Day 24, way off prompt

Rain

“You smell like you want to be alone.”

“It’s my hat.” 

She bowed her head 
to her notebook and pen.

I bent my head down 
to sniff the cowboy hat 
pushed tightly down
onto her forehead.

My belief was that it was not true. 

I leaned back in my chair. 
Her mousy scribbling 
scratched the paper.
I watched the fog 
roll down the mountain 
into the valley.

I yearned for rain. 

Gray clouds 
made a good argument for it. 
I wanted to be enveloped 
in their soft dark hands, 
keeping me safe from
childhood monsters under the bed. 

There was hope.

I smelled the lemon 
in the carafe sitting on the table. 
Pouring the last bit into my glass, 
I made a note to ask for a refill 
the next time I saw the waiter.

Scratching. 

She would finish soon.

Wondering if we would be able to leave
in the thick gray curtain
I saw from the front window, 
mist hiding the shops 
across the road,
I watched the woman with her poodle  
in her bag 
stepping out the door 
off the curb 
into the gray abyss.

Boom.

Water poured down the windows and flowed into the curb down the street passing the sewer not wanting to leave its path I imagined it flowing into the houses filling up the basements to the top of the stairs where bottles of homemade beer floated like dinghies lost at sea.

“More water, please,” 
she ordered him, and
returned to her notebook.  

A swift hand 
grabbed the carafe,
almost in the same space and time
placed another down. 
A pirouette. 
He was practiced.

I bent my head closer to hers. 
My belief was that it was not true.

She must be getting close 
I leaned over to see her scribbling. 
I could never read it, 
even if it wasn’t upside down. 
But she would read it to me.

I never knew
if she was reading 
what she wrote. 
Or changed the words 
as she read along. 
Or was just 
telling me another story
she thought I wanted to hear.

Today, 
the scent of rain, 
and gray clouds eating the sun, 
I really couldn’t smell if she wanted to be alone.

Maybe it was just hope. Or the rain.

…..

I haven’t been able to keep up with daily writing. However, our writing group met yesterday and I decided to devise a prompt pulled from several different sources. The group was none too pleased and I was a bit of a whip cracker a few times. But in the end as we finished, the group broke out into a self applause. That has never happened in the ten plus years we have been meeting. We felt good about our writing.

Here is the long and complex prompt. And below it are the prompts I used. There were parts that everyone in the group used and then ones that we each individually chose and used. And, of course, as always, one can write what they wish to write sans prompt. We are a delightful group!

Prompt:

1. Name a type of hat – group shout out – cowboy hat   
2. A childhood monster –  our own
3. Name an object in this room – group shout out – carafe 
4. Choose one and no FOMO. I only read the list once. From NaPoWriMo.

Glory
Courage
Anxiety
Failure
Defeat
Delight
Confusion
Calm
Belief
Cleverness
Despair
Honesty
Deceit
Strength

5. Construct a sentence with one of the above words – our own
6. During the twenty minute writing period, I instructed the group to use this sentence in the first seven minutes. 

Then I stopped the group once at seven minutes and once again at  fourteen minutes and instructed the group to end whatever sentence we were writing, even if it wasn’t the end of the sentence, and to place a period and end it.

I then instructed the group to write down the above sentence we each constructed with the word we chose. 

At the final bell, I asked everyone to write a contradiction of something they wrote earlier.

Opening line: “You smell like you want to be alone.”

My Prompts:

1. cowboy hat
2. monster under the bed
3. carafe
4. Belief
5. My belief was that it was not true. 
6. I really couldn’t smell if she wanted to be alone.
7. Opening line: “You smell like you want to be alone.”