The first prompt story ran so long that I didn’t think I was going to get anything done for the second one, but surprise, surprise, it just kind of popped into my head all at once.
Prompt One
While shopping downtown one day, you find an antiques store that has a rare, old doll. You buy it for your daughter. A few days later she tells you her new toy can talk. You don’t believe her, until one afternoon you find yourself alone in the house and it starts . . .
There was nothing Lucy enjoyed more than browsing through an antique or junk store. You never knew what treasure you might uncover. On this rainy Saturday morning, the treasure was an old doll, just like the one her grandmother had had.
Its green velvet dress and matching hat were a little moth eaten, the shoes were worn, as though the doll had walked many miles in them, and there were smudges on the porcelain face. But the blue glass eyes still shone brightly.
“I’ll take her,” she said to the woman behind the counter.
The woman took the doll from her, looking a little puzzled. “Isn’t that strange, I can’t recall seeing this doll before.”
“I found her on the shelf, right over there,” Lucy said, turning to point at the space between an antique hand iron and a cookbook that listed to one side without the support of the doll.
“There’s so much in here that sometimes it’s hard to keep track,” the woman said apologetically. She rang up the purchase and handed Lucy the bag. “Enjoy your doll.”
“Thank you,” Lucy said with a smile.
The woman smiled back, although her smile turned uneasy as Lucy left the shop. “I know I’ve never seen that doll before.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Lucy was a little disappointed at the lukewarm reception from her daughter when she presented her with the doll.
“It’s kind of old and beat up looking,” Janey said.
“Nonsense. It’s well-loved. And she’ll be perfect for that little wicker chair in the corner of your room.”
Janey just sighed a long-suffering sigh that spoke of knowing not to cross her mother when it came to decorating, and dutifully took the doll, placing it on the chair.
Three days later, Lucy came across the doll, sitting on a shelf in the bookcase in her office, right above the box of donations she kept meaning to take to the church. “Janey, what’s your doll doing here?”
“I don’t like the doll,” Janey told her.
“Don’t like it?” her mother repeated. “What’s not to like? She’s beautiful and her dress matches the ivy on your wallpaper.”
“There’s something broken inside her. She makes noises like she’s trying to talk and I can’t sleep.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Lucy frowned at her daughter. It wasn’t like Janey to be fanciful. “They didn’t make dolls that talked back when she was made; it’s just your imagination.”
“I don’t like her – she’s creepy!” Brown eyes, so much like Lucy’s own, filled with tears.
“Fine.” Lucy threw up her hands in defeat. “You don’t have to keep her in your room. But you’re being ridiculous about her trying to talk.”
That evening, as Lucy was catching up on some work in her office, she thought she heard whispering. She cocked her head to one side but couldn’t identify the source. The sound was muffled, like a radio left on in another room.
Over the next several days the sounds persisted, but only when she was in her office. They became stronger, more defined, but she still couldn’t make out the words. It was like whatever was being said was in a different language.
Janey refused to set foot in the office, and she and her mother argued every time Lucy came out, which was getting less and less often.
But as suddenly as her mother’s odd behaviour started, it stopped. Janey came down one morning, figuring on cold cereal for breakfast and peanut butter and jam for lunch – again – only to find Lucy in the kitchen at the stove.
“Hey, sleepyhead. Just time. The sausages are on the table and the French toast is just about done.”
“Mom?” Janey asked in disbelief.
“Who else would it be, silly? Now eat up or you’ll miss your bus. Your lunch bag is on the counter.”
Janey didn’t question her mother’s change in behaviour, she was just happy things were back to normal. She gave her mother a kiss on the cheek as she raced out the door to catch her bus. Lucy waved from the door, her blue eyes glistening like glass in the sunlight.
Closing the door, she went into her office and picked up the box of donations to take to the church, the doll in the green dress sting on top, its brown eyes staring vacantly in its porcelain face.
Prompt Two
You’re playing a video game called Wizards & Warriors when, suddenly, lightning strikes the house, searing you and causing you to black out. When you wake up, you’re trapped inside the game. The only items you have is a sword, a backpack and a note attached to your shirt that reads, “Beat me and I’ll send you home.”
Damn! No more drinking and binge gaming. My head felt like my brains were leaking out my ears. I didn’t think I’d had that much to drink, but obviously I was wrong. Now what I needed to do was open my eyes. I knew for sure I wasn’t in my own bed, and the chances were good I wasn’t even in my house. It felt like I was outside.
“C’mon Ryan, open your eyes,” I told myself. “Stop being a wuss.”
I took another minute to psyche myself up, then cracked open one eye. Damn, that sun was bright!
With a groan I pushed myself up into a sitting position, my head throbbing. This wasn’t good, this wasn’t good at all. I was in some kind of wooded area, it kind of looked like the woods from the latest RPG I was into. What the hell had happened to me last night?
The last thing I remembered was playing Wizards and Warriors. My buddy Paul had got his hands on the as yet unreleased newest version of the game and I’d just cracked the code to start playing. There was this flash of light, then . . . here I was. Wherever here was.
I got to my feet and just about tripped over a backpack.
“What the hell?”
It was a sturdy pack, bulging at the seams and totally unfamiliar to me. And there was a sheathed sword attached to it. I brushed my hands over myself to clean up and found a note pinned to my shirt.
“Beat me and I’ll send you home.”
Beat me? Beat who?
I grinned suddenly. Who cared? This was too cool.
“Game on, dude,” I said, picking up the pack.
No comments:
Post a Comment