Setting Prompt

Writing, Self-Publishing, Book Marketing

Word Clay’s Writing prompt:

Location. Location. Location. It may be the first rule of real estate, but it definitely concerns the writer as well. After all, you deal in property, too. Your characters own things and need to occupy a setting. But to a writer setting reflect more than location. It also signifies moods. Storms can mirror inner turmoil, and a desert, loneliness. Now, think about a setting that you occupy every day – say your office, or even beside the water cooler. Begin a story or poem with this setting in mind and attempt to adapt it to suit the mood of your characters.

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Today was like any other day except that Melinda was out of her element.  First, she had thought she was in a desert, but after the mirage had disappeared she realized that she was sitting in front of the television watching a movie about the Mohave Desert.  She felt like a fool for the hallucinations, but the weed she had smoked an hour ago had given her such a bad trip.  In all her years of smoking she had never experienced anything close to the hell she gotten herself into.  It was Hell!!  She could feel the flames licking at her heels and singeing the delicate skin that she recently had pedicured.  How would anyone know if she died, or would they even care?  It had been raining for hours but she hadn’t noticed it at all.  Even the leak she had in her room didn’t faze her any.  She just lied there helpless in a world of torment and mayhem produced by the THC’s new neuro pathway. 

The doorbell rang but she only heard what faintly sounded like a chime you would hear from a child’s music box.  Melinda drifted in and out of reality and in the heat of being in the nightmare she was startled by her room mate, Joe.  He clammered in anger with Melinda for not opening the door with his arms full of groceries it would have been a decent thing for her to do, Joe thought.  And particularily rude since it had been down pouring for hours and he was stuck walking in it for 15 minutes.  He called out from the now open doorway.

“Melinda?” He loudly growled.

There came no response as he continued to struggle with closing the door and resolving to get the door closed with his foot.  Both of his arms were in pain from the weight of all the plastic grocery bags he had strung on each of his forearms.  They each had to weigh 20 pounds or so, he wasn’t quit sure but it sure felt heavy.  After he stumbled into the kitchen over the cat that had been scared by his rustling and stomping he unloaded the bags and put everything away, but not without scolding the cat for tripping him up first.  He couldn’t understand what Melinda could be out doing at this time of day.  Usually she sat in her room typing up her graduate papers and playing solitare to relax.  He was certain she didn’t take off without at least leaving a note on the refrigerator.  It had been one of their fail safe plans to be sure the other wasn’t missing in action, in the Big Apple.  There were no signs of forced entry he had to use his key to get in.  On top of that he didn’t see any of the typical ransacked or broken objects as you would if there was a break in.

He called her name again from the kitchen, “Melinda”.

Still he didn’t get a response and in turn he headed toward her room.  He could hear the television from the hallway before getting all the way to her door.  He wasn’t sure if she was wrapped up in her school studies or if she had fallen asleep.  However, he needed to reassure himself that Melinda was safe.  He rapped on her door lightly as if he didn’t want to scare her, and called her name again.  Without so much as a grunt from her he knocked louder this time and yelled out her name.  Nothing!  He warned her that he was going to open her door ready or not.

What he saw horrified him.  Her face was flush but not a red flush instead her cheeks looked purple.  She lifted her head just enough to open an eye and see what was going on but soon her head was back on the pillow staring at the ceiling and praying the red dragon wouldn’t eat her.  The red dragon had been licking his chops since she first spotted it.  Joe had rushed to her and checked her temperature with the back of his hand and realized she was burning up.  He asked her if she could hear him, she responded with a small, “Yeah”.  He wasn’t sure what to make of her condition if he should take her to the hospital or what. 

“What happened to you Melinda?  Are you feeling sick?”  The latter was a stupid question but one that came to his lips without much thought to it. Her television turned off and the lights flickered off then back on again.  The weather had been an omen!  Melinda was in more trouble than he could have imagined.  He looked at her and saw the red blotches on her neck and arms.  Her body was twitching and tremorring.  Joe looked around her room and saw her rolling papers on the bed side stand and a small roach next to them.  Immediately he bent over her and got really close to her ears.

“Melinda are you alright?”

“I don’t think so.  Do you see that red dragon up there in the corner staring at me like he is hungry?”  She had slurred and enunciated every word slowly.

“Are you hallucinating?”  Joe had never seen anyone hallucinate from smoking a joint but there was a first time for everything.  “Can you get out of bed and into the shower?  I think a shower would be a good start.”

Melinda rolled her eyes at him.  “I don’t think I can get up on my own.  The whole room is spinning and that dragon won’t stop drooling.”

Joe was quick to get her lifted up enough to help her rise off the bed and hoped that with any luck she would cooperate and get into the shower.  He would let her go in fully dressed.  It was more important that she get in than trying to fiddle with getting her clothes off.  Instead he sat her down on the toilet while he got the shower to room temperature.  He was never a praying man before now.

“Lord don’t let her get worse, please make her alright.”  He fretted over her like a mother hen unsure of what had happened to her offspring. 

Melinda only moved when her muscles tensed and twitched.  She had mumbled something about her chest hurting and how it felt like her heart was going to explode.  That didn’t do anything to calm his fears.  The last thing he wanted was to take her to the hospital, but if she didn’t show signs of improving soon he was going to call 911.  There was no possible way he could carry her down three flights of stairs into the pouring rain and hail a taxi to haul them across town.  He needed to exhaust all the other options first.  In haste he hadn’t thought about grabbing the cordless phone so he left her sitting on the pot alone as he ran around the apartment tearing things up to find where it had hidden.  The only way to find it was to hit the base and let it ring in order to find it. 

It let out a single ring, “doo…doo”.

Somehow it had ended up in his room of all places.  As he rushed back to the bathroom he had remembered that he had spoken with his girl friend and needed privacy so he had retreated with the phone to the solitude of his room.  It never occurred to him that anything this traumatic would ever happen in his own apartment.  On several occasions he had told her that drugs were no good.  She would just snicker and tell him how much of a party pooper he was.

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I have been in a situation where I was Joe and really scared for my friend who had hallucinated and had a bad reaction to the first and only joint he had ever smoked.  I thought he was going to die!!!