You Oxymoron

Use a dozen of these lovely phrases (like "she was gaily grieving" or "he had many pleasing pains") to describe a large oxymoron--a person, place, or event. The thing you're looking for in a good oxymoron is the surprise of the connections.
(from prompt #41 in The 3AM Epiphany)

Read my response:


"door number 1" by tanjatiziana



Before the interview I prayed like the devil for God knows what: luck, confidence, something that could instigate a permanent change of life for me. Everyone tried encouraging me, telling me to act natural, to just be myself. Whatever that means, because if I were to act natural I’m not sure it would be myself, and lately what felt natural is more ostrich than human. Inside I just wanted to hide from the outside world, filled as it is with voices telling me what I ought and ought not to want, but I’d been stuck inside so long that what I wanted most was fresh air. Handing a stranger a single sheet of paper declaring my value made me hyperventilate, which is a generous exchange when it comes to being able to breathe.

When they asked me why I’d had such an extended experience with temporary employment, as I figured they would, I had some prepared answer about personal business that could demonstrate maturity and responsibility. Something I could say that sounded more dignified than the truth, that it had been a pretty ugly year, spent hiding my head in the sands of time and debt piling up on me.

I know better than to admit some things, I know that leaving things unsaid saves others the trouble of pretending things are gonna be okay. We’d gone out to the cliffs the week before I left and looked out at the edge, silent and alone together on a clear summer day. The only words I remember were asking whats wrong with me, but I’m not sure who asked, it’s the same difference whichever of us did. The answer both of us knew without saying was, nothing you can fix. At a close distance the surf beat against the wall we were standing on, over and over, in big swells of water and in small laps, but from where we were we couldn’t see anything but the wide stretch of water resting fitfully around us, as far as we could see and farther. Just the deep Pacific, dark blue and torrid against a calm cloudless sky, and neither of us could appreciate the dueling expanses because we were just trying not to talk about much we couldn’t say. When we left the cliffs something had changed in an instant but we didn’t realize it for months.

It surprised me one day, about a year ago, to comprehend my ignorance, to understand that things always change. That day, a Tuesday, I woke up with dreams and went to bed without them. I felt numb. And the shock stuck to me and gathered and grew, like all things electric it made the natural appear unnatural and my thoughts were conducted accordingly. Mostly misdirected, searching for something to connect with, my thoughts circled round themselves straight to nowhere. Thinking so much about my meaningless life was the most destructive action, it nearly killed me trying to figure out how to live.

After I got the job, my boss mentioned in passing what I’d done that had stayed with her, that had gotten me hired. She said that, luckily, it was the confident manner in which I spoke, thanks to my habit of taking two deep breaths before speaking or even reacting. She said I was living proof that sometimes you just need to remember to breathe, but of course its just the opposite. Remembering to breathe being proof of living.

Doubling Up

Write two paragraph-long character sketches of two people you know well. Wait a day, then write another long paragraph sketch that takes elements from the two people you know to create a third, fictional character. The key here is to use the two pieces of writing, not the two people you've written about. Fit together two paragraphs of prose into one character sketch, making sense of the combination somehow.

(from prompt #40 in The 3AM Epiphany)

Read my response:


"Laugh" by sflovestory



She isn't the heroine of a novel written in first person. The novel she imagines for herself uses a lot of adverbs: she laughs flirtatiously, she gazes directly. She sits quietly and responds promptly; she is never too absorbed in a task, always just absorbed enough to keep from being bored.

With a polite and quiet base level, her political opinions are unexpected: she cares (passionately) about ideals, she is liberal, she is knowledgable. She reads the CNN website and follows certain stories: Nancy Grace stories about child abduction as well as political stories about bills up, scandals, injustices. She worries. She is afraid of men, of being alone, of change. She is not afraid of her own power. She wants to be a social care worker and her family amuses her, with their antics and Mexicanness, her nieces and nephews running around and nearly knocking over her abuelita. She dates but with a wary eye, she isn't seduced by a sweet talker. Sex doesn't alarm her, but she respects it, its place, and allows it. She always notices attractive men and points them out. She sleeps with stuffed animals. She likes shopping websites, shoes, and romantic comedies.

