NaNo prep / fic from prompt
It's a dark little snippet but for me is a useful background piece for my (less than a day old) story plans for NaNo this year.
The prompt was:
It was a dark and stormy night.
It was a dark and stormy night... that is how the cliche goes, accepted formula for stories of death and disaster with mysterious strangers knocking at your door. In my case the mysterious strangers were two police officers.
So, dark and stormy night, well as dark as it ever gets in the city with all the lights reflected off the eternal smog and clouds. Definitely stormy though, with winds shaking the tower and whistling across our apartment's small windows. My parents and I lived halfway up one of the many tall apartment towers erected in the city as cheap housing and our small, shabby apartment was all we could afford from their low wages after all my damn medical bills. Something I often felt guilty about.
Anyway, you didn't ask me for the story of all my life's woes. Consider it enough to know that I'm used to being unwell.
This night I was home alone having nagged and pushed my parents until they agreed to go out for the evening, it was my mother's birthday and I wanted them to have a night out, to spend a little money on themselves for a change. I was, afterall, an adult and hadn't needed their supervision for many years.
With the wind roaring outside and rattling the windows in their frames I had curled up in my favourite chair, right under the light, re-reading my favourite book. Yes, an honest to god, paper pages book. It was faded and fragile and probably hundreds of years old, with pages falling out and the cover disintegrated. An old book of older stories that cost me more than I was going to tell my parents but it was my money, earnt from playing music on the streets from before I talked my parents into letting me give them money to help make ends meet. Not that money coaxed from passing crowds was a regular income, but even irregular money helped.
When I read that book I don't just read it. I savour each of the stories, drawing pictures in my mind of things only seen on the tri-d, things like trees and rivers and elephants. Each story I re-tell in my mind, adding details and little stories until they take on a whole life of their own.
I didn't hear the door until the pounding on it was louder than the thunder outside, making me jump with fright. With my heard pounding like a jack-rabbit I laid my book carefully on the table. A glance at the clock told me my parents were running late. Making the obvious assumption that they'd lost their key somehow I rushed to open it.
Not my parents.
Two police officers, one with his fist upraised from pounding on the door, his face flushed and frustrated. The second standing a step behind him, his eyes distracted as he talked into his radio.
My words froze in my throat and I stood there blinking while my thoughts seemed to move at the speed of liquid taffy. It wasn't that I was afraid of the police, my parents had brought me up law-abiding, but I couldn't think of any good reason why they could be here.
"Are you Jeremiah Parsons?" the first officer asked, his voice gruff.
I nodded. I tried to clear my throat to reply but it turned into a coughing fit, one of those deep ones that I hate, the ones that feel like your lungs are going to tear. The two officers took a step backwards.
"Are you alright?" I could hear the worry in his voice and knew it to be more fear of catching something than worry for me.
I waved my hand and desperately fought for breath to talk and reassure them. "Not contagious," I gasped, knowing it wouldn't sound very convincing. "Always been like this. Been checked but doctor's can't do anything."
"Ah." But they didn't step forward again.
"Are you..."
"Yes," I interrupted quickly with another nod. "My ID is inside if you need to see it."
They glanced at each other. "No, that won't be necessary," the first one again, he seemed to be the spokesman. "And your parent's names?"
"Jill and Michael. Parsons, of course."
He nodded, some dark emotion lowering his brow. "I regret to inform you..."
He kept talking but I'm afraid I didn't listen to him beyond that point. There was a greyness that covered my eyes, a roaring, crushing loss engulfing me. It was enough to stay upright, leaning against the doorframe, listening was more than I could do.
I learned the details eventually. Some rich punk kid had been joy riding, going too fast. He'd hit the building just as my parent's came out of the cheap diner, crushed them when he hit the ground. They'd been killed on the spot, he survived to get a slap on the wrist and his daddy paying his fines. I guess that's what it means to be rich.
I had to move out, of course, no way I could afford the rents off my street money.
I find I don't sleep well on dark, stormy nights.
