Products of my Imagination

The white room

Twelve feet by twelve feet, this room is unique in all the world because it serves no purpose and has no function. There are no inhabitants or passers-by. It is simply a room.

Did you ever have an art teacher or anyone else show you a blank piece of paper and tell you that it was a polar bear in a blizzard? The room is something like that, only more white.

There is no furniture, just white walls and layers of white curtains suspended from a white ceiling that fall to a white floor. There are no doors or windows so the room feels no need to be anything for you. It simply exists.

A long summer’s night…

I don’t know what it is about summer, but the nights seem to take much longer. Maybe it is the fact that the sun stays up so late, maybe it’s just that you don’t have to hide inside from the cold and wind. For good or for bad, that’s the way that it seems to me.

Maybe it’s just that I’m all alone again.

“I love you,” she would whisper as the sound of life rushed past us. I didn’t care then, but now I wish I could gt that time back. Actually, I wish life could fly by again, but that isn’t how it works.

What do I do now that I’m alone?

Paige sat in a booth, and wondered why her boss wanted to work late at a bar. The location didn’t matter much to her since the only difference between here and the office was the deep thrumming of the music she couldn’t hear anyway.

It made it easier to be the only person at the bar hard at work on a laptop on a Sunday night. She doesn’t look up much because she doesn’t want to deal with people if she’s going to be at work. That’s why she got into web design. It let her be private most of the time without making her seem antisocial.

Martin, her boss, came to the table. How is our site coming along? He signed.

It could be better. Her hands replied.

What’s the matter? He asked.

I’m trying to build the web page for your restaurant in a bar on a Sunday.

Don’t be like that, Martin expressed. We don’t have to always be about work.

What is that supposed to mean? Her hands insisted.

I was hoping we could spend some time together, just the two of us.

She looked at his face to see if she could figure out what he was thinking. Martin was certainly cute, but she wasn’t interested in dating a client. It was just too much of a conflict of interest. Besides, she didn’t want to look like she only had this job because of her looks.

I’m flattered, Martin, she replied, but we can’t do this.

We can’t sit down and have a drink? he signed as a frown grew on his face.

Not when I’m on the clock. she insisted. It just isn’t right. Let’s talk about your web page.

I’d rather talk about how beautiful you are.

She tried to fight the blush she knew was building on her cheeks, but it was no use. She saw the look of victory on Martin’s face. He knew he’d just scored a point.

If we aren’t here for work, then I want something stronger than this diet Pepsi, Paige said as she closed her computer. She signalled to the waitress and ordered a drink.

What did you order? Martin inquired.

You’re getting better at signing, Paige complimented, but you haven’t learned everything yet.

What did you order? He repeated.

I ordered a drink, and don’t even think about paying for it. he insisted. I’ve already talked to the waitress about it.

Look, this was a mistake, Martin signed as he got up to leave.

He was already turned around so it didn’t matter how loudly she signed. He was gone.

Hannah was always interested in the ocean. She spent all of her time was spent researching different sea life and imagining what it would be like to live under the water. She made us watch The Little Mermaid at least once a week. She even managed to find a way to tie the ocean into all of her school assignments. That was the start of problems for us.

She discovered something during her research on one of her papers.  I don’t what she found. She wouldn’t tell me no matter how much I pressured her.

“You wouldn’t understand, Jake,” she insisted. “Besides, you don’t care about the ocean.”

That wasn’t true. I was sure that I’d done more with saving the ocean projects because of my big sister, but that didn’t meant that I wasn’t concerned about the whales, dolphins, and plankton. I tried to argue with her about the matter, but I didn’t get anywhere with that either.

Whatever she found changed her. It started small, but eventually everyone started to notice it. It started with her drinking a lot more water, eventually working her way up to five quarts a day. She also spent a lot more time in and around water. She actually spent 3 hours a day in the swimming pool until one day she just stopped. When I asked her about it, she said that she couldn’t handle the chlorine anymore. However, she started spending hours in the bathtub instead.

It got really weird when she started in on the salt. She started using tons of salt on everything, even in her water. I’m pretty sure she was timing it with her into the bathroom when she was in the tub.

Hannah insisted that we go to the beach one day. She drove because I still didn’t have my license. We went down and swam in the water. Hannah looked like she was made to be in the ocean. I was worried when she went under water and I didn’t see her for over 10 minutes. She laughed it off, told me that I was imagining it. That she’d been around all the time.

A few days later, she disappeared. She vanished without a trace. I was pretty sure I knew where she went, back to the beach where we’d gone swimming. That is where the police found her car, in the parking lot by that very beach. One of the lifeguards said that she had walked out into the water and never came back.