She has a certain neutralness, and could be called generic if you didnt look closer. She has a big smile and luxurious hair. She has broad shoulders and breasts that spill out, as if she is unaware of their existence. She smiles (widely) and giggles about dogs, about slips of the tongue, about innocent mistakes, about the behavior of animals and the characteristics of people working with animals. She is enthusiastic and expects this enthusiasm to be met by those around her. She gets confused by things outside her norm, and she doesn't like to be asked to adapt. She eats rich foods and warms her bread. She worries about her weight.

She knows she is a good friend. Her friends describe her as she sees herself: she laughs flirtatiously, she gazes directly. Anyone could write her story, but she doesn't know who would.

Beyond Words

Create a brief fragment of an epiphany, a moment beyond words, beyond explaining, in which a character sees the necessity of change.
(from prompt #36 in The 3AM Epiphany)

Read my response:


"feist: I feel it all" by visualpanic



I feel it all, I feel it all. I feel it all, I feel it all. I don’t know how to sing but I keep repeating the words, repeating the track. The bay looks overwhelming, driving over it, more expansive than I’ve ever noticed, has there always so much? The wings are wide, the wings are wide. I am going home but I want to keep driving. I want to know where I’m going but right now I don’t want to go where I’m going. I want to keep driving and make the decision to go home or go on, somewhere else, later. Wild card inside, wild card inside. I feel like breaking down but I don’t know what to break, or how. Maybe I am breaking down, maybe it isn’t something you know until the existence of pieces. I’ll be the one who’ll break my heart. I scream the words without trying to make them sound pretty. Just to scream, I’ll be the one to hold the gun. No matter how loud I yell it isn’t loud enough, I keep trying to find the right way to scream the words I’ll be the one to hold the gun. I’m shouting and crying without any idea how I sound anymore or how I look, just sobbing and trying to make noise that I can hear, that sounds right, until I do, and it shames me, my selfishness. I know more than I knew before, I know more than I knew before. I know how to say words, and I want God to hear, so I pray and I pray. I didn’t rest, I didn’t stop. Yelling at God, in my car driving over the bay. Did we fight or did we talk? I yell the words. I love you more.

Ways of Seeing

Imagine a person with an idiosyncratic way of seeing the world. Have this character witness a traumatic event that does not directly involve her. Narrate the event from a first-person POV in 600 words, making sure that the perspective is carefully built around the idiosyncrasies of this personality.
(from prompt #24 in The 3 AM Epiphany)

Read my response:


"Daily Traffic" by Burning Image

Like something in a movie, the only way to describe it. Day started out bad; clouds hanging heavy overhead, traffic stopped dead. The soundtrack to There Will Be Blood has been stuck in my car all week, setting the tone. Tense. Just another Joe driving to work, in my suit, blank face. What kind of films would Hitchcock make today? Something about our faceless society, anonymity thanks to cell phones, the internet, all the rest, I'd bet. There hasn’t been a good cell phone related thriller, has there? Like Birds did with birds, can’t see a flock flying south without looking for where I’d run for cover. So my phone rings, scares the shit out of me, thought it was on silent. I keep it that way, less disruptive. I don’t need a lot of dialogue in my life, I’m okay just watching things happen without a lot of discussion. Cell phones scare me even when they aren’t ringing, maybe its good no one has made “Final Destination VIII: Death Calls Again.” I’d see it and have one more thing to watch out for, one more symbol of terror. God, it keeps ringing. Look at the phone, asshole. My sister.
“Hello?’
“Joe?”
“Yeah. Hey. It’s early, its way before noon, what are you doing up?”
“Sorry…hold on.”
“Okay?’
“Okay sorry I’m back. Scout won’t stop barking this morning, you know how dogs can tell when it’s gonna storm. Joe. It sounds weird but okay, so I just had this dream. Is everything okay?”
“Uh, yes. I could ask you the same thing. What dream?”
“I just, I um. Had a dream that you killed yourself. So I got scared and wanted to make sure. Sorry. I mean, you know how sometimes you just wake up and you feel super weird like something bad is gonna happen?”
“Yeah, yeah. Jesus Christ. I am not suicidal. Everything is completely normal, I’m driving to work. Scare me enough, Jesus.”
“I know, I’m sorry. Okay. Well that was all. So you’re okay?”
“Yes, everything is fine. Go back to sleep.”
We hang up. When we were kids we used to make fun of how in movies no one says bye when they hang up; it stuck.
So that’s my morning, her call repeating in my head like bad omen, no matter how much I’m trying to concentrate on the present scene: just stop and go cars, like a goddamn traffic montage, same old every day of my life. Plus I’ve got this accelerating music in the background making me want to tear my hair out the way nothings happening in my car on the road.
Then it happens. Inching along, finally get to the exit. Red light. Changes to green, I make my right and some fuck cuts me off, perfect. Slamming on the breaks I almost rear end this Lexus piece of shit, I lurch forward and back and my heart rate soars. I take a deep breath and start to relax cause I didn’t hit him. Disaster avoided. I’m under the overpass and the car in front is just beyond. Then the body falls.
I see it hit the Lexus and bounce off, like a dummy. But a dummy with real blood and guts. Its all viscera, on the road, on this jackass’ car. Vivid, red so red its purple. I’ve never seen anything like it, I’m on the edge of my seat and everything is so real, like the whole world got digitally re-mastered. Playing my morning back in my head it, its like there were clues everywhere, but. Damn. It shocks me, it’s so fucking dramatic. Just like that, someone is dead. I don’t know if it made sense, I don’t know what lead him to this. Lexus is freaking out, I can see him through my window; it’s like it was scripted, getting cut off meaning I got spared.
What does one do, call 911? I’ll call 911. Tell them they need to see this…

