The Plot Sickens: Free Write and Prompt

 It was Christmas Eve. Fog stuck to the tarmac at Lindbergh field. I waited anxiously holding my hands together as I watched out the window at the airport on this foggy evening. I had butterflies in my stomach that trickled up to my throat and consumed my whole body. The kids were too young to understand at the time what was happening, they were toddlers and all they knew was that they missed their father. I looked over at them, both blonde and full of life. Their rose colored cheeks and tooth missing smiles could make anyone smile.  They watched as the planes landed and the luggage on the carousel swung around and around. We were there two hours early, which was probably a bad idea with two three year old's but I could not contain my excitement, and I knew once they saw him they would not be able to either. He’s been gone for almost a year now, three hundred and twenty two days and five hours to be exact and now it was down to only hours. Two hours passed of sitting and waiting until the screen showed that his flight had arrived. I leaned down, gathered the kids and said “daddy’s home for Christmas guys, he’s finally home”. They both looked at me with wide eyes and ran to the stairs where he would be coming down. I looked cautiously at the stairs and studied everybody’s face thoroughly, until I saw him..

My prompt deviates the author of The Plot Sickens, Fanny Howe's ideas on young writers and her studies as a teacher. Fanny gave her students the same free write prompt that I received, and all but five of her student's stories consisted of tragic endings, blood, and gore. My prompt ended quite differently, although the ending is not fully completed, it is clear that the husband returns home. On the contrary, my story did contain some traces of violence, considering the husband is returning home from war which is an extremely violent event. Although my story was not as graphic as some of her students, who she says wrote about "were wired to electrodes, burned alive, blown up on their way to baggage claim, dragged of by the police for smuggling cocaine, and so on." it still contained traces of violence. There is no doubt in my mind that many of my peer's stories contained violence, most likely more graphic than mine. Therefore I believe my story did not fully follow the author's ideas of the tendencies of young writers, however offered a violent background story that is not told so it does relate to the authors ideas.

Self Deprecation

My friend say I worry too much, they tell me to just stop worrying. This is true, blatantly true I worry much more than the average sixteen year old girl should. Anyways the women who I dreaded going to see every Thursday; Carol I believe, suggested being put on medication for my worrying which she liked to call anxiety for some reason; I mean come on worrying every second of every day is normal, am I right? What are the side effects? Really? I could die from this? Hell no, double that hell no. Never the less I decided that medication would cramp my style. Also Carol was kind of cramping my style as well, the looks she gave me concerned me on those late Thursday evenings where I almost counted the times the clock ticked until I could leave. Why is she looking at me like that? Don’t look at me please, I look like a sloth today. I want a pet sloth. What if I died thoug? I would be so sad oh gosh the poor sloth. Therefore my Thursday evenings with Carol came to an end after some persuading of my mother. Now this question may cross your mind, why don’t I just stop worrying? Well you see if I could don’t you think I would? It isn’t like I enjoy almost passing out when I ask someone a question or I like how I ponder everything and anything until all hours of the night, it isn’t quite a choice. Well about what do you worry about, you may ask me. The answer to that question is simple, I worry about anything and everything. I worry about my pets, my family, my hair, I worry about pizza; something as simple as pizza. Oh god I’m having pizza for dinner do I want cheese or Hawaiian. This is the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my entire life. Sorry about that; anyways I will start you off with a simple school day. Walking to my first period class I walk past someone, I’ve never spoken to them before and they smile at me. From the outside it just looks like I smiled back but what is going on inside my head is a completely different story. Oh god oh god they’re smiling at me. What do I do? I obviously smile back what’s wrong with you. Okay alright play it cool, ready set smile. Crap that was such a weird smile. Oh god they think I’m some type of wild animal after that. This happens about four to five times a day in school. Or when I can’t find anyone I know at lunch right away, that’s always a fun time. Jesus Christ where the hell are they. We always sit right there where are they dear lord. Please hurry. Oh god are people looking at me they so are looking at me. Act cool act cool dear god act cool. Is that them please be them. Thank god it is them. Once I can function like a normal human being again and my face fades back to its normal ghostly tone I walk on over, and everything is fine. Quandaries such as this are a mundane thing to me, I’m used to it. I think nothing of it until I really start pondering it in depth. Oh god do other people notice. I hope they don’t. Well anyways that’s how school goes, and it really isn’t too bad, the only real issue begins once I get home and in bed. Around 9 o’clock I will climb in my bed. Oh god did I feed the cat? What about the dog? Crap. The cat must be wondering if I love him because I haven’t fed him yet. I do love Henry, I must feed him to show him. Until I get up this thought will be the only thing that’s on my mind, so I’ll get up and feed them probably for the third time that day just to make sure. Mine as well check to see if all of the candles are blown out, I don’t want to die tonight. Oh god what if I died. Where do you go when you die? What does dying feel like? Oh my god do you become a ghost when you die? After roaming my house for an hour checking to see if every possible thing to stop me from dying has been done and running up the stairs at full speed from ghosts that most likely are non-existent in my house I will finally crawl back into bed. So do you think your kids will like you? What if they hate you? Hannah you’re 16 why are you worrying if your kids will like you considering you won’t have children for a super long time…hopefully. Chill out Hannah oh my god you have school in the morning. School in the morning, oh crap better see if your alarm is set. See I am aware that my alarm has been set for every weekday, however if I don’t double, no triple, actually let’s just say quadruple check it I will be worried that it won’t go off. So I check that, and then I get a text. It reads “hey” and it’s from none other than a cute very cute boy. What? No really what? Am I on Punk’d right now? Is this a joke? What kind of sick joke is this, a cute boy texting me? Does he have the wrong Hannah? Is he sick in the head? Dear god do I answer? What do I even say?! Holy crap. See me and this said boy have most likely texted a hundred times before, and it seems almost out of the question that he would be playing some type of prank considering the numerous conversations we have had before, yet me being me must question all possible outcomes of this text that reads “hey”. I must over analyze, I must overthink. As the gears in my head turn for hours upon end eventually they will give up and I will pass out until the next morning. I wake up at five thirty in a panic thinking it might be seven and my alarm which I quadruple checked had maybe failed. To my own surprise it had not failed, and I do my normal morning routine of getting ready. I go to school and I tell my friends about the cute boy that had texted me the previous evening and how I think he may just be pulling my leg. “Hannah why do you worry so much? I’m sure he just likes you”. Well I mean there’s probably nothing to worry about, but..