Been wanting to write some stuff but have not been able to motivate myself. Writer's block that's been going on for years. So today I binged "topics for writers" and found a site with a lot of prompts. There are like 300 numbers on the screen, you pick one and it will reveal a prompt to you. This is what I got...Write something starting with this sentence: "She touched the little box in her pocket and smiled". So this is what I came up with...
CHAPTER 1
She touched the little box in her pocket and smiled. Never before in her life had she taken something precious and valuable from someone else. Maybe she had good a reason. Maybe not. Either way it was done. It wasn't hard and it seemed like the right thing to do.
Or maybe that's not quite it. It was the right thing FOR HER to do. He had fenced her in for far too long. His jealousy and excessive possessiveness were too much to bear any longer. He'd tried for years to mold her into the person he thought she should be, the person he wanted her to be, and the time had come to break free.
She remembered seeing that box for the first time. He had brought it home one night after work and placed it in a drawer out of her sight. He thought she hadn't seen it. Hidden beneath layers of socks and underwear, further down beneath trinkets, electrical cords, empty plastic sandwich bags and syringes he was confident the box was hidden well enough. She would never find it.
She'd better not find it.
"What's that?" she asked as he glided through her field of vision from the hallway to the bedroom.
"What's what?" was his reply.
"What's that in your hand? Is that a book?"
He played along.
"Yeah, it's a book. I just got back from the library. Brought a few home. The others are in the car if you want to read them."
"What are they?"
"Nothing serious. I thought you might be getting restless laying about like you have."
"Well, if you were 8 1/2 months pregnant you wouldn't exactly be the most active person in the world either."
"I understand that. Why are you getting all bitchy at me? All I said was you must be bored so I brought you some ******* books. I can take them back if you want. It's not like you asked me and they didn't cost anything so I'll take them back."
"Cool down, Frito. I'm sorry. You're right. Thank you. What did you get?"
"Let's see," he said, scanning the library receipt for book titles. "I got a couple of John Irving novels, 'Dune', 'Foundation'...you do like science fiction, right?"
"It's okay. What else?"
"Uhhh, a book about Kurt Cobain, Johnny Rotten's autobiography and the latest Deepak Chopra new age self help mumbo jumbo."
He set the receipt down on the coffee table and she asked, "Okay, now you're talking. I didn't know Chopra had a new book out. What's it called?"
He had already stood up and was walking into the kitchen when he said, "I don't have a clue. That Eastern bullshit is your thing, not mine."
She could hear him raiding the refrigerator, knocking over bottles and shifting other foodstuffs from one place to another. The sound of a beer can opening let her know he'd found what he'd been looking for.
He was throwing together a makeshift microwave meal when she looked at the receipt. She really was curious about the Deepak Chopra book. She'd read most of his work he and was second only to Neale Donald Walsch in her estimation of great spiritual teachers. It didn't seem to be even the least bit odd that Stephen King was third on that list.
At any rate she perused the receipt. Hmmm..."A Widow For One Year" and "The Fourth Hand". She hadn't read that second one but if it was half as good as "Widow" she was in for a treat. She looked forward to it. Herbert, Asimov...she really did love science fiction and had done so for all of her life. He knew it so it was with a bit of condescension that she mentally chastised him for not realizing she had to have read those two books many times. Did he not know who William Gibson was? Oh, well. The Cobain and Rotten books would make up for it. At least he knew she had great taste in music. And there was the Deepak Chopra thing. It was his take on Jesus. It was a very good book. She knew this...because she'd read it years ago. "New"? Well what did he know? The extent of his interest in religion, philosophy or anything remotely related to the Almighty Existentialism was the chorus in the Doobie Brothers' song "Jesus is Just Alright". Not the words or sentiment, mind you...he was just proud of how well he sang it. It had to be admitted, though, that he indeed sang that particular song with a passion unrivaled even by the likes of Billy Graham and Oral Roberts.
She noticed then, with no small degree of curiosity, that there were only seven books listed on the receipt. Did he not read all the titles to him? Chopra, Herbert, Cobain, Asimov, Rotten and two by Irving. Seven. No doubt about it. The library's address and the date were the only other words on the onion skin paper.
So what was he holding when he first came home? Clutched at his side as if he were trying to keep her from seeing it? Another book? Then why was it not tallied on the library receipt with all the rest? And why did he see fit to bring it in the house while leaving all the others outside in the car?
No, it was not another book. Oh, it may well have been...after all he could have brought it from somewhere else besides the library. It was logical but somehow, for some reason she couldn't put her finger on, she felt sure it was something else. Something she wasn't supposed to see. Something she wasn't supposed to know about.
Indeed, she wasn't supposed to know about it. That was easy enough. Why? Who knew? One thing she did know, however...soon enough she would know WHAT it was.