The Closet

Write a story in which the character is snooping around an ex-boyfriend’s (or girlfriend’s) apartment because he or she still has a key. The whole story takes place in a closet in the bedroom that the narrator retreats to when the ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend comes home with the narrator’s best friend. The narrator must endure, inside the closet, maybe the sounds of this couple making love for the first time or perhaps simply a loving conversation unlike any the narrator has ever had with this former paramour. Describe only what the narrator can see and smell inside the closet and what she can hear and guess is going on outside the closet...you will show us your narrator’s deep sadness or anger or a combination of the two, without having to describe it.

This exercise forces you to blindfold your observer. Every image presented in a piece of prose is like the image this narrator will perceive—imagined, reconstructed, simplified.
(from prompt #23 in The 3 AM Epiphany)

Read my response:

"Hide and Seek" by Faithful Chant

Oh, R.Kelly. How I wish I could fly. Or piss on someone. Anything besides trapped in the closet. It’s the way they talk, so quietly, as if it’s just the two of them and no one else matters. I mean. I’m not here, as far as they are concerned. But shouldn’t they be concerned? They should be. They talk quietly, they don’t want anyone else to hear them with no one else around. She even laughs quietly. She's in the door frame, he's walking towards the desk. He’s telling her…oh. No. Do not put on Dashboard. If there is anything I hate more than finding out my boyfriend, I mean my ex-boyfriend, is sleeping with my best friend, because apparently my life is a clip they make fun of on The Soup, it’s Dashboard Confessional. Please do not have Dashboard sex.

Chris Carrabba, sing. She giggles, and it’s like he’s tickling her to elicit more. Whatever he is saying, it isn’t much, or loudly, as she and Chris Carrabba wailing “Don’t you see, don’t you see that the charade is over?” are the only sounds, and feet barely moving, skimming the carpet, planting themselves standing. (1) Too close. So much fun she must be having. She must not be paying attention to the music, because it isn’t fun or even funny. A little funny.

“And all the best deceptions and the clever clever story awards go to you.” (1)

She stops, starts to say “I never…” and then he kisses her. Or punches her, who knows. He doesn’t punch her. She just stops and there are no sounds but crescendos of a song for feeling touchy-feely.

“So kiss me hard, because this will be the last time that I let you. You will be back someday, and this awkward kiss that screams of other people’s lips…” (1)

He moves, I hear his arms fall—he was holding her in his arms—and the song changes. Thank God for small mercies. He’s by the desk then, where the picture of us—he was holding me in his arms—used to be, the picture I printed and put in a frame from Ikea and gave to him when I had no money for better gifts. What sits there now, it was…well. Probably nothing yet. He probably moves his hand over the empty space where we used to be and doesn’t notice the absence. Or maybe he does, pauses over the laptop half-bent, remembers, rights himself.

