I was bored and crabby, she had some free time on her busy hands. The following is an improvised writing session between myself and my best friend, Amber. The italicized words are the random suggestions for each piece. We had to write six paragraphs and we couldn't edit or pause for longer than a minute. Everything was written off the top of our heads, hence some of the woefully un-researched places and terms.
In the spirit of the thing, I am leaving it un-edited, so if you feel the need to throw down some constructive criticism please refrain from obvious grammatical taboo. We are aware, and to be frank, that was the fun part.
Blind
Stumbling.
She can’t see anything beyond the steam and the lid of the mug. Everything is green and good smelling. There’s a car slowing down outside the window but she’d have trouble seeing it outside the coffee shop window. Nothing fits right, not the black blurr coming to a stop, not the too cup in her right hand, not the ill way her boots fit.
She thought they would be perfect for the weather and that equiped with something sensible the newness of the place would fade. That Seattle would be home, would be perfect in all the ways California couldn’t be. The rain washed everything false and frivalous away, that’s what she believed, it’s what she hoped for.
But no one takes anything seriously and the deep cut of existential depravity lived on like it did in Berlin, or Paris or that squalid little apartment on Sunset she grew up in. It didn’t make things right or real to change places with some hipster rain goddess. It just cost money.
And she had money, that one magical salve she came to believe would open up all the doors. That waking up to a pile of fresh smelling, clean clothes and goat cheese and whole wheat bagels would answer all the questions or make every portion of her that wanted and needed and starved somehow more complete.
The coffee needed some cream, it was too bitter, too strong here without chocolate or caramel and even though she could buy it, she couldn’t taste it.
The bell rang and a too thin man walked in with round drops of rain in his hair and on his scarf. He shook off the cold land the wet like a dog and she just wanted the place to explode. For an IUD to come ripping into the pretentious little hell and have people scrambling, for cover and thei own shorn limbs. With blood and fire, maybe she could live through the inanity, but it wasn’t like any of these little shits gave a damn about survival.
Fine
“Hey, mind if I join you?”
She lifted her head, blinked against the steam, and it made her eyes sting. She darted a glance at the crowded coffee shop. This was Seattle, and here they made coffee and grunge rock a religion, and she was feeling irritable as hell, but there really was no other place to sit.
“No,” she said, and she was sure it sounded like Hell yes get away from me, but she added, “I don’t mind.”
The man could have been handsome, if she liked them blond and storybook prince charming, but he had scars on his face, either from an adolescence marred by terrible acne or something darker, and for all that he had a solid chest and broad shoulders, his hands were almost effeminate as he unwound his scarf and shrugged off his coat.
“Thanks,” he said, and sat down opposite her. He cradled his girl-pretty hands around a steaming mug of coffee, and a silver ring gleamed on his right thumb. “How do you fancy this weather, then?”
“It’s fine,” she said.
He grinned. “Fine like ‘pretty and delicate’ or fine like ‘freaked-out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional’ or fine like ‘stop talking to me, creepy stranger?’”
Fuse
“I can’t make a damn decision!” Like the force of his voice had done it, the papers moved, rustled like leaves. The general management team froze, then huddled mentally. He was twenty six, smart as hell and about as hot. The anger he could muster would certainly scare Satan.
Nothing left the room, that was the rule. His voice rose and he ripped off the National Design Certificate, award from the back wall. It went hurtling across the room and crashed far enough not to hit anyone, thank god. Sheryl, a senior executive from the accounting department winced. It looked like sugar glass, fake.
No one had really seen violence, really felt the fear of a fist or verbal beating. They were all upper middle glass bastards who’s parents didn’t believe in spanking or even calling them out on their bllshit.
Aidan was twenty six, had grown up poor, and wasn’t about to take their bullshit. His fist came down on a stack of photos, all mock-ups for the magazine. “This is shit, this is offensive, is this all you could do!? What the hell was your harvard and yale buslhit education for if you’ve never seen a god-damn black woman in a shopping mall. She’s wearing giant HOOP EARINGS for christ’s sake.”
Then he cooled, it was instantaneous and they knew why he was so popular in the firm, in a moment he was the black crust over lava flows. Still warm, still steaming, but you could pretend it was safe to walk across.