If anyone else is willing to give me a prompt that would be good :) (random words, sentance, idea etc)
The prompt was:
It was a dark and stormy night.
It was a dark and stormy night... that is how the cliche goes, accepted formula for stories of death and disaster with mysterious strangers knocking at your door. In my case the mysterious strangers were two police officers.
So, dark and stormy night, well as dark as it ever gets in the city with all the lights reflected off the eternal smog and clouds. Definitely stormy though, with winds shaking the tower and whistling across our apartment's small windows. My parents and I lived halfway up one of the many tall apartment towers erected in the city as cheap housing and our small, shabby apartment was all we could afford from their low wages after all my damn medical bills. Something I often felt guilty about.
Anyway, you didn't ask me for the story of all my life's woes. Consider it enough to know that I'm used to being unwell.
This night I was home alone having nagged and pushed my parents until they agreed to go out for the evening, it was my mother's birthday and I wanted them to have a night out, to spend a little money on themselves for a change. I was, afterall, an adult and hadn't needed their supervision for many years.
With the wind roaring outside and rattling the windows in their frames I had curled up in my favourite chair, right under the light, re-reading my favourite book. Yes, an honest to god, paper pages book. It was faded and fragile and probably hundreds of years old, with pages falling out and the cover disintegrated. An old book of older stories that cost me more than I was going to tell my parents but it was my money, earnt from playing music on the streets from before I talked my parents into letting me give them money to help make ends meet. Not that money coaxed from passing crowds was a regular income, but even irregular money helped.
When I read that book I don't just read it. I savour each of the stories, drawing pictures in my mind of things only seen on the tri-d, things like trees and rivers and elephants. Each story I re-tell in my mind, adding details and little stories until they take on a whole life of their own.
I didn't hear the door until the pounding on it was louder than the thunder outside, making me jump with fright. With my heard pounding like a jack-rabbit I laid my book carefully on the table. A glance at the clock told me my parents were running late. Making the obvious assumption that they'd lost their key somehow I rushed to open it.
Not my parents.
Two police officers, one with his fist upraised from pounding on the door, his face flushed and frustrated. The second standing a step behind him, his eyes distracted as he talked into his radio.
My words froze in my throat and I stood there blinking while my thoughts seemed to move at the speed of liquid taffy. It wasn't that I was afraid of the police, my parents had brought me up law-abiding, but I couldn't think of any good reason why they could be here.
"Are you Jeremiah Parsons?" the first officer asked, his voice gruff.
I nodded. I tried to clear my throat to reply but it turned into a coughing fit, one of those deep ones that I hate, the ones that feel like your lungs are going to tear. The two officers took a step backwards.
"Are you alright?" I could hear the worry in his voice and knew it to be more fear of catching something than worry for me.
I waved my hand and desperately fought for breath to talk and reassure them. "Not contagious," I gasped, knowing it wouldn't sound very convincing. "Always been like this. Been checked but doctor's can't do anything."
"Ah." But they didn't step forward again.
"Are you..."
"Yes," I interrupted quickly with another nod. "My ID is inside if you need to see it."
They glanced at each other. "No, that won't be necessary," the first one again, he seemed to be the spokesman. "And your parent's names?"
"Jill and Michael. Parsons, of course."
He nodded, some dark emotion lowering his brow. "I regret to inform you..."
He kept talking but I'm afraid I didn't listen to him beyond that point. There was a greyness that covered my eyes, a roaring, crushing loss engulfing me. It was enough to stay upright, leaning against the doorframe, listening was more than I could do.
I learned the details eventually. Some rich punk kid had been joy riding, going too fast. He'd hit the building just as my parent's came out of the cheap diner, crushed them when he hit the ground. They'd been killed on the spot, he survived to get a slap on the wrist and his daddy paying his fines. I guess that's what it means to be rich.
I had to move out, of course, no way I could afford the rents off my street money.
I find I don't sleep well on dark, stormy nights.
If anyone else is willing to give me a prompt that would be good :) (random words, sentance, idea etc)