“What do you want to hear?” he asks. Her. She moves over to him now, without the music I can hear her walking with bare feet, a skirt rustle. They are in the corner farthest from me, farthest from the closet, and I can just see through the grates that the skirt is pink and her hair is up, but I cannot see him. She leans into him before she bends to look at the songs, and it’s just a second before it starts to play. They move again, I can’t hear them now but if I squint I see them, broken in my view through the shades. I don’t recognize the song; how is it he has a song I’m unfamiliar with? That she knew to select. They are on the bed, just in front, I close my eyes when I see a pink flag fall from three feet in the air.

“And you feel like something is about to begin, but you don't know what, and you don't know when, so you tear at your hair, and you scratch at your skin.” (2)

I hear them breathing, heavy, with gasps syncopated, she breathes in, he breathes out. It reminds me I have to do the same, I take air in and slowly let it out.

“Caught in your room on a concrete shelf, fighting all alone, with yourself, with yourself, and you just wanna feel like a coin that's been tossed in a wishing well, a wishing well, a wishing well, a wishing well. Well, you're tossed in the air and you fell and you fell through the dark blue waters where you cast your spell, like you were just a wish that could turn out well. So you stand on the corner where the angels sit and you think to yourself, ‘This is it, this is it, this is all that I have, all I can stand is this air in my lungs and this coin in my hand that you tossed in the air and I fell, and I fell all the way to the bottom of the well, of the well, like those soft little secrets that you tell, that you tell to yourself when you think no one's listening too well" (2)

God

The spectrum of narrative perspectives goes from benighted, flawed, unreliable first-person narration to godlike omniscience--all-knowing understanding of everyone's thoughts and deepest motives. But God's POV is also, presumably, a first-person narration--or perhaps God speaks occasionally in the royal we or the second-person plural. What would God see? How would God know a very ordinary set of events--or how could mere human readers see all that a god (let alone God) sees? Since God should know how to be efficient and get right to the point, do this exercise in only 200 words.
(from prompt #13 in The 3 AM Epiphany)

Read my response:



My Charge, within an isolated system, will always remain constant regardless of any changes taking place within that system. Within the system, My Charge may be transferred between bodies, either by direct contact, or by passing along a conducting material, such as words or prayers. Static occurs with the imbalance of My Charge on a body, usually caused when dissimilar materials are rubbed together, transferring My Charge from one to the other.

The presence of My Charge gives rise to a powerful force: My Charges exert a force on each other. The force acts on the charged beings themselves, hence My Charge has a tendency to spread itself as evenly as possible over all areas capable of conducting the force.

The magnitude of the powerful force, whether attractive or repulsive, elates the powerful force to the product of My Charges and has an inverse-square relation to the distance between them. The powerful force is very strong, second only in strength to strong interaction, but unlike that force, it operates over all distances, all time, all eternity.

The Cheerful Spectator

In 800 words, introduce to yourself a narrator intimate to a story but outside it as well. Don't make her omniscient or even close to that, although she can guess expertly at the problems she is observing--she can even be wrenched by the emotional logjams she is witness to. Henry James chose this sort of narrator often--a family acquaintance or distant relative who happens to be friendly with a number of the central characters in a larger story than he could command.
(from prompt #11 in The 3 AM Epiphany)

Read my response:


"Phone it in" by thunderchild5



I granted myself the role of keeper of her stories, her real live LiveJournal. As if some day, her biographer or E! True Hollywood Story producers would come to me and ask me to tell them everything I knew, and I would have a responsibility to be accurate and in-depth. I stored facts about her, mentally recorded conversations, noted pauses and inflections and generalities. Like, she often uses the word “great.” That’s a thing about her, a thing she does that I know about. “Great, we’ll go to the store, get great amounts of beer, tonight is gonna be great. I can’t believe how great it is that you’re helping, you’re so great.” Not so much as that, unless she isn’t watching herself—sometimes she’ll get caught up in her thoughts and forget to space them apart. But generally, she’s well-spoken; excitable, but well-spoken. An enunciator.