Eventually, we found a note. Hannah addressed it to me.

Dear Jake,

I know you are confused about what happened to me, but I really couldn’t explain what has happened to me, and I couldn’t wait any longer. I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again, but know that I am making a difference out there, and I am doing well. I will finally get to make a difference for the ocean in a way that will really change the world. Look for me. If it ever happens, you will know the time and the place.

Love your big sister,

Hannah

I’m still trying to figure out the time and place Hannah was talking about. Maybe someday I will figure it out and see my sister again.

Can you guess what the prompt was?

“We can’t bring a child into this world!” Carrie shouted.

“Not the two of us together,” Molly soothed, “but we can still be parents.”

“You know what I mean, Molly,” Carrie sighed. “This world is no place to raise a child, especially a child with two mothers.”

“All the more reason to have a child,” Molly insisted. “If the world is ever going to be the place we want it to be, we need to stand up and demand our rights.”

“I’m tired of fighting,” Carrie groaned, “besides, I told you when we first met that I never wanted a family. You’ve met my parents. Do you really want your child to be raised by the product of their parenting skills?”

“Our child will have two parents that love her,” Molly assured, what more could any child ask for?”

“What if we have a boy?” Carrie inquired.

“What?” Molly asked.

“There’s a fifty percent chance that we will have a boy instead of a girl,” Carrie stated, “What are we going to do if we have a son and you are expecting a daughter?”

“I hadn’t really thought about that,” Molly mumbled.

Carrie let the conversation slip. It wasn’t a topic she wanted to discuss anyway. Being a mother had been a dream of hers for such a long time and then when she discovered that she was going to spend the rest of her life loving women instead of men.

When she realized that, she had given up on that dream, and it had been so hard, that she didn’t want to pick it up again. It had been too hard at the time, and what if something went wrong now? There were so many complications that could emerge, so many uncertainties.

Better to avoid the matter and let that dream stay dead.

“Why don’t I take you someplace really nice for dinner?” Carrie asked.

“I guess we can do that,” Molly agreed reluctantly. “Just promise me you’ll think about this.”

“I promise,” Carrie agreed. I never stop thinking about it.

Non present character prompt

Jane looked around her sister’s apartment. This was not the home of the girl she grew up with. Jill never would have left her apartment such a mess, but then Jill was a different woman these days.

It all started with Henry, the terrier. He belonged to an ex boyfriend and the poor dog got left behind when the bum stumbled off. Jill couldn’t stand the though of sending poor Henry off to the pound, so she kept him even though she didn’t really know much about dogs.

Henry really took charge and Jill stuggled to get him under control, but she wasn’t cut out to be a dog owner. That never stopped her from trying though.

Then there was Imogene, she was a snake that was owned by an old roommate that left one month without paying her rent. She did leave a note trying to explain the situation and asking Jill to take care of the snake until she could come back for the snake. She never did.

Imogene didn’t make too much of a mess, but she did require a special diet that led to some complications. Feeding Imogene her baby mice was the hardest part, especially when they broke out of their cage like they had done earlier today.

The worst was Rodrigo. Jill had brought that problem upon herself in an attempt to have her own pet. From the moment she brought that cat into her apartment it was all out war.

Henry and Rodrigo were always attacking each other. It was a tornado that threatened to destroy the apartment every day. Jane couldn’t believe how bad the mess was today. why had she agreed to apartment sit while Jill went to a conference anyway?

Horoscope prompt

Sydney sat by the phone waiting. She said that she would call, but the phone still hadn’t rung. She said that she would have an answer to his question and that his wait would be over. Perhaps she would say yes.

There was no way she was going to say yes. He was certain of that,  but it didn’t stop him from waiting by the phone. She promised him an answer to his question. The scariest question he’d ever asked a girl in his young life.

She was the Captain of the Cheerleading Team and he wasn’t even Captain of the Chess Team. Heck, he didn’t even make the Chess Team. She was never going to go out on a date with him.

The phone rang and Sydney almost didn’t answer it, his nerves were so intense, but he finally picked up the phone and said hello. It was just a saleswoman trying to get him to change long-distance carriers.

What had convinced him to even ask her out. It was all Henry’s fault. He had said, “Nothing great was ever accomplished without risk.” That had done something to Sydney. When he heard those words, he thought for a moment and then he acted without thought.

If he’d thought at all he wouldn’t have even gotten up from the table. He would have just sat there and hit his head on the table until the impulse had passed, but he’d gone for it instead. Now all he could do was think about that decision.

The phone rang again and Sydney couldn’t decide what to do next.