“People think thats what urban America looks like, you can’t sit there and tell us it’s innavective.” A woman, blonde hair and blue contacts and pale blue power suit, all full of herself. She thought that she was a minority because she’d gotten a position of power in marketing. “Your not the god of minaorities, Aidan. Fuck you. Fuck your temper tantrums, fuck this ad campaign. Our demographic doesn’t have this kind of money, anyway!”
His eyes could tear her open if they had knives tapped to his eye-lids. “You know, I think we need a field trip. Pack your shit, we’re heading into the Bronx.”
Broadcasting
“This is a seriously stupid assignment and I can’t believe you talked me into helping you,” Kyle said. He heaved the tripod and camera bag up onto his shoulder and started toward the beat-up van. “I realize we’re both broadcasting majors and I have loads of equipment, but an exposé on the cereal factories in the city? Really? This isn’t Upton Sinclair or whatever.”
Samantha reached up and fluffed her hair. “It’s going to be a incisive look at middle-class America’s exploitation of migrant workers, and also on the horrible conditions in the facilities that are making our breakfast food.”
Kyle took a deep breath and forced himself to nod and paste on an understanding smile. “Incisive is good.” He looked Samantha up and down and felt like a jerk; he wasn’t one to stereotype, but sometimes the shoe fit, and in Samantha’s face, the shoe had been molded for her foot. She was redheaded and vivacious, fiery and pretty - and she came from a charming, wealthy family whose only sense of a struggle was the effort it took to write a check and sent it off to some charity. Samantha was better off doing a fun piece about local cheerleaders, and everyone but her seemed to know it.
“C’mon - I want to catch some of the workers before they go on shift. I’ve prepared questions - I know we’ll get some really controversial material.” Samantha hopped into the passenger seat, then paused and fussed over dusting lint off her suit.
Kyle loaded his gear into the back and then headed for the driver’s seat. He actually knew some fellows who worked down at the Kellogg factory, and they weren’t overworked migrants by any stretch of the imagination. Somehow, he knew that telling Samantha that most of the men there were ex-military paranoids wouldn’t deter her from her story at all. He just hoped she had the sense to get scared and run when the paranoia manifested itself in flying fists and flashing knives.
Application
Well, it was better than nothing. Ami put all her hope and the necessity of food into her job application. She thought that it looked pretty good, her resume practically shone with “I’m the best thing that ever happened to this company.” But the night was cold and the snow fell like little white doubts. They shone like marbles on her whool coat.
The L train was late and she just missed the S. The tin canopy protected her from more incisten, self deafeating, snow but it was cold as a meat ocker with the concrete walls and iron benches. To hell with it, her feet hurt like hell from the “professionably reasonable” pumps she’d been wearing all day and she made a beeline for the nearest cold slab of metal. Before she could sit down she noticed a small object. Or, rather, a smallish object. It looked like a rough black wooden box but she couldn’t be sure until she fished out her glasses from her coat pocket and adjusted them on her nose.
Ah, it was an old fashioned box camera. Just sitting there, in the cold, without an owner. How funny, maybe it was a good omen. The studio of God makes an offering, a more hope glimers in from the universal lense. Yes. She’d get the job, she’d be snapping photos at weddings in bad taste in no time.
It was cold, and sat heavier than she could have imagined in her hand. It must be valuable, and it probably belonged to someone who really, really took photography seriously. The love of the craft is the only thing that would make her carry around such an antique. Sitting like she was posing for a photograph herself, she let it be in her lap. It almost felt alive, heavy with more than film and flash, ‘this must be what human memory feels like.’
The winter night burned into a summer night, the starts turned into lanterns dancing in the gleam of crystal stemware. Somewhere a band played, not electric guitars and drums, but a flute, a trombone, a high wafting voice like old perfume.
“May I have this dance?” He was wearing a waist coat, a black tuxedo jacket, and hair full of pomade. When she reached up she saw her hand was pale, bone white, with a little filigree bracelette. And a flash blinded her, from a camera set up a few feet from her and her dance partner.
Raising
“I cannot begin to express my disapproval,” Reginald began. Gavin and Emmerson exchanged twin looks of dismay, then turned back to their headmaster when he cleared his throat and pinned them both with frosty looks. “Ludgrove is a fine establishment with a reputation to maintain. The young men who attend this school are the future of this nation, the men who will lead Britain to greatness. By all accounts, both of you acquitted yourselves well on your exams and are brilliant students, but nevertheless you are both here on scholarship and are not accustomed to the social standards this establishment requires. The first time you were caught leaping across the rooftops was understandable, but sneaking wine from the kitchens and intoxicating the lads in the lower years is utterly unacceptable and is more than enough grounds to have you sent down.”