She would call me, late at night, and she would make a proclamation. “I hate people,” she would say. Or, “There is no reason to ever eat cereal.”

I would respond, usually by laughing, agreeing, or requesting further information: “Why do you say that?” or “Where did that come from?!”

The conversations would go on into early morning, and I would act like a blind man’s cane, nodding along while her thoughts wandered and her voice kept pace, using my “mmhmms” and “uhhuhs” to keep her thoughts steady.

She grew up in the environments of retro novels or Lifetime TV movies. No suburban mom, soccer practice, curfews; there were years in hotels as home, in tough urban settings, some time on a farm. At birth, she was the youngest of four boys in a nuclear family; when she was six, she had a step-mom and a step-dad and two step-sisters and one step-brother. When she was twelve, she was an aunt twice. Names took the longest for me to track and place in context—Jake is her oldest brother, the one she lived with for a year in a bad part of Chicago, and Jacob is her step-brother, who is only three months younger than she is, but who once told her that all the girls in his family, that she was now a part of, had to take orders from the boys or else the devil would come in the night and take away a finger for every time she disobeyed.

“After ten times, the devil would turn my blood to fire ants and they’d eat me up from the inside out,” she said. “He was always thinking about food and punishment.”

“He’s the model now, isn’t he? That’s oddly appropriate.”

“No.”

“Oh, that’s right, I meant...”

“My nephew is a model. He’s great with food and his body image. He’s really not that fucked up even though his dad is a huge tool and his mom left.”

“His dad…”

“When I was eight my brother Joey got his girlfriend pregnant and he didn’t tell anyone in our family until I was ten and the kid showed up at my step-sister Caroline’s wedding. Joey hadn’t even talked to anyone besides Jake for years and totally acted like he didn’t know me until I started getting into rock music and Jake gave me Joey’s girlfriend’s Alanis Morrisette CD, which was great, and then Joey acted like he’d been a huge influence in my life. Which he kind of had been, because I wanted to be like him until I realized what a dick he is. His girlfriend was cool until she started to get religious and took a vow of celibacy and joined a convent in Greece. So thanks to her I got the Alanis Morrisette CD before anyone in my class and Jeron got really great bone structure.”

Sometimes, my incredulous “do tell!” reactions, my blankness, would annoy her. Suddenly cynical, she’d grow reticent, and leave me to back-pedal. “Well, sure. My family is just so boring, you know, I mean…” But then, other times, she was very aware of the effect she had on me, and would get caught up in the excitement of telling a story that struck me as unbelievable. She wouldn’t have to exaggerate, and she’d tell me as if we were two conspirators, marveling at the oddity of an unearthed memory.

“Can you believe that the last time I spoke to my mom, she thought I was pregnant? She wasn’t even concerned, just wanted to see if I knew who the father was, because when her step-daughter was pregnant, they’d had a really embarrassing baby shower with the wrong guy’s parents. So great. Did I tell you about my step-sister’s super trashy family? How when we were kids and we went to her grandma’s for Christmas, in, no joke, Laughlin, all the grown-ups were smoking inside and so us kids snuck some too? Oh my God, one of those kids, so my step-cousin, I think, is on Rock of Love or something.”

I worry sometimes about my role as her keeper of stories. She knew the value of some, but some she tossed off and out like unwanted crust. “That’s where all the vitamins are,” my mom used to tell me, when I’d tell her I didn’t like sandwich edges. Sometimes I worry I won’t know where to start, and sometimes I worry I’ll never be asked. Sometimes I wonder what good it does to store up other people’s stories.

