise
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