Mr. Piper chose that moment to speak up. “Sir, they was raisin’ hell in the wine cellars with some of the little masters -”
“I am well aware of the trouble they caused,” Reginald said. He pinched the bridge of his nose, exasperated. “Both of you are very talented, intelligent young men. I cannot understand why you persist with this behavior.”
Gavin and Emmerson looked at each other again. How could they explain that all the shenanigans they found themselves embroiled in were at the behest of Reginald’s own son? At ten years old, Charles Penhaligon III was a force to be reckoned, always the leading voice in playground games and in the classroom, and if he wanted to talk around two older scholarship students into finding some wine for a drinking game or two, who were they to say no?
“Stop looking at each other and look at me,” Reginald snapped.
“Sir,” Emmerson began, then broke off when Gavin elbowed him sharply in the solar plexus and winded him. Gavin was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a snitch, and Charlie was their friend. He didn’t deserve to get into trouble with his dad.
Termination
‘Find your own way out or perish.’
The mabient light, which he couldn’t find a source, illuminated the text. It was stamped into the steel walls, focusing his attention. The four walls were cold but the floor permeated a slow steady heat. It was pleasant, and the rubbery, soft insulation which covered the bottom of the cell was soft enough to sleep comfortably on.
One of the steel walls had a 60X60 tv screen which could be operated by the tiny remote, the only free existing object in the room save for himself. The television had every cable chanel he could think of, current events on everyother chanel and movies. Any movie. He could use the little search chanel and find any movie ever made and watch it. If he was in a certain mood he’d just ask the random mood generator to find him something to stimulate him with.
The tv made him feel less lonely, and more lonely. He found himself staring at the stamped text every hour, almost on the hour. He counted his days in the cell by the how many seasons went by on his favorite show. Two seasons, four seasons, was it five already? It took roughly half a year for a full season, right?
The news was a horror show, the population seemingly split into little hives of safe, sane and whole, or scattered into the bad lands. America was toxic, China was a labyrinth of factories, Brittain had been battered by storms and rain, and India was starving to death. There was plague and death, and the walking dead and demons. Politicians still lied, but some of them also signed your soul into the abyss.
One day a panel on the wall opposite the television popped out and he found a computer screen, a keyboard, and a mouse. He could chat, he could find fantasy lovers and discover the most depraved things in his soul- but no one would tell him where they were, or who they really were.
One woman, he assumed it was a woman she had said so, talked to him nightly for two seasons. He felt a true trust but when he asked her what she did for a living, something that wasn’t abstract, or where she went to school she signed off. Left him with “I wish I could tell you, but I just don’t know if you’re one of them.”
Promotion
“Are you mad?” Jenny asked. She caught Thomas by the arm and dragged him down one of the side corridors off the great hall. “How could you accept that?”
Thomas shook her off, confused and indignant. “I’ve been serving that bloody ungrateful berk for a year with barely any pay and more than any man’s share of abuse. I think I’ve earned this promotion. I talked to some of the other lads, and I’ve been assured that Sir Geoffrey is a generous and accommodating employer who won’t fling his footwear and armor at me when he’s displeased. I thought you’d be happy for me.” Then his eyes narrowed. “Unless you’re jealous? I don’t see why you should be. Lady Elaine has been nothing but a nice mistress to you.”
Jenny shook her head. “I’m not jealous - it wouldn’t be right for me to be personal manservant to a Lord anyway. But you can’t just leave Prince Henry like this. And going from servant to a prince to servant to a lord is hardly a promotion.”
“Yes, well, for Henry I emptied his chamber pot and mucked out his stables - when I wasn’t dodging his armor. Serving Sir Geoffrey as his personal assistant is certainly a promotion in my book. I’m sure some scullery boy is probably falling over his feet for my old job.” Thomas straightened his new tunic, freshly-stained livery that marked him as a servant of the House of Beauchamp.
“You can’t mean that. Prince Henry likes you. You’re his friend -”
“If I were his friend he wouldn’t have let me go so easily, would he?”
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