Journalism

Write part of a story in the form of journal entries (700 words). Keep all the entries close together in time (within a week or two). Everything that happens in the story will most likely happen between the entries; make sure your readers can see the events offstage, but also present your journalist's blind spots.
(from prompt #5 in The 3 AM Epiphany)

Read my response:




TUESDAY:
Every night is so different but the cycle has become more familiar. Like the days but more intense. Tonight was so much like a play, we each had our own hidden plate of sorrow to eat from, and then CRASH! we throw them in the air and hit ourselves and retreat to dark corners to lick the crumbs. It was at such a high, with so many different conversations, right before Ashley fell on the table and half full cans flew and spilt and made a huge mess and then all the undercurrents of what we were trying to ignore rose to the surface. Nothing was solved but everything was blamed. Poor everyone. Ashley crying and Emma caring for her but not about her, Jordan at Emma's side, Heidi talking and talking, Katie and my brother agreeing with each other, mostly about me, little Kim not pushing or being pulled, Katie's home all lit up on her mean dark street, Ashley still crying, Heidi still talking. I can't see myself, thankfully, I don't like where I am and sometimes you can forget about how you make the picture look, you just know what fits and what doesn't, but you can't also know that about yourself.

THURSDAY:
Caffeine addled alcoholic manic depressive desperate girls blinded by accidents with glitter. Vanity isn't stressed enough as a vice, as a deadly sin, faces don't realize they are being spited, or we don't realize we've shot ourselves in the foot, strawberry sundaes at 2:30 AM taste too good, smiles last too long, too short. I could have lied I'm such a fool my eyes could never ever keep their cool, collections of short stories left out at a party to read in the bathroom, critics raves too good, too intelligent to resist, vain imaginings of raves for my name burn a hole in the bookshelf, my books. Books like Hemingway said, write what is true. No windy introductions, said Stephen King. I wish I could write so well. Kurt Cobain filled so many journals, Edna St. Vincent Millay too. Everyday.

SUNDAY:
Kim left for college.
Here is how Heidi said goodbye: "Okay Kim! I have to go to the bank! I'll miss you so much! Later!" and hugs her and walks out the door.
Here is what happened with Katie and Kim, how they said goodbye:
(Kim and Ashley-not virgins)
(Me, Emma, Katie-virgins)
Before Emma, Katie says: "Half virgins, half non-virgins!" Emma and I update the count, Katie goes "Oh yeah! Virgins could kick the non-virgins asses!"
Ashley doesn't want her ass kicked and makes a growling noise and gives Katie a dirty look. Then Katie says: "Nevermind! Ashley is too tough!"
I say: "Ashley's tough, but Kim's a pushover?"
Katie: "No...well...oh...nevermind..."
I say: "What?"
Katie: "Well, thinking about how she lost her virginity, she kinda is a pushover..."
Kim doesn't say anything. Me and Ashley defend her loudly, Katie says all these empty protests, like, that's why I didn't want to say anything. Like we begged it out of her.
So we're keeping it light, laughing and stuff, and Kim says: "Remember how we thought you were retarded when you were little? You were dumb!" And so on. But instead of all of us being involved, it gets to be primarily Kim and Katie saying you're dumb, you're retarded.
Katie taking it personally: "I really was retarded when I was younger!"
Kim: "And now you're just not?"
Katie: "YOU'RE RETARDED!"
Kim: "No, I'm not."
On and on, Katie as a special ed kid.
Then, Kim: "So being ugly was never a factor?"
Katie bursts into tears as everyone, out of desperation, bursts into laughter. Neither apologized. That was that.
This how I said goodbye to Kim: I cried and I hugged her and I told her we'd visit soon.

The Unstable Self

Write a 500 word story that alternates between the I and the he or she (the name of the narrator), making sure you don't confuse reader with the switches. Look for the musical sound of abrupt self-transcendence.
(from prompt #4 in The 3 AM Epiphany)
Read my response:



I get up at 4:00 in the morning. It’s refreshing. Every evening I say to myself, I will wake up at 4:00 and I will bound up out of bed with joy in my heart and light in my soul. I have no idea what it means but it sure works better than before. I used to be one of those glum folks, snoozing her life away, like a horse about to be put out to pasture. Figuratively speaking. Kill me now. One of those women.

I know I’m one of those people other people talk about. What is she on, that’s what people wonder. Or ask outright, like just cause I’m chipper I haven’t suffered enough. She sure is smiley, she must be some spoiled bitch and she must have lived a charmed life. Listen, that is bullshit: have you ever met a spoiled bitch that smiles? The “bitch” part gives you a clue. The “bitch” part means no.

