Synesthesia

Use synesthesia in a short scene—surreptitiously, without drawing too much attention to it—to convey to your reader an important understanding of some ineffable sensory experience. Use sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. According to M.H. Abrams in A Glossary of Literary Terms, synesthesia is a description of "one kind of sensation in terms of another; color is attributed to sounds, odor to colors, sound to odors, and so on."
(from prompt #17 in The 3 AM Epiphany)


Read my response:


The boys sat on the curb, leaning into each other without touching, splitting a cigarette like a reverse conch shell, in that whoever held the smoke also held his tongue. Cigarette in hand, head toward the ground, the taller one nodded along to the shorter one, who was speaking excitedly about a plot to sneak in. Add together the years the both of them had been alive and they were still barely legal, but on top of it, they looked guilty. Even if they were just sitting on a curb outside a club, “waiting for his mom to come pick us up,” they looked like they were up to something. And they were up to something, of course. No one believes two kids in skinny jeans, they don’t even believe each other half the time. That’s why they lie so much, no one would believe them anyway, might as well have fun while you’re as young as the night and as trouble prone. Inside the club, when the door opened to let someone in, they caught whiffs of what they were trying to get in to taste, dark syrupy music that wafted out smelling like cherry cough drops, overly sweet and yet just what they needed, just what they craved. Girls stood in line, peering in, catching the scent, shivering in clothes the likes of which the girls in school would have no idea what to do with. The boys stood up, finally, one throwing down the cigarette and the other rubbing it out with his shoe, black Chuck Taylors with potential band names written in ballpoint along the sides and on the white top of the toe. They took deep breaths, and if they knew no one would see they’d probably have held hands out of mutual, nervous support. Support for each other and for the general idea of the night. When they did get caught, and his mom had come to pick them up, the taller one cupped his hand anyway, as if waiting for someone to hold it. His mother couldn’t believe it—no one ever does—and so they found themselves retelling the story to the wrong kind of audience. And yet, though she wouldn’t admit it to anyone, scarcely even to herself, she was impressed, just like kids at school would be. How on earth does a twelve year old convince a club bouncer that they are the DJ’s roadies? How do they convince girls, or rather, adult women, old enough to drink, that they have highly contraband drugs? How did any of these things occur to a child, who just last year was posing with his little sister on the Easter Bunny’s lap at the mall, wearing a baby blue sweater vest and talking eagerly about hunting for eggs? Without any showy displays of vulnerability (the last person who can see you reaching for the hand of your best friend is your mother) the taller one tried, unsuccessfully, to sulk. He was buzzed, from the sips of cocktails he’d swiped and from the rush of doing something he’d set out to do. Inside had been just as exciting as plotting had been outside, the music just as sweet and dark and the air as dank. The shorter one sat in the backseat, relieved (for once) that his mother couldn’t be reached, but just as relieved someone’s mother had been. Without the cops involved, he could remember the night, untarnished, every time he sat smoking a cigarette, long after his best friend had left him.

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.