I know. I used to look at life like it was fucking my boyfriend and giving me the finger at the same time, like I haven’t got anything to offer and I might as well accept it. Like I might as well go under a bridge and shoot heroin and offer my body for a score and all the rest. But I didn’t go under a bridge ever, or jump off one. Instead I wake up uncomfortably early, and for that, well. I hear the whispers.

I might bake a cake before the sun rises. I might have a perfect ass because I run 3 miles every morning. I might get to work early and I might get a raise. I might have a beautiful smile because I practice it a lot. I might, but does that make me a demon?

She’s nuts. She must never relax. She’s probably never had an orgasm. She’s scary.

First: everyone is. Second: only when I’ve earned it. Third: I don’t just practice smiling. Finally: not as scary as a junkie whore living under a bridge.

I get up at 4:00 in the morning. I used to be a different woman, and I didn’t care for her. She didn’t have joy in her heart or light in her soul. And her hair was dull and her ass was wide. I remember this woman, and I feel bad. I feel bad I was that woman. She didn't have much to offer except: she offered me. She's who I am, and she's remembered every morning. In fact, every morning I wake up, like a chipper nutcase with a perfect ass and shiny hair, she gets put out to pasture. Figuratively speaking.

The Reluctant I

Write a 600-word first-person story in which you use the first person pronoun (“I” or “me” or “my”) only two times—but keep the “I” somehow important to the narrative you’re constructing. It is very important in this exercise to make sure your reader is not surprised, forty or fifty words into the piece, to realize that this is a first person narration. Show us quickly who is observing the scene.
(from prompt #1 in The 3 AM Epiphany)


Read my response:

Sunday after the show we slept in late, perversely exercising the right to be lazy as babies in response to a hangover. This means not moving upon waking, except to pee, and this is why iPods were invented. Because as much as people dance, that is a quarter of the amount of rest they will feel entitled to the next day, assuming the involvement of alcohol and the lack of any inclination to dance while sober. So it was a quiet house, filled with delicate white earbuds and heavy heads, all of us maintaining the lowest level of wakefulness.

Until the realization that all the equipment lay in a van that didn’t belong to anyone in the band and that may or may not be driving towards east county that day, and then of course everyone moved slowly towards the door in a backwards race where the winner is the one who never got there. I won.

The boys left, grouchy and bitter and mumbling vaguely threatening observations about coffee and headaches, but neither one really expected sympathy, and none was given. Drinking and the morning after have been dealt with enough times that unless an arrest or nudity occurs, there isn’t much to say about it. And even then, it’s got to be a pretty spectacular arrest or unexpected nudity. Like if the nudity came from the arresting officer.

The house should have been quiet and undemanding, that was the prize for winning the “Who Wants to Leave Least?” Race, and for about four minutes it was. And then there was a window being smashed, and then there was some banging, and some crashing, and some throwing about of things, and two guys running from the house into a car idling in the alley, and then it was done. And it was a fire in the downstairs bedroom. And the house was neither quiet nor undemanding; fire demands attention like an angry girlfriend, and any moment wasted to gather thoughts allows the rage to gain control. It was a time to react, to rush to action, but most importantly this was a moment that allowed no thoughts of self to interfere with what had to be done.

The fire manifested as three small blazes: one in an open dresser drawer that held softly worn T-shirts, another burning on the floor, fueled by magazines and bills and post-it notes with phone numbers. The third, the smallest, blazed curiously on seemingly nothing but the wood varnish of a small desk that had been acquired second-hand from a lucky encounter in an alley. Broken glass lay under the window, but in spite of the breeze smoke had gathered in the room and contributed to an otherwordly atmoshphere; not only was the whole situation confusing, it actually looked like a scene from a nightmare or a bad adolescent drawing.

So as the two sleepy boys carried their familiar instruments, lifting amps and pedals and various components of a drum set with the leisurely pace expected for the morning after the show, they did not hear the first, second, or third phone call. And probably they talked about getting a greasy burrito, with spicy fire sauce, while an actual fire was being addressed by this girl, more alert than ever, carrying every available vessel with the quickened pace of someone who has suddenly realized that the race had started without her, and the winner was the one who had